Goodbye Glaser’s Bake Shop—Plus Glaser’s Brownie Recipe

This past weekend was a sad one for NYC foodies. Not one but two old-school establishments shut their doors, after 116 years and 73 years, respectively: Glaser’s Bake Shop on the Upper East Side, and Ben’s Best deli in Rego Park, Queens. Both iconic eateries, both remnants of rapidly dwindling varieties of food establishments in the city, these are some sad losses for New York. I’m going to tackle Glaser’s today—and share Glaser’s brownie recipe—and I’ll be back later in the week to share my take on the final days of Ben’s Best.        

Unlike many food businesses shuttering these days, Glaser’s wasn’t forced to close due to bad business or high rents (the Glaser family owns the building). Rather, the two brothers who run the business, Herb and John Glaser, decided it was time to retire, and though they were approached by others hoping to rent the space and keep the bakery going, they declined all offers. I’m betting they’ll sell the building, which will probably be turned into luxury condos and/or a bank/Verizon store/SoulCycle/Sugarfina/Amazon bookstore/insert your least favorite emblem of NYC hypergentrification here. But at least we have Glaser’s brownie recipe.

I should note from the start that Glaser’s was a German bakery, not a Jewish or kosher one, but it did carry a lot of the same kinds of goodies you can find (or could, anyway; they’re a vanishing breed these days) at old-fashioned Jewish bakeries. I’m talking rugelach, marble cake, black-and-white cookies, poppy crescents, sprinkle cookies . . . you know, the classics. They’re best known for their black-and-whites, which they are commonly credited with inventing.

I’m sad to say I never tried Glaser’s until this past Friday. Its location, on 87th and 1st, wasn’t a part of the UES I often frequent, and I don’t think I’d ever even heard of the place until the announcement of its closing came in March. That’s still a number of months during which I could’ve gone but didn’t, which I’m now deeply regretting, but anyway.

By the final week, regulars and curious gawkers alike were in high gear making their farewell pilgrimages, and by the time my mother, a friend, and I arrived on Friday afternoon, there was a line around the block. By the time we made it to the front of said line two hours later (yes, really—thanks in large part to the bakery’s decision to only let 6 customers in at a time, which, in my opinion, wasn’t the smartest move), the famous black-and-white cookies were sold out, along with quite a few other goodies, but there was still a passable selection left.

And even if there hadn’t been, it was almost worth the wait just to see the interior space. It’s charmingly old-fashioned, with lots of wood and glad cabinets, and these fantastic hanging contraptions for the string they used to wrap their boxes—yep, they still used that old red-and-white string all the way up to the end.

We ended up opting for a poppy crescent (good pastry, somewhat disappointing filling with unground poppy seeds that gave me some insight into why there are so many poppy haters out there), a few scones (very pleasant and not very sweet or rich, almost more like biscuits), and, my favorite, a selection of old-fashioned bakery cookies.

Now, I love a good bakery cookie. Sprinkle cookies, rainbow cookies, jam sandwich cookies . . . I love them all, the more geared toward a young child the better. So I was by no means dissatisfied with my haul. We picked up some little sprinkle cookies, chocolate-dipped raspberry jam sandwiches, “s’mores” cookies (which did not contain marshmallows, but rather a mix of chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and raisins—they were tasty, if misnamed), and, my surprise favorite, dried cranberry white chocolate chip cookies. I don’t know that this genre of cookie is every truly mind-blowingly outstanding, but these were really very good, rich and buttery and just deeply satisfying.

Regretting only having picked up a half pound of the cookies, my mom and I decided to make a return trip on Saturday, steeling myself for another two-hour wait in the 90° heat, but by the time we arrived—around 4 PM, I think—they were getting ready to shut down, having sold out all of their stock aside from two lone croissants. Naturally, we snatched them up, and ate them for breakfast on Sunday with apricot jam. To be honest, they were just okay as croissants go, but it was kind of cool that we got their last bits of merchandise on their second-last day of business ever.

As an avowed fan of bakery cookies, food history, and old/retro/nostalgic stuff of all stripes, it makes me really sad how few old-fashioned bakeries are left in the city, especially in Manhattan, whether Jewish, Italian, German, or whatever. In fact, the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Moishe’s in the East Village—but if I’m wrong, please let me know in the comments! I know there are some in Brooklyn, and probably Queens too though I haven’t explored there much, but realistically it’s a hassle for me to get out to either of those more than once in a great while from Washington Heights (whose own last kosher bakery, Gideon’s, closed up in 2016—again, it wasn’t the world’s best, but it had its own charm and added a lot to their neighborhood—and some of the stuff they sold was actually quite good, my favorite being blueberry pie with a crust that was basically sugar cookie dough).

I know there’s new stuff going in, but the kinds of bakeries that are trending circa 2018 are, on the whole, not so much to my taste. William Greenberg, also on the Upper East Side, sells some of the same kinds of things as Glaser’s did (and I can attest to their having pretty excellent hamantaschen), but its current incarnation doesn’t have much in the way of ambiance.

On the upside, if there is one, the realization that there’s hardly anywhere left to buy my precious sprinkle cookies and their ilk has spurred me on to try mastering them in my own kitchen, which is something I’ve never done before. To be honest, I’ve always struggled with cookies—I know they’re supposed to be one of the basics, while things like yeast doughs are meant to be challenging, but for me it’s the reverse. I’m not great at shaping them—or sometimes even at understanding how the recipe is telling me to shape them—or at getting the baking time just right, and with cookies there’s not much of a margin of error. But I hereby resolve to master the art of the old-fashioned bakery cookie. I’ll keep you posted.

I was hoping to end this post with a bakery cookie recipe of my very own for you, but on account of this heatwave I’m taking a bit of a baking hiatus. But don’t worry, I still have a recipe for you today, albeit one untested by me: in their final days, Glaser’s posted the recipe for their famous brownies (which, alas, I never tried) on their door, and below you can see the artful photo I shot of it. Their brownies were supposed to be excellent, and I look forward to trying Glaser’s brownie recipe out for myself once I can bring myself to turn my oven on again.

Glaser’s Brownie Recipe

1 lb. sweet butter (melted)

1 lb. 10 oz. granulated sugar

1/4 oz. salt

1/4 oz. baking powder

1/2 oz. vanilla extract

1 oz. warm water

8 large eggs

9 oz. cake flour

4 oz. cocoa powder

14 oz. pecans, chocolate chips, or add-ins of your choice

Makes approximately 25 brownies

Melt the butter. While the butter is melting, mix the sugar, salt, baking powder, vanilla, and water in a separate bowl. Then slowly add the eggs, then the flour, to the mixture.

Once the butter is melted, mix it with the cocoa powder. Add this to the mixture of ingredients in the other bowl. Lightly fold in the pecans, chocolate chips, or other add-ins.

Spread batter onto a 12 x 16″ baking pan that has been greased and lined with greased parchment paper.

Bake at 325° or 350° F for about 30 minutes. The brownies are best slightly underbaked. Let them cool thoroughly before cutting.