A new bakery, Sweet Tooth Confections, has opened on the corner of Washington and Newhall and a whole world of extraordinary treats awaits sweet seekers. But, Wilcox High School graduate and co-owner Rachael Myers never expected her love of baking would turn into a career.
“It’s something I’ve always been passionate about an interested in,” said Myers. “I did a hospitality/culinary class in high school and once I graduated my parents sent me to a culinary academy for classes because I really just wanted to do baking. I’ve always done my own thing throughout the years…When my daughter turned five I decided to try my hand at [decorative] baking for the first time. I did this topsy-turvy Alice in Wonderland-style cake for her and totally fell in love with it. I started a blog just to see what would happen – I did it to post pictures and share with my family and then I started getting phone calls and emails for delivery…As the years progressed we just got crazier, more intense, detail-oriented cakes and Kyle [Myers, husband and co-owner] is an artist naturally so I started pulling him in…once we found this place and started working, Kyle quit his job and came on full time.”
The bakery, which officially opened August 23, offers moist cupcakes with rich frostings and decadent double fudge brownies in addition to French macaroons and cake pops in the front half of the shop. The real work, however, is done in the back where the team tirelessly works on specialty cakes and special orders.
“Our primary thing is specialty cakes and mini dessert bars so we do a lot of weddings – a lot of corporate events,” said Myers. “We do mini dessert bars ranging from mini cupcakes and cookies to pie pops and mini brownie bites. I just try to keep it fresh and new…That’s one side of our business. The other is specialty cakes – Kyle is working on a Ferrari back there…Doing that the last four years kind of grew the retail. People were always asking us if we had a spot where they could buy one or two things or they just wanted to taste stuff and it allows me to try out new flavors and figure out what’s popular.”
Each day, the staff posts its menu on the store’s Facebook page and encourages people to call in with they want because quantities are limited. In addition to standard red velvet, chocolate and vanilla, Sweet Tooth offers unique flavor combinations like chocolate salted bacon and lemon lavender.
“We have a brown sugar cupcake, which you don’t hear about a lot and that’s a more unique and popular flavor,” said Myers. “And then our lemon-lavender – a lemon cupcake with a lavender frosting and an organic honey drizzle…I’m really big on the salty-sweet combinations so we do a chocolate pretzel and a chocolate salted bacon. I’m big on caramel too so our pumpkin chocolate cupcake has a drizzle on it. I love French macaroons so I try to keep them very pure, natural and organic tasting.”
Fans of the bakery are talking and the Yelp reviews are mostly positive. “The flavors that we use and the ingredients that we use need to shine through and that’s the most important thing,” said Myers. “We don’t cheat here. We do absolutely everything from scratch and I think nowadays that just doesn’t happen. I think when you’re selling to the public it should be 100 percent from scratch and natural.”
Sweet Tooth Confections is at 1305 N. Bascom Avenue (behind Normandy House Lounge) in San Jose. For more information visit www.sweettoothconfections.net or www.facebook.com/pages/Sweet-Tooth-Confections/124933173975.
