“Baking is an art that is perfected over time. It’s an up-early-work-long-hours type of job. You have to love coming in and mixing a few key ingredients that make little miracles that delight.” - Alvin Lee Smalls, Lee Lee’s Baked Goods

Here are profiles of three dedicated New York City bakers whose famed shops are still going strong. Although they all make a variety of baked goods, each one has perfected a particular recipe (carrot cake, red velvet cake, rugelach) that makes their version superior to all others. In addition, all three are savvy entrepreneurs, who have had to endure discrimination from landlords, loan managers, and a wary public to rise to the top of their field. They deserve a place in New York’s pantheon of renowned chefs.

Lloyd’s Carrot Cake

If you’ve never tasted Lloyd’s Carrot Cake, you’ve never really had carrot cake. You’re missing out on the five cups of carrots (grated twice for smoothness), the warm spices, the raisins and nuts (optional), the sinfully delectable cream cheese frosting, and the decades of love that go into every scratch-made cake. It is widely recognized as the best carrot cake ever made.

It all started with Lloyd Adams’ friends, who would often come to his home to watch Knicks games and say, “Lloyd, bake a cake.” And he did. He used his grandmother’s carrot cake recipe from Saint Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which had been passed down to his mother, then to him. He began to tweak it, adding more cinnamon and extra eggs. Lloyd told his fiance Betty Campbell that he wanted to bake for a living. Her response? “I’m thinking we’re going to be struggling.” She married him anyway.

Betty’s Dad offered Lloyd a basement kitchen in an East Harlem apartment building he owned. Lloyd installed an oven and began baking. He brought a sample carrot cake to Sylvia Woods, of the famous Harlem restaurant Sylvia’s. She was soon ordering five cakes a week.

The Adamses outgrew the basement and in 1986 opened a storefront in the Bronx, across from Van Cortlandt Park. At first it was a wholesale business catering to restaurants, but so many locals smelled the deliciousness and wanted to buy some that a retail counter was installed. It wasn’t long before Lloyd’s was turning out 1,000 cakes a day.  

Unfortunately, Lloyd suffered from health problems and passed away in 2007. Betty took over the reins, saying “I knew it was his dream and I couldn’t let it die with him.” She became known as the “Carrot Cake Lady,” and opened a second Lloyd’s bakery in Harlem in 2011. She supplied food markets like Zabar’s and Food Emporium, and shipped cakes all over the world, going through 400 pounds of fresh carrots a week.

When Betty Campbell-Adams died in 2020, the bakery was passed down to their children, Lilka and Brandon, and a dedicated staff. Lines can wind down the block, with a three-hour wait at Thanksgiving, their busiest holiday. Referring to a picture of Lloyd which still hangs on the wall of the bakery, Brandon remarked, “I know he’s happy just looking down and seeing we’re all pitching in.”

Cake Man Raven

Although a trained expert in producing all sorts of cakes, pies, ice sculptures and event novelties, Raven Patrick De’Sean Dennis III is best known for his magnificent red velvet cake. Born in Harlem and raised in South Carolina, he was inspired by his grandmother to bake his first cake when he was nine, participated in cake competitions while in high school, and soon earned the nickname “Cake Man.” After attending prestigious Johnson & Wales University, he returned to Harlem and started baking special occasion cakes.

Often referred to as “Cake” by his fans, Raven opened a bakery at 708 Fulton Street in Brooklyn in 2000, featuring his signature red velvet cake. Famous clients followed. He served as culinary artist to Katie Couric, Michael Bloomberg, Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, Morgan Freeman, Patti LaBelle and Jesse Jackson. He created a 12-foot-long Brooklyn Bridge cake in honor of its 120th anniversary. He made a grand piano cake for Cab Calloway, and an Adidas sneaker cake in homage to Jam-Master Jay (which has led to a whole series of sneaker-shaped cakes.) In 2005 Raven baked the world’s tallest wedding cake, 15 feet high, weighing 5,000 pounds, large enough to feed 30,000 people (unveiled on ABC’s Good Morning America.)

But it is his red velvet cake that has folks stampeding to his latest bakery on 135th Street in Harlem. Though most consider red velvet a southern specialty, “Cake” has transformed it into a New York confection (or perhaps he has transformed New Yorkers’ taste buds into southern ones!) Unlike most red velvet cakes, Raven’s is incredibly moist and satisfying with just the right amount of “tang.” And his cream cheese frosting is the stuff of dreams. Sold whole or by the slice, Cake Man also offers pineapple, coconut, German chocolate, and pound cakes, as well as pies, cinnamon rolls, cookies, and incredible cupcakes (red velvet, of course.)

Lee Lee’s Baked Goods

At a recent artsy gathering in Brooklyn, there was an unusual dessert offering: a large platter of rugelach, the Jewish pastry. When I tasted one, I knew immediately that it was the best damn rugelach I ever ate: super-sized, with a soft flaky dough (instead of the usual firm, overbaked one) and an abundance of moist, fruity filling (instead of the standard dab of stiff jam.) It melted in my mouth. I wanted to know which Jewish grandma baked these treats. Then I saw an adjacent business card: they were created by an African American baker in Harlem!

And not just any baker. Alvin Lee Smalls (nicknamed “Lee Lee”) was a professional baker at New York-Presbyterian Hospital for 27 years, rising to become the head pastry chef. It was there that he first tasted rugelach, and it was love at first bite. The traditional Ashkenazi flaky pastry, filled with fruit, chocolate or nuts, was not well known outside Jewish communities. Lee Lee found a recipe and began tweaking it, adding and swapping out ingredients, such as using real butter instead of margarine.

Lee Lee wanted to open his own bakery, but times being as they were, he found it impossible to secure a business loan. So he combined all his savings, pension and some street loans to open Marion Smalls Bakery (named after his father) on Amsterdam Avenue. Harlem was once a Jewish neighborhood until the turn of the 20th century, when most of the population moved to the Bronx, and African Americans moved in. Lee Lee’s baked goods represent an intersection of both of these Harlems.

Facing two spinal surgeries in the early 90s, Lee Lee was forced to close Marion Smalls Bakery. But when he recovered, he was ready to start again, opening Lee Lee’s Baked Goods on 118th Street. He faced innumerable odds: the bakery was slated to open on September 12th, 2001, the day after the World Trade Center attack. People were not in the mood to celebrate with sweets. Business remained slow, because Lee Lee could only afford to open on a side street, which was just abandoned buildings, empty lots, and a methadone clinic (now it’s all luxury condos.) Lee Lee persevered, using his hospital experience to invite the clinic’s patients and doctors to try his baked goods. “That clinic was the only thing that kept me going,” he recalls.

Lee Lee’s bakery slowly became a destination for New Yorkers and tourists who crave traditional baked treats. He started getting requests for mail orders, shipping packages around the country and overseas. His bakery is mentioned in many international guidebooks. From locals dropping by for a quick snack, to folks stocking up on rugelach for Shabbat dinner, to couples ordering custom wedding cakes, Lee Lee’s is a one-of-a-kind happiness generator. One customer remarked, “I love this place because it’s cross-cultural. It’s good for everybody, that’s the beauty. Everybody’s welcome here.”

Lee Lee estimates he’s made at least a billion rugelach in his lifetime, providing numerous jobs and smiles to a community who dearly loves him and and treasures his shop. He admits, “I’m one of the last old-time bakers.” Let’s hope his example inspires the tradition to continue.

(Photos courtesy Lloyd’s Carrot Cake, Cake Man Raven, Lee Lee’s Baked Goods)

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