Brutus Bakeshop
Bakery · Bedford-Stuyvesant ·
Gluten-free, vegan baked goods, cult cookies & pop tarts
Gluten-free, vegan baked goods, cult cookies & pop tarts
"The gluten-free offerings from Lani Halliday’s Brutus Bakeshop, sold at Ursula, include a homemade guava pop tart topped with pastel sprinkles (some star-shaped) and a thick guava filling that gives a strawberry-like aroma and a bright zing that cuts the sugars; it’s a nostalgic, elevated pastry and a real stunner." - Ryan Sutton
"Founded and run by Lani Halliday, this Brooklyn-based bakeshop is known for inventive, gluten-free (and often vegan) breads, cakes, pastries and more, including a signature miso chocolate chip cookie. Halliday demonstrated on an Eater at Home Instagram Live how she nimbly repurposes recipes—most notably turning a flaky gluten-free, vegan pie dough into compulsively snackable crackers—and shared a precise recipe that uses coconut yogurt, apple cider vinegar, Bob’s 1:1 gluten-free flour, xanthan gum, psyllium, Old Bay, salt and organic vegetable shortening. The method emphasizes cutting chilled fat into the dry mix, hydrating and chilling the dough as a 2-inch disk, rolling to about 1/8–1/4 inch, cutting into rectangles or squares, finishing with flaky sea salt, chilling briefly, and baking at 375°F for about 10–15 minutes until golden for crisp, savory crackers." - Patty Diez
"A five-year-old cake-and-pastry operation from Lani Halliday, Brutus Bakeshop impressed me as it transitions toward a brick-and-mortar location later this year: both gluten-free and vegan, Halliday’s pastries feel like creatively wielded constraints — her passion-fruit–glazed, guava-filled pop tart buoyed my spirits, and her miso-chocolate-chip cookie is astonishingly complex (as funky as an unfiltered wine). Her dark-chocolate cake, made with aquafaba and a rice-based flour mix, has an exceptionally soft, glossy crumb, and her collard-leaf wraps around sliced heirloom tomato and sautéed mushrooms read as a thoughtful nod to heritage rather than a mere substitute for starch." - Hannah Goldfield
"The cult-favorite miso chocolate-chip cookie was included in the Cookie Edit charity assortment, presented as one of the dozen standout items available for $50 preorders and shipped or picked up within New York State to benefit ROAR." - Grub Street
"A bakery whose guava passion fruit pop tarts she calls a revelation and obsession after trying them at a pop-up; she uses them as palate cleansers, in salads, and treasures their tart, aromatic flavor inspired by culinary traditions that use passion fruit in desserts." - Chris Crowley
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