7 layer cake

My dad would bring this home on occasion when I was a kid--I would maybe get a grudging slice but it was certainly not intended for me--it was an expensive indulgence for himself. Is anyone familiar with this and does anyone have a Manhattan or Brooklyn source?
Description:---layers, 7, I reckon, of yellow cake and butter cream in a square log shape, covered in chocolate. I remember it as way special but it is possible that if I can find some I may discover it to be insipid 50's mush.
Any help?

[HippieChick]

9th Street Bakery for sure. Also Moishe's Kosher Bakery on 2nd Avenue between 6th and 7th Streets, west side of avenue. They have a whole selection of 7-layer cakes and jelly rolls...pretty good stuff.

[Big Howie]

When I was a kid we used to live in an area called Brighton Beach Brooklyn. When we moved to Atlatic Beach in 1968 we used to go back to Brighton Beach and visit my Grandmother. When we visitied my mother or father would send me down to the Sea Lane Bakery and buy a 7 layer cake. It was great and I have found that Walls Bakery in Hewlett NY makes the 7 layer cake like I had it when I was a young kid. As a matter of fact Walls also makes the choclate chip pound cake that my Grandmother used to buy for herself from the Sea Lane Bakery.

[Dmelnick30]

Walls in Hewlett is the best. I grew up in Hewlett and this is the place for all those bakery treats. I am trying to replicate a number of their items - I live near Boston now and can't get anything close to what I want in a local bakery. If anyone has recipes for the chocolate fudge filled linzer cookies or the layer cake with the hard chocolate icing and the mocha frosting in the middle, I'd be eternally grateful.

[vvvindaloo]

This sounds like one of my favorite childhood cakes, from Delite Bakery on Yonkers Ave. in Yonkers. I still go there for jelly donuts (the very best in the world, by the way) and Napoleon cakes. I haven't had a 7-layer in a very long time, though.

[Shayna Madel]

Sorry, don't know about Manhattan or Brooklyn, but on Long Island, try The Bakery, in Albertson (Willis Avenue) or Plainview (South Oyster Bay Road).

[marlie202]

7 layer cake--the bakery on 9th Street off 1st Avenue (NYC)-you can even buy it by the slice or whole-yum

[mlt9]

i love the seven layer at Mother's Bakery in riverdale, 235th & johnson ave.. don't know where else i'd find it!

I had a craving for 7 layer cake a couple of year's ago and was very happy with the one I got at Lord's Bakery near Brooklyn College.

[nycandyb]

Most Jewish bakeries in NY still sell 7-layer cake but to find a good one is difficult. The Cake Box in Bay Terrace, Queens had a good one but they recently closed. I'm going to try Stork's next time I'm in town. I live in Belgium and I always need a slice of 7-layer when I visit NYC. If anyone knows how to make it, with the chocolate butter cream and the hard chocolate icing like in the Jewish bakeries, please post it. I'm not interested in fancy cakes that have "sophisticated" flavors. Just the simple old NY treat from the traditional NY Jewish bakeries.

Lafayette French Bakery on Greenwich Avenue has a very good version of this. I really like their mocha cake, too; it comes in a roll shape. The cakes there have a very old-fashioned quality about them.

[marlie202]

I was looking for Lafayette French Bakery last week and could not find it--has it moved??address please. Ireally like their mocha cake too.

[vvvindaloo]

It is still there- It's been hidden under some scaffolding for quite some time. Just look closely :)

Thanks for the responses. Not too long ago I was looking at a Dobosh Torte in a display and wondering if it could be.......I passed on it because I generally do not care for Western Euro type pastries as I thought this to be--by which I mean almond or liqueur flavored sorts of things--I'm far simpler in my tastes--and I feared that something with a fancy name like that would be more sophisticated than the 7 layer cake of my craving. But now I'll give it a shot.

A memory has come to me of a bakery--a chain?--Cake Masters? Did I once pick some up there 30 years ago? Do they still exist?

Unfortunately I am building this quest into such a holy grail that I fear that whatever I find, no matter how good or properly executed, cannot possibly live up to this object of my desire.

