Pope cookies selling like hotcakes in the Bronx
Arturo’s Bakery in the Bronx said it has sold more than 200,000 cookies bearing the image of Pope Francis, even before his arrival in New York.
Arturo’s Pastry Shop on New York’s East 187th Street has baked its fair share of cookies bearing the images of popes.
The Bronx bakery first created a pope cookie for Pope Benedict XVI’s 2008 Mass at Yankee Stadium. It made another Benedict cookie when he retired in 2013. Pope Francis got his first Arturo’s cookie that year too, when he was elected pope.
But nothing compares to the bakery’s latest creation: a photograph of the pope’s beaming face printed with food coloring fondant on a vanilla cookie topped with white icing.
“It’s our biggest seller to date,” said manager Natalie Corridori. “What’s going on right now, we’ve never seen anything like it.”
The bakery has sold more than 200,000 of the cookies in the weeks leading up to the pope’s arrival in the city on Thursday,” Corridori said in a phone interview.
“We can’t keep up with demand. We have two photo cake printers going day and night as well as the oven.”
Television host Wendy Williams ordered 200 of the cookies to hand out to audience members, Corridori said. And, after making arrangements with police, the shop will be delivering a dozen to the residence where the pope will be staying in Manhattan.
Asked why she thinks the Francis cookie has taken off like it has, Corridori said, “I think it’s because of the change he’s brought to the Catholic Church.”
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