Winter Days = Warm Carrot cake!

It’s Sunday night and snow is forecast for the evening. I’m so gleeful you’d think I was hoping for a snow day tomorrow! But I think it has a bit to do with the opportunity to justify eating winter’s comfort food – macaroni & cheese made from scratch and baked in the oven, a pot of chili simmering for hours on the front burner – or the chance to cozy into an easy chair with a decadent slice of carrot cake.

The best carrot cake to be had in Manhattan is at Carrot Top Pastries – so down home it doesn’t have a website! If you miss authentic New York, hop on the uptown A train and get off at 168th Street in Washington Heights a mere 15 minutes north of Columbus Circle. Walk down Broadway to 163rd Street and enter Carrot Top Cafe. Known for its inimitable carrot cake, the only reason why there isn’t a line out the door as there is at Magnolia is because of the location. That’s the joy of it – desserts that taste homemade in a no-fuss cafe.

If your journey brings you north to the Target store at the W.225th Street #1 train stop, or to a football game at Columbia University’s athletic fields on W.218th, finish your trip to the Great North by strolling south down Broadway to Carrot Top’s Inwood location on Broadway and 214th Street. The #1 train stop is right there at 215th, or the A train’s ultimate stop at 207th is just a few blocks away.

Get the carrot cake to go – they’ll sell you a cake or a slice. Back home, warm it for a sec in the microwave and we guarantee you’ll be a puddle on the floor – limned by cream cheese frosting!