ASTORIA — Maria Notaro, who operates La GuliPastry Shop on Ditmas Boulevard, did not anticipate making another series of commemorative “pope” cookies.
Notaro made headlines last summer when she recreated her run of shortbread cookies in 2015 — the ones with the image of Pope Francis embedded in the icing.
Local news outlets — including Currents News and The Tablet — covered this pope-cookie-revival story in August. Notaro thought that was the end of it.
Although Pope Francis battled double pneumonia in February, he was released from the hosptial. He even appeared publicly on Easter Sunday, April 20. But he died the following day.
“It was shocking,” Notaro said.
Customers suggested she start planning a cookie for the new pope. She declined to commit until she knew who he was, plus his background.
But, when the papal conclave elected a successor on May 8 — Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Prevost — Notaro was all in on a new batch of pope-themed cookies.
This time, however, she would commemorate the new pontiff, now known to the world as Pope Leo XIV.
“I really didn’t expect to make those cookies again,” she said. “But when it was an American, that was elevated.”
But first she had to wait for a photo of the new pope. She picked one from his first appearance on a balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square.
In a change-up from the round Pope Francis cookie, the latest creation is a rectangular treat of about 4-by-3½ inches.
The new cookie shows Pope Leo XIV waving to the crowd with his right hand. He is wearing a red mozzetta (shoulder cape) over a white white cassock, and an embroidered stole.
To make each cookie with the consistent imagery, Notaro loads sheets of icing that feed into a regular laser-jet printer, but it doesn’t apply ink. The full-color image is “printed” with food coloring.
“We started making cookies, and couldn’t make them fast enough,” Notaro said. “Now we’re making them at a nice pace that we can keep up. I’ve been shipping them all over — Pennsylvania, Virginia, Iowa …
“I think we’re at just over 400,” Notaro told The Tablet on May 16.
Still, Notaro said, there is a lot to be considered before embarking on a limited-run product like the pope cookies.
First, the shortbread cookies are baked, then cooled.
Next, they’re “scraped.” Notaro explained that a buttery substance forms atop a fresh-baked cookie, which has to be removed or else the icing will just slip off of the surface.
“They’re made by hand, so it takes a while to make each one,” Notaro said. “They’re very labor intensive.”
La Guli was started in 1937 by Notaro’s paternal grandfather, Paulo, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1920 from Palermo, Sicily. The business had three locations — two in Manhattan and one in Astoria, which is the family’s only remaining storefront.
Notaro’s father, Rosario, now 88, managed the shop for many years. He sold it, but later reacquired it again and put his daughter in charge.
The original La Guli has held the same spot on Ditmars Boulevard since 1937, just a few doors down from Immaculate Conception Parish, where Notaro is a proud member.
Her inaugural foray into commemorative cookies was to mark the historic visit of Pope Francis to New York City in 2015.
Although she originally baked them as a sort-of “joke,” the Pope Francis cookies made a lasting impression on customers. Nine years later, chaplains at Rikers Island jail asked her to bake another batch for detainees who attend Mass.
News outlets — including Currents News and The Tablet — scrambled to report the latest pope-cookie sensation last August.
Now, once again, the Pope Leo XIV cookies are driving a lot of traffic to La Guli’s Facebook page.
“We’re from Singapore,” stated a post on the page. “How can we order and ship?”