Treat yourself to a sweet adventure this spring. 🧁 Kansas City is home to a baker’s dozen (and more) pastry chefs, bakers and shops that make it easy to indulge your sweet tooth. 😁
Explore impressive and delicious desserts at area restaurants and boutiques to support local businesses, pick up a treat to take home or add a special flair to an upcoming celebration. 🥳 Here are a few sweet spots we love. 💕
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Owner-baker Jaresha Campbell launched her business in 2010 on a dare. Campbell’s nephew, who was three years old at the time, wanted a Spider-Man cake for his birthday. 🕸️ Campbell agreed to create it even though she didn’t know where to begin. Her niece doubted Campbell could pull off the baking job — but the Spiderman cake was a hit. 🎂
Baking and decorating cakes was originally a side gig for Campbell until she decided to become a full-time baker and opened a shop. The cakes on her website are eye-poppers, including ones for birthdays, weddings, kid-themed and “just because” creations.
She specializes in custom decorated cakes but always has cupcakes available for a quick treat. 😋🧁
📍 Cake-A-Boo: 809 W. 39th St. #160, Kansas City, MO
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Pastry chef Elizabeth Paradise attended The French Pastry School in Chicago and worked in a few New York City kitchens before returning to her hometown of Kansas City. Creating desserts at The Restaurant at 1900, Paradise finds inspiration in using flavor combinations rarely seen in pastries and sweets. For example, strawberries might be paired with shiso, tarragon or sesame. 🍓 She also loves to incorporate various textures in her creations.
Desserts on the menu are plated and sold to order for dine-in or takeaway. A visit for dinner or simply a cocktail 🍸 ought to include something sweet as a finishing touch. Upcoming offerings that guests might find include a trés leches cake (pictured) featuring Middle Eastern flavors such as pistachio, rose 🌹 and cardamom.
“I’m also thinking a lot lately about chocolate and peanuts — maybe something fun and nostalgic like a chocolate pudding with cinnamon-spiked, candied peanuts," says Paradise. 🥜 "And rhubarb tart. I can’t let spring pass without using rhubarb.”
📍 The Restaurant at 1900: 1900 Shawnee Mission Parkway, Mission Woods, KS
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Pastry chef Helen Jo Leach creates desserts and pastries for The Town Company restaurant at Hotel Kansas City. She learned about baking pastries and sweets “on the job" and spent valuable time learning pastry in fine dining kitchens in New York City. After nine years in NYC, she moved to Portland, Oregon, to work as the pastry chef at tasting menu-focused Le Pigeon and sister restaurant Little Bird Bistro. 👩🍳
Her desserts at The Town Company “focus on elevating seasonal ingredients sourced from local farmers as well as integrating the hearth oven into dishes as best we can,” Leach says. “I love using ingredients that are not expected, and at times savory.” 😋
Dynamic flavors are a fixture in her desserts. Lately, she’s working with Missouri rhubarb to create rosemary rhubarb sticky buns. “A sweet pea cake with local lemon balm cream is also underway.” 🌿
“I try to keep desserts interesting, fun, and lighthearted. And sparking a nice food memory for a guest is always cool!”
Head to The Town Company to experience how Chef Leach’s intriguing desserts, such as the miso butterscotch semifreddo pictured, might create a memory to savor. 💙
📍 The Town Company: 1228 Baltimore Ave., Kansas City, MO
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| The Pantry Bakery and Cafe
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Pastry chef Deepal Patel and 15-year food and beverage industry veteran Joanna Young teamed up to establish The Pantry. The two met while working at the Sheraton and Westin Crown Center Hotels in Downtown Kansas City, where Patel worked as the senior pastry chef. 👩🍳
Their shop serves breakfast, such as frittatas and pastries, but the treat section of the menu is where guests can indulge in the sweet side of life. 🍰 Raspberry coconut bars (gluten-free and vegan), chocolate gooey butter cake and cheesecakes are just a few offerings available.
“Seasonal favorites right now are key lime cheesecake, lemon meringue cheesecake, blueberry treacle bars and Victoria sponge cakes,” Patel says. “This summer we will be bringing back last year’s favorite — cheesecake pops." 😋
The Pantry also makes custom cakes, but guests should place orders well in advance. 🎂 Their current bookings are four weeks out.
📍 The Pantry: 7769 Quivira Road, Lenexa, KS
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| Banksia Bakehouse and Café
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Banksia, an Australian-inspired bakery and cafe, first opened in Downtown Kansas City and expanded to a second location in South Plaza. The savory and sweet menu items draw from multicultural European influences folded into Australian cuisine. 🌏 Meat pies, sausage rolls and gourmet sandwiches anchor the savory lunch and brunch menu. 🥪 The bakery section includes tarts, cakes and pastries to delight taste buds. 🍮
The Iced VoVo, a shortbread cookie topped with strawberry marshmallow, raspberry jam and coconut, is a wonderland of flavors. Lamington, a traditional Aussie favorite (pictured above), unites vanilla sponge cake with a layer of raspberry jam inside. Then the confection is dipped in chocolate syrup and coated in coconut. Oy, it’s good! 😋 From flourless Belgian chocolate cake to pear danish to passionfruit curd tart with meringue, these lovely sweets will take your tastebuds on an escapade.
📍 Banksia Bakehouse and Café: 105 W. 9th St. and 4800 Main St., Kansas City, MO
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Today's Creative Adventure email was written by Pete Dulin.
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| More Adventures in Kansas City
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|  | Garment District Grooves
This lunchtime concert series at Garment District Park continues Wednesday, May 19 at 11:30 a.m. If you can't make it this time, no worries — it will return every third Wednesday through October. 🎵 You can find more information online.
| |  | Indie Lens Pop-Up: The Donut King
See the award-winning 2020 documentary "The Donut King," which tells the story of Bun Tek “Ted” Ngoy, who escaped his homeland’s brutal Khmer Rouge regime to build an Orange County-based empire and gain fame as the Donut King. 🍩 This online event is Wednesday, May 19 at 6 p.m., and features a screening of the film and a live chat with the director. RSVP online.
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