- Michael Gebert
- Stephanie Hart at Brown Sugar Bakery
My first thought on meeting Stephanie Hart at her Grand Crossing cake shop, Brown Sugar Bakery, was that if I was casting a reality TV show, I’d put her on TV, no question. This wasn’t a random thought, because she actually is going to be on TV—you can see her starting Sunday on the Food Network’s Holiday Baking Championship, hosted by Bobby (progeny of Paula) Deen. She’s one of eight bakers who will compete by making different holiday treats over six weeks. And however the competition turns out, it’s hard to imagine that anybody will beat her when it comes to being a big, telegenic personality on the show—as soon as I arrive, she steers me to the cake case, “You have to taste something because you want to get to know me, right? That’s what the interview is about. Knowing me is having one of my treats, because that’s me up there.”
Stephanie Hart: We are servicing our community by providing cakes that kind of connect to memories. Also, it’s just like really fun, to put this in your mouth. You remember being a kid and you tasted that cake and it made you happy—my cake is intended to do that.
But you grew up eating those southern things.
People ask you about them. For instance, I never had white potato pie. And I make that. Your customers—and I’ve been here ten years—tell you about things. There are things that I aspire to make that I haven’t quite conquered yet. I’m working on the perfect tea cake. I would also like to, on special occasions, sell spoon bread, but I have not conquered that yet.
So the nature of the competition is that you were given different holiday treats to make. Were they all things that were kind of outside your tradition and kind of strange to you? I mean, I don’t normally think of fruitcake as an African-American thing, but who knows?
I have Brown Sugar babies too. I have people that I’ve done their wedding, and their first baby, and the mom was eating Brown Sugar when she was pregnant and now they’re eating it too. That’s a great part about being in this kind of business, you get to be part of people’s home and their lives. It’s a fun business, and I’ve perfected my product, I’m at a point where I feel confident enough about it to really start moving it around and expanding, so I can meet the needs of my growing customer base.
