Although I was pretty bummed to step off the airplane at JFK last weekend and enter sub-freezing temperatures, I must say there are worse things than coming home to a place like NYC. I’ve been meaning to dedicate a post to my favorite city for months now, but since 2015 will likely be my last year living in the Big Apple, I feel like talking about it in January makes sense. I have absolutely loved my time here so far, and one of my resolutions for this year is never to take the city for granted and to continue to try and enjoy everything NYC offers while I still have it at my doorstep! And one thing that the city never fails to offer is some of the best food in the world. One of NYC’s most famous treats is the black and white cookie – a soft, cakey cookie with a hint of lemon topped with a glaze-like frosting in its classic black/chocolate and white/vanilla style. To help commemorate my time here, I decided not to mess with the classic and try to recreate the original cookie, but opted for a baked cake donut instead with beautifully shiny and sweet frosting that makes them undeniably New York.

The big question when presented with a black and white cookie is how you’re going to go about eating it. Personally, the white side is my favorite so I tend to eat the chocolate side first and then slowly savor the vanilla until the end. Some argue the best bites are the ones that have both black and white, but I prefer to keep my bites segregated. I was really happy with the consistency of the icing I made, but keeping the line between the two flavors perfectly straight was really hard! I have a newfound respect for black and white cookie decorators. At least making the donuts themselves was very easy – the batter is a cinch to put together and as long as you have a donut pan, baking them is a no-brainer. Since the original cookies are cake-like in consistency, transferring the black and white cookie flavors to a donut worked pretty seamlessly here. They were light, fluffy, full of flavor and really cute too!

Although I appreciate that baked donuts are healthier than fried ones, I also love that the baked version doesn’t require using hot oil to fry them. There’s nothing worse than the lingering smell of oil in the kitchen after deep frying, and when your apartment is less than 600 square feet, it’s more than just your kitchen that stinks afterwards. I figured since I shared my Sweet Tooth Kitchen in Connecticut a few years ago, it would only be fair to also share all the glory that is my Sweet Tooth NYC Kitchen. There’s not much to see unfortunately – it’s a tiny galley kitchen with a smaller-than-average fridge and stove and only about one square foot of countertops. However, over the last year and a half I’ve accepted the challenge of making the kitchen work for all my cooking and baking adventures, and I’m pretty proud at how compact yet functional it is. Of course I also have a bookcase dedicated to photography props and extra baking supplies in the living room, but the downsize with the move was considerable!

Having such a small kitchen definitely has its perks – it’s great to only have to use one Lysol wipe to clean the entire kitchen floor, everything you need is within arms reach, and we have become much more strict with only keeping things we really need. I do look forward to a larger kitchen once we move again to the ‘burbs, but as far as NYC kitchens go, we feel pretty lucky and will definitely miss our tiny little kitchen in its own special way!

One thing that’s harder than making a small kitchen funcitonal, is trying to capture said kitchen in photographs! I did my best to get as many angles as possible to give you a full tour, but maybe you’ll just have to come over for black and white donuts and coffee instead to see it in person. But don’t bring too many friends, we have limited space…

Don’t you love the vintage map I used as a background in these photos?? It’s actually wrapping paper I found at The Paper Source! It’s almost too pretty to use :)