A soft, cake-like shortbread base buried under a thick cap of fudge that is heavier than the cookie itself. The Berger cookie is a Baltimore icon, sold through grocery stores across the city.
Where to eat it: 1 restaurant across 1 city.
The Berger cookie traces to a German baker, George Berger, who brought the recipe to East Baltimore in the 1830s. The modern version is a plain vanilla cookie topped with a famously thick layer of chocolate fudge, the cap deliberately outweighing the base. DeBaufre Bakeries has produced them for decades, and they remain a near-universal Baltimore souvenir, stacked at supermarket checkouts and corner stores across the region.
Common allergens: Gluten, Egg, Dairy, Soy
Tip from the editors. The fudge cap should be thicker than the cookie; pile it on while just spreadable and let it firm up at room temperature, not in the fridge.
This is the TableJourney editorial recipe, modelled on the canonical bistro / counter version. The first place to try the dish in its city of origin is below.
Lexington Market gathers cheap counters under one roof, from Faidley's crab cake to lake trout and chicken boxes, the city's oldest market and its best value.
Try: Crab cake, lake trout, market stalls
Tip: Graze the stalls for lake trout, a chicken box or a crab cake; cash speeds the older counters.
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