Published: 12:00 AM, Thu Mar 04, 2010
Dining Out: Sweet Boutique Bakery
SWEET BOUTIQUE BAKERY
Address: 1400 Walter Reed Road
Phone: 429-2253 or sweetboutiquebakery.com
Hours: 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday; and 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday
Specialties: Custom cakes and pastries
The Sweet Boutique Bakery is a dessert lover's paradise.
The bakery on Walter Reed Road carries an assortment of sweet treats from cinnamon rolls and sticky buns to scratch-made cakes sold by the heaping slice. Customers are welcome to buy a fresh-made pastry, a cup of coffee and relax in front of the bakery at one of the outdoor tables and chairs.
Owner Nicole Sullivan opened Sweet Boutique in 2008. Sullivan served as a major in the Army for 13 years prior to becoming a professional baker. Baking had been a passion of hers that she turned into a career.
"I like to create things with my hands and do artistic things," Sullivan said. "So it was just a perfect fit for me."
The shop grew out of a speciality cake decorating businesses Sullivan had been running from home. The demand became so high for her cakes, she said, running a shop was the next logical step.
"We have an extremely loyal following of people who want to get their cake by the slice or their brownies," Sullivan said. "We try to perfect everything we sell so that everybody can leave happy."
Sweet Boutique features a pastry case filled with baked goods that are sold individually or in batches. The color scheme of the shop represents Sullivan's favorite flavors: brown for chocolate, magenta for raspberries and beige for buttercream.
"What the people who work here really like is our flexibility, so if we have a creative impulse we can just do it," Sullivan said. "We make everything from scratch, so we have every ingredient here to make anything we think about."
The bakery case offers staples such as carrot cake, lemon bars, red velvet cake, brownies and cookies. There also are handmade truffles and gourmet cupcakes, such as the strawberries and champagne, a decadent pound cake cupcake made with lemon curd and a strawberry and champagne-flavored buttercream. In celebration of St. Patrick's Day, the bakery is carrying a chocolate cupcake filled with hazelnut and chocolate ganache.
The speciality cupcakes, known as "Boutique Style Cupcakes," are $3.65 each. Sticky buns are $3.25 each, and a slice of layer cake is $3.65. The bakery also makes "bee stings" filled with a Bavarian cream for $3.50 each. A whole 9-inch layer cake is $39.95. Custom-designed cakes require a consultation.
Everything at the bakery is made with butter, Sullivan said. The aim is to have it taste like something grandma would have made.
"We strive to be unique in everything we do," Sullivan said. "We make everything here from raw ingredients. That's something we're really really proud of."
Staff writer Amneris Solano can be reached at solanoa@fayobserver.com or 486-3521.