For years, Allentown has struggled to retain a decent bakery. Now, a husband-wife team has opened a new business called Sweet Temptations du Jour, and it looks as if the two have all the right ingredients to hit the ground running.
Barbara and Michael Keating recently sold their house on the city’s West Side, in order to pool their residential living and commercial resources. They ended up purchasing a cute and manageable building, with a commercial storefront on the first floor and a newly remodeled residence on the second floor. “It’s perfect,” they told me. “We used to bake out of our house. Then we worked out of a commissary kitchen that we shared with food trucks – great people, but it was tough to share refrigerator space with so many non-baked foods. We outgrew that space after a couple of years.”
Most of the delectable creations that are whipped up at Sweet Temptations du Jour are passed down from generations of family members, who have all contributed in one way or another to the success of the enterprise. You might have seen their strudel, cookies, pies, Russian tea cakes, pound cakes, or cheesecakes at local farmers’ markets, the Broadway Market, Guercio’s, and festivals.
When it comes to the art of baking, there is one rule of thumb that Barbara and Michael adhere to – they create everything from scratch, even if they could just as easily cut some corners. But the only corners that they cut, are from the edges of the strudel, which I watched Barbara painstakingly create yesterday. After preparing the strudel, she set out to sell her baked goods at the Pendleton Market, while Mike stayed put in Allentown in order to tend the retail business, which was open until 9pm last evening.
^Strudel
Last week I stopped in to Sweet Temptations du Jour to try out their freshly baked blueberry pie (see below). Yesterday I testing out their Croatian apple strudel and a Polish style cheesecake – Mike had just finished baking a loaf of old-fashioned hearty white bread that I was also happy to sample. The cheesecake was like nothing that I have ever tried. It was light, and sweet, without being overly dense and decadent. I’m not a big dessert person, but this was something that I will go back to have again, with a cup of coffee – there are a couple of tables for customers to sit down and eat. The bread and the strudel also hit the spot, and are apparently two of the bakery’s best sellers.
<Cheesecake | Bread>
Barbara got into the baking business around ten years ago, so she knows what she’s doing when it comes to getting around the kitchen. Mike joined her in the business two years ago after retiring from his own career. They have three grown “kids” who help out at the markets, as well as with the business end of the operation. There is also one grandson in the family who is the official taste tester.
Along with their Eastern European cookies, that customers clamor for during the holidays, the bakery also serves up sheet cakes, sweet nuthings, comfort corn, sour cream walnut rolls, Croatian kuglof with rum-soaked raisins, banana cake, carrot cake, and pies that include coconut cream, lemon meringue, apple streusel, butter pecan, and rich peanut butter with chocolate sauce. The sugar waffles are dipped in chocolate, with peanuts added. They have dessert selections (cakes, brownies, etc.) that are perfect for weddings, birthdays and every occasion in-between. They are even in the process of rolling out gluten-free coconut macaroons, while other gluten-free offerings are being researched.
Browsing the Sweet Temptations du Jour menu is a torturous endeavor – settling on just one item is next to impossible. “Everything in moderation!” said Mike, as he waited on a customer who had just rolled in from New York City. I agreed with him (yes, everything in moderation), and made a pact that I would be back soon enough to try another divine sampling. Thankfully, this business is just far enough from my house that I won’t be passing it every day… if it was any closer I think that I would be in big trouble.
Sweet Temptations du Jour | 220 Allen Street | Buffalo, New York | (716) 536-0567 | Facebook