Jersey Girls: Sarah & Laura at Carlo's Bakery

One thing we knew we really wanted to do while in NYC was visit Carlo’s Bakery in Hoboken, New Jersey. We have watched Cake Boss, and the competition show, and love Buddy, his bakery, and.. well, cake, frankly - we love cake.

So one sunny morning we left the Upper West Side and got the train out to New Jersey. Hilariously, everyone we had spoken to in New York had kind of a ‘New Jersey? Why would you go there? Why would I know how to get there?’ attitude haha, so we guessed ‘going to Jersey’ isn't something that is regularly done by New Yorkers unless they live there!

We managed, however, to make our way from Penn Station to Secaucus, then to Hoboken. I think our experience with the train system in the UK helped, because it was so confusing!

Once we stepped out in New Jersey, we set about trying to find Carlo’s Bakery. Thank goodness we found ‘Carlo’s Bakery Way’ – that street pointed us the right way!

When we arrived we were surprised to find that, despite the freezing temperatures, there was a line to get into the bakery starting at the end of the block! We were still happy though, considering we’d heard it sometimes wraps around the entire block.

So we waited for about 30 minutes to get in – it was spent taking photos of the outside of the bakery, of course – Laura couldn’t miss this photo opp! We were surprised at how many people came out with giant bags – surely you couldn’t buy that much in a bakery! We judged.

Once we were allowed inside, we were given a ticket – and when our number was called, we would have to yell out in the packed shop what we wanted, and it would be rung up for us.

So we had about 15 minutes to squeeze by the people filling the shop to figure out what we wanted. We got one strawberry cheesecake, two giant cannoli’s, a rainbow sprinkle cookie, two heart cookies, a few other cookies, an apron, and a mug. And guess what – we came out with a giant bag too!

From there, we stopped at a bagel shop, and got the SINGLE MOST AMAZING BAGEL WE HAVE EVER HAD, AND LIKELY WILL EVER HAVE. We walked to Frank D Sinatra Park, which is beautiful and has a stunning view of Upper and Lower Manhattan, and ate our meatball parmiagana bagel together.

On the way home, we thought about how much we loved Hoboken. It is really pretty and quaint, the people are so friendly, and of course the food we had there was AMAZING. We heart New Jersey!

Back in the apartment that night we ate all of our bakery goodies. All of them. Hey, we were on holiday! The cannoli’s were great, we’d never had them before, they were so creamy and fantastic – but hands down the best thing we got was our strawberry cheesecake. I’m tearing up just thinking about how good it was. Oh man.

So in conclusion, go to Carlo’s Bakery. And watch Cake Boss. And watch this video.

xoxoxo