Actually, I should have said a deli bastardization, not a deli version...I think (and I'm sure someone will jump in!) that the Dobosh torte is a little fancier, has caramel, I believe, instead of that too-sweet, cheap chocolate hard glaze.. (the best part...;) )

I also share this quest for that very special cake. But I know where the definitive 7 layer cake WAS purchased. It came from Cake Masters in Manhattan, by the slice.

All Cake Masters are out of busines.....I tried to find one.

Nothing can compare to that taste. It was the special choc butter cream that did it and buying it by the slice was the best.

Royale Bakery on 72nd st had an imitation version.

I live in Bucks County PA now.....these fools here never heard of it.

I miss it.......terribly......someone find it again please. I'll come back to Manhattan for it on my periodic pilgrimage to Zabar's.

Marco

[fufu]

Marco,
I too found the Cake Masters 7-layer cake to be the ultimate version, and ate many slices over many years. I too have been searching for a replacement. GOOD NEWS: the same slice is at Glendale Bake Shop & Deli Corner, 1290 Lexington Ave., NW corner of 87th & Lex. I could not believe my luck when I found this little place. I so felt your pain that I was moved to register on this site, just to tell you this. Happy eating.

[marlie202]

I believe the bakery on 9th St. and 1st Avenue is better--I found the Cake Master's 7 layer to be cloyingly sweet (unless you like it that way)I prefer it room temperature-CM's was always cold-

[marco714]

re-read this just now after all these years.....nostalgia....and the taste is still in my mouth.....no imitations can qualify.....I never had the chance to go to the Glendale shop you mentioned...Is it still there?.....marco714

[marco714]

Just revisited this....and I share your craving 100% ....CAKE MASTERS was the best ever...cannot duplicate that taste..............

The only thing in my more recent years that has come close....albeit remotely....is an "Opera cake"...that is something you can get in in NYC and in good bakery's around....good luck, Marco714

[wincountrygirl]

A good opera cake is terrific, but nothing beats a 7 layer. I actually found a good one in a supermarket of all places. De Cecco's in Cross River has a terrific one - skinny layers of soft buttercream............

Its also available at the Cake Box in the Bay Terrace Shopping Center.
My mother buys it for me once a year on my bday.

If you're out in that part of Queens, I'd recommend Stork's bakery on 150th and 13th Ave in Whitestone. This is an excellent German-style bakery that makes a classic 7-layer, just as described in the lead post. Great cookies, too.

I think it was mocha butter cream. I have been looking and trying to find one like I had in the Bronx for 40 years and have never gotten really close. It's a Jewish bakery item, along with fresh round rye seeded and sliced. There is a bakery (Yetl's ???) on Canal St., east of Bowery that comes as close as any I've tried.

Gertels Specialize in Kosher baked goods.
53 Hester St................................................................................................................Tel: [phone]

[wincountrygirl]

Yes, that is key. The buttercream is a light color - like mocha. The layers must be thin. Dark chocolate around. I love this cake - and it was a mainstay in many jewish deli's.

Just posted about it the other day on the General Topics board; I think Seven Layer Cake, which my Queens grandmother used to buy me for a treat(we only visited 3 times a year), is a deli-version of the Dobos torte...you'll probably have better luck looking for that...
I adored it.....

If that's the case then try Andres Hungarian Bakery on Queens Blvd in Forest Hills (67th Avenue Stop on the R and V train - south side of Queens Blvd - same block as Knish Knosh) Their Dobos Torte - or multi thin layered chocolate cake is old fashioned pure goodness.
Try their cheese danish and rugelach too.

they have the best cheese danish and butter cookies

The best I ever had was from the Homestead Gourmet shop deli on Austin St in Forest Hills, still can't believe they are gone from there....the one in Kew Gardens on Lefferts is still there I think, and if you are really in search for the best, go there, if they have the same one as was sold in the austin st store, and you won't be disapointed--moist and amazing.......Homestead Gourmet Shop
Address: 8145 Lefferts Blvd
Phone: [phone]