Rainbow Cookies: A Personal Recollection
As a kid growing up in New York City, when a box of cookies from an Italian bakery presented itself at a family gathering, you had one objective and one objective only: Get. A. Rainbow Cookie.
Amidst the powdery, ho-hum cookies, useful only to coffee-drinking adults, were the always-too-few, tri-level, almond-flavored sponge cakes joined by harmonious smears of apricot or raspberry jam and sandwiched between two layers of chocolate. Why, oh why, did they never fill the entire box with these rapturous rainbows and instead make us children desperately circle the dessert table until the tight-fitting baking twine was finally unfastened?
You can fool me
Perhaps because they always endured so briefly, I never noticed Rainbow Cookies are neither rainbows, nor cookies. And, my knowledge of national flags was embarrassingly limited at the time to realize the three colors of its stacked strata belonged to the Italian flag: green, white and red.
History of the Rainbow Cookie
Known also as Tricolore cookies, Neapolitans, and Venetians, Rainbow Cookies are believed to have been invented in the United States at the turn of the 20th Century as waves of Italian immigrants arrived to the Northeast. Some argue Rainbow Cookies are a traditional holiday dessert found in bakeries throughout Italy—certainly almond-based pastries are commonplace. However, even if this is the case, they never were as ubiquitous as they are in the States. And, the romantic in me loves the idea that Italian immigrants nostalgically crafted a treat based on the flag of their recently unified homeland across the Atlantic.
On the Hunt for New York City’s Best Rainbow Cookies
Perhaps with a healthy helping of my own nostalgia (having lived for so long away from New York), while back in the city over the holidays, I went on a pilgrimage to four top-rated Italian bakeries for Rainbow Cookies to see if I could better understand the nuances of this prized pastry, and maybe even bestow the title of “The Best Rainbow Cookie of New York” on one of the scrumptious specimens.
Please join me below on my tour of New York City’s best Rainbow Cookies!
Vic’s
31 Great Jones STreet, New York, NY
Stylish neon sign for Vic’s
The Rebel
Vic’s Rainbow Cookies
I’m kicking the tour off with the most radical Rainbow Cookie of the group. First off, Vic’s is an Italian restaurant—not a bakery—but their chef, Hillary Sterling, knew she wanted to have a Rainbow Cookie on the dessert menu. After much research, she opted to omit the almond paste and, instead, use almond flour. The cake then gets soaked in an almond syrup, and the layers are pressed together—not joined by jam. The result is a subtle, softer-tasting Rainbow Cookie.
Though not intended originally, another rebellious move was to place the strata next to each other, rather than stacked on top. Points given for style and originality, Vic’s.
Vic’s Rainbow Cookie
Veniero’S Pasticceria & Caffe
342 E 11th Street, New York, NY
Veniero’s Rainbow Cookie
The Over-Achiever
Veniero’s Rainbow Cookies
Up next is Veniero’s in the East Village. This is the happy kind of place where the staff will pull your leg, saying they just sold out of Rainbow Cookies before giving you one to enjoy while you decide on how many you want. (Genius sales tactic, actually.)
The flavor of Veniero’s Rainbow Cookies are very traditional: the almond paste and flavoring are certainly present. Two things special things to note: Veniero uses the more flavorful of the two jam options—raspberry—to unite the layers and their Rainbow Cookies are given a four-sided chocolate coating. The most decadent of the group? We’ll see. The tour continues…
Classic Italian Bakery Box from Veniero’s
Veniero’s neon sign
Ferrara Bakery & Café
195 Grand Street, New York, NY
Ferrara, Little Italy, NYC
The ClassiciST
Ferrara’s Rainbow Cookies
Of all the Italian bakeries in New York, this is the one I know the best. Founded in 1892, it’s also one of the most historic in Little Italy—still family-run, now by the 5th generation. In terms of composition, Ferrara’s Rainbow Cookies are perfection. The three layers are precise and even, the apricot jam, when absorbed into the cake layers, is almost invisible (as opposed to the darker lines left behind by raspberry), and Ferrara chooses to classically keep the chocolate to top and bottom. The flavor, too, is textbook Rainbow Cookie. Could this be the one? On to our last contender…
Ferrara’s Rainbow Cookie Confections
De Lillo PastRY SHOP
610 E 187th Street, The Bronx, NY
De Lillo, Little Italy, The Bronx
The Peacemaker
De Lillo’s Rainbow Cookies
The Bronx is also home to a Little Italy, and it is here where our last opponent, De Lillo’s Pasticceria, is found. Clearly De Lillo is aware of the ongoing debate as to whether apricot or raspberry jam is the better flavor pairing for the almond-based cake and chocolate; It makes both. To differentiate the two, De Lillo adds a fourth layer to the raspberry version, giving it a bonus pop of purple—not traditional perhaps, but the closest to an actual rainbow!
De Lillo’s two options for Rainbow Cookies: (Left) Raspberry Jam or (Right) Apricot Jam
And the winner is….
After collecting a more-than-necessary amount of each Rainbow Cookie, I had a few friends and family taste them with me. Unsurprisingly, it was a tie!
Each and every one of these bakeries deserves to be known for their Rainbow Cookies. Depending on your palate, you might appreciate one of these Rainbow Cookies more than the others, but they are all solid choices. So go ahead and fill that box up! Your inner child will be so pleased with you.
Other Articles You Might Enjoy:
About the Author
Leslie Rosa
Sommelier + Founder of La Dolce Vigna Wine + Culture Tour Co.
After a decade of working in the art world for eminent institutions and artists in New York and London, I moved to Italy, fell in love with Italian wine and became a certified sommelier with the Associazione Italiana Sommelier. I created La Dolce Vigna in response to the large, impersonal tours I came across while living in Italy. My company offers curated experiences that impart a full sense of place through family-run and historic wineries, regional cuisine, stunning natural scenery, charming hotels, and, of course, colorful characters. When not leading tours, you can find me doing pop-up wine tastings, writing for the Slow Wine Guide and Wine Tourist Magazine, or getting lost someplace beautiful with my watercolor set.