I have a deep love for carrot cake. The combination of warm spices, sugar, and cream cheese frosting makes for a cozy culinary experience that’s like eating a hug. Plus, it has carrots. Carrots are a vegetables, vegetables have vitamins, so obviously carrot cake is a health food. Carrots are also associated with bunnies with are associated with Easter which is associated with Spring which makes carrot cake the unofficial dessert of April. (Never mind the fact that the carrot harvest season is July through October…)
New York bakeries have been pumping out their takes on this classic dessert. And as a carrot cake lover, you better believe I set out to try them….
The story of Benji’s Buns starts with Benjamin Michael. During the pandemic, Benji developed extreme digestive issues which led to significant weight loss and cibophobia. Baking was his way of healing his relationship with food, culminating in the creation of Benji’s Buns. Mind you, he was a sensible 21 years old at the time. It was a success, and he decided to cross the pond to open up a locale in 2025 in the West Village. It was the height of the cinnamon bun craze, and it was a hit.
The shop has old reliables as well as weekly special, and for Easter they launched a carrot cake bun. The cream cheese icing was delightfully thick, and the bun itself was super soft and pillowy with a very “doughy” feel.
While the description says, “Soft roll bursting with sweet carrot cake goodness, filled with spiced carrot bits and pecans, and crowned with cream cheese frosting and a nutty sprinkle.” I can’t say I noticed any of that. It tasted like a normal cinnamon roll.
Price: The kicker is that this sucker was a whopping $11.50 (pre tax and tip). I’ve never paid that much in my life for a cinnamon roll, and I hope I never will again!
Levain Bakery is the mother of the mega cookie. Or “New York Style” as described in other countries. These mega cookies are bigger than your fist and super thick, making them look more like a scone than a cookie. The chocolate chip is legendary, but I must admit the quality of the product has gotten inconsistence since their huge nation wide expansion.
New York City has an absurd amount of chocolate chip cookies to choose from, so usually I skip Levain in favor of trying a new spot. However, as soon as they announced the carrot cake cookie, I was out the door to snag one.
It’s a spiced cookie loaded with grated carrot, white chocolate chips, apricots, and pecans. First off, the cookie texture was absolutely perfect— crunchy on the outside, gooey on the inside. I liked the white chocolate chips and pecans, but could have done without the apricots. For my taste, the spice level could have been ramped up by 10%, but all around a tasty cookie!
Price: $6. I justify it because it really is a 2 person cookie, and $3pp feels reasonable.
Spirals is another cinnamon roll-only shop, and it just so happens to be owned by another young (24 years old) entrepreneur. Arin Senior was working for Estee Lauder in the strategic financial department, but she had a passion for baking and she started developing her perfect cinnamon roll recipe in 2023. Fast forward to August 2025, Arin’s dream came to fruition with the opening of Spirals.
Spirals also has rotating flavors, and carrot cake is one of said flavors for April. It features a carrot cake spiced dough with a cream cheese frosting and caramel drizzle. The frosting was excellent and I appreciated the fact that the dough was in fact a carrot cake dough. However, it was unfortunately dry.
Price: $8.50, which isn’t “frugal”, but for New York, it’s on par with the cost of similar types of baked goods.
Magnolia Bakery was one of the original viral bakeries of New York City before “going viral” was even a thing. It first opened in 1996 in the West Village, but it didn’t really take off until 2000 when Carrie Bradshaw noshed down on one of their red velvet cupcakes in an episode of Sex in the City. The “cupcake craze” began, leading to lines spanning down the block.
Through the early 2000s, cupcake mania waned while banana pudding mania gained. Magnolia Bakery became THE destination for banana pudding, and it’s arguably what the bakery is most well known for. However, one can only eat so much banana pudding. To keep people coming back, Magnolia Bakery started launching various monthly specials such as hot chocolate, strawberry icebox cake, and pumpkin spice (read our review HERE). For the Spring, they have concocted a genius special that had me shelling out $7.95 without hesitation: Carrot Cake Pudding.
It starts with a light and creamy vanilla pudding that’s then filled with pieces of their carrot cake. The carrot cake from Magnolia Bakery is made with pineapple, walnuts, raisins, coconut and loads of warm spices. It’s soft and decadent, and the addition of coconut adds a unique textural and flavor element. (It’s one of our favorite carrot cake slices in NYC! Get the scoop HERE.) It pairs unbelievably well with the vanilla pudding, making this a true triumph of a dessert.
Price: A small is $6.25, a medium is $7.95, and a large is $9.45. We shared a medium, and it was plenty.
The ice cream coming out of Caffè Panna is often hailed as the best in NYC. Hallie Meyer, daughter of New York restauranteur Danny Meyer, spent extended time in Rome with a stent working at a gelataria. She was inspired by the neighborhood cafe culture, and wanted to bring it to New York, leading to the opening of Caffè Panna in Gramercy Park in 2019. Word spread fast about the ultra creamy ice cream and decadent sundae creations, and it’s been one of those “Must-Try!” NYC desserts ever since.
The menu includes signature flavors, weekly specials, sundaes, and affogatos as well as unique, limited-edition collabs. One such collab is with Levain Bakery for a Levain Carrot Cake Cookie Ice Cream, and it’s what dreams are made of.
The base is a ridiculously creamy cinnamon sweet cream that’s loaded with candied pecans and Levain’s carrot cake cookies. It has delightful warm spices and the add-ins add crunch and chew to make this a near-perfect ice cream. I say near perfect because my only note would be for the candied pecans to be in smaller pieces
Price: $14… which is extremely not frugal. However, it’s so delicious I will be bold and saw it’s totally worth it!
Here are some that are on our list for next spring:
-Carrot cake scone from Little Red Kitchen Bakeshop.
-Carrot scone from Librae Bakery. (One of my favorite bakeries in the city!)
-Carrot cake cinnamon roll from Red Gate Bakery. (This spot has INSANE cinnamon rolls and they unfortunately sold out of the carrot cake cinnamon roll on the day we penned in to stop by.)
-Carrot cake ice cream sandwich from Super Moon Bakehouse
-Carrot cake tres leches from Sweets and Things
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