Carlo's Bakery

A couple of weeks ago my family and I went on a weekend road trip to New Jersey to see a play, The Nutcracker & I, another family member had in production. We really had no plans for the weekend other than the play and thought we would just make it up as we went along. When we checked into our hotel in New Jersey we found out we were 5 miles from the TV famous Carlo's Bakery in Hoboken, NJ. Since my family is Italian and love Modern Pastry in North End, we knew this Bakery was going to be one of our stops.

The town of Hoboken is very sweet and adorable. We wished we had more time to walk down the road the bakery is on, but our time waiting to get into the bakery consumed most of our time. In Hoboken there are so many little shops, and restaurants to stop at, so we decided the the next time we come we are most definitely going to spend more time in Hoboken, NJ to explore. You see the reason we did not have time was going to this bakery is an all day affair, it took us about four hours from the time we got in line to the time I made my purchase. We got in line around 10:am and got a number, around noonish we were in front of the bakery awaiting to go in, around 1:30/2:pm I made my purchase.

When you get inside the small Bakery the smell brings you to a true Italian Bakery. There are cakes, cookies, pastries of all kinds to drool over in crystal clear glass cases. Which makes it so hard to decide what you want to bring home. The one thing to remember is we still had to wait for our number to be called once we were inside the bakery, but those smells wafting from the kitchen were enough to fill my belly till #71 was called.

Italian Cookies

Cheesecakes

The night before my Mom & I went on the Carlo's web site to think about what kind of treat we wanted to take home with us. There are so many to choose from but since I have my favorite that would be what I would get, sfoilletella.

If you are a reader of my blog you already know I go to the North End to get sfoilletella early on a Saturday morning when they are still hot to bring home for desert that afternoon. These are my favorite treats and I am quite picky when it comes to them. Only Modern Pastry in the North End makes the best (you can also get them at Caffe Victoria's with a cafe latte, since they get theirs from Modern Pastry). In my opinion they cannot have candied fruit in them and they must be the right mix of textures, from soft creamy interior to crunchy, flaky exterior.

I know I have high standards but I had to see if this bakery could live up to them. At first glance I noticed they are much smaller than the ones you get in the North End, but they looked so yummy.

My tied box of treats

Sfoilletella

As you can see I picked up a half dozen of them. We waited till we got home to have our treats, and found that the Modern Pastry still has the best Sfoilletella around. The ones from Carlo's did not have any candied fruit, which is good, and had great texture, but there was something off with the flavor and none of us could figure it out. So the next time we pick up some Sfoilletella we are going to the North End.

The one thing I will say is we went to Carlo's Bakery, we missed the Cake Boss, at least we have family photos of us in front of the bakery, and a good story to tell our grand-children.

YUM!!!