Five-Minute Trends

Oh, New York, filled with the stench of success and $1.00 pizza. Evolution in the city that never sleeps means constantly innovating and experimenting with the art of food. Cookie dough, once relegated to the bottom of the freezer and the occasional baking expenditure, has now become the basis for a classy, hot pink cafe in Greenwich Village. Cake appears on towering waffle stacks in a perfect defiance of a healthy breakfast. Bagels are dyed in funky colors, a reflection of the hippie 1960s and of our overwhelming need to be unicorns. Here are some of the desserts New York famously offers:

Red Velvet WTF Waffles:

Prize for most original and glorious creation since Michelangelo's David goes to Clinton Hall’s Red Velvet WTF Waffles. For $15, you can enjoy the layered version of the junk food aisle in Clinton Hall, a spacious Battery Park restaurant. The Red Velvet Waffle is really three individual red velvet waffles stacked on top of each other with layers of ice cream, raspberry sauce, oreos, whipped cream, and more stuff in between. A slice of red velvet cake delicately perches at the top of the confection. Towering, incredibly rich, and dripping with gooey wonder, Red Velvet WTF Waffles are worth the hype and will surely leave your taste buds shook.

Rainbow Bagels:

Found on just about all of Instagram, rainbow bagels are the food equivalent of a Lisa Frank sticker set. Strongly resembling colorful play-doh rolled together, rainbows bagels are overly sweet, vaguely fruit-loopy, and offered with a variety of whimsical cream cheese fillings—from funfetti to Fruity Pebbles. Though created by The Bagel Store over 15 years ago, they’ve blown up fairly recently, praised for the experience and photo opportunity they provide more than the taste. You can get them at 754 Metropolitan Avenue in Brooklyn, for only the cost of a long wait and about $7.00 per bagel. Or perhaps skip the train ride and go to Zucker’s instead.

Cookie Dough:

News alert: your favorite, but possibly dangerous, mid-baking snack has been turned into a safe-to-eat dessert that can be be consumed shamelessly. Cookie Do NYC, a cheerful, Pinterest- worthy bakery found at 550 LaGuardia Place, is an homage to cookie dough in all its forms—in scoops, waffle cones, ice-cream sandwich, baked cookies and cupcakes, as pie filling, sundaes and more. Scooped cookie dough ($4 for a single scoop) is offered in 13 classic cookie flavors, ranging from commando (plain) to brownie batter to peanut butter snickerdoodle. With Cookie Do NYC regularly opening to long lines that wrap around the block, cookie dough is clearly in high demand. Driving its appeal is the innovation of a classic dessert that brings back nostalgic childhood memories and a sweet, smooth flavor. The verdict: drop in, but in the case of a mile-long line, hit up your local supermarket instead.

Deep Fried Oreo Pizza:

Eat away your computer science grade with the unexpectedly perfect combination of greasy goodness in the form of deep fried oreo pizza. Created in a relaxed, retro-style Krave It in Bayside, Queens, batter-covered oreos are deep fried to golden perfection, baked on top of a cheese pizza, and generously topped with powdered sugar and oreo crumbs. The perfect mix of textures—crunchy, sweet oreos combined with gooey cheese—makes the pizza ($16 per pie) pass as both a guilty pleasure dessert and a hearty meal. Not as popular as it should be, deep fried oreo pizza is the quintessential New York food.