• Flour Girl

  102 West 87th Street, Studio 1N, 347-526-0300; flourgirlbakery.com

  Working in a bakery after studying at the French Culinary Institute, Jeri Gottlieb latched on to the idea of decorating buttercream birthday cakes with cookies rather than icing. And not just a couple of cookies, but a veritable excess of them, if such a thing is possible: Every slice gets the added treat. Looking for a dinosaur theme? Gottlieb can accommodate with a tall volcano cake with the prehistoric giants walking, or flying, the perimeter. The soccer cake has lots of players and balls. One favorite is a tower of striped and polka-dot cookie candles with floating cookie balloons.

From the 2004 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine