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By Jennifer Zeh:
Another delectable addition to the Elmwood Village and Allentown, The Buffalo Cakery will be opening the doors to its blue and gold delicacy on June 5. Justina Adams, new owner of what used to be the Sweet Tooth location, is busy getting ready to open The Buffalo Cakery, located at 94 Elmwood Ave. When she heard in January the owners of Sweet Tooth left the property suddenly, Adams swooped in and snatched the location. “We love Buffalo. The whole time we were in North Carolina we were always talking about Buffalo,” Adams said.
Originally from Angola, Adams, along with her husband Brian and their son Liam, had been living in North Carolina for the past three years where Adams ran a small cakery out of their home. Adams said she is self-taught in cake making and decorating, her interest started when she was 16 and blossomed from there. “It was just for fun. I worked at Tops and nonsense,” she said. “I’m self-taught rather than traditionally, working with what I think tastes best and what customers like rather than what someone said it should be in a recipe.”
With her past experiences, Adams said she is most interested in making sure the customers know that everything she makes is made from scratch and with love, where someone would be able to walk in that day and order something knowing it’s fresh. The design for the Cakery and the logo came from a friend of Adams and a leading cake artist, Josh Benkelman. Benkelman is also from Buffalo and studied graphic design at Edinboro University with a minor in fine arts. “Graphic design is the hub for all those things,” Benkelman said. He said he met Adams in college through a mutual friend. When she approached him about going into cake design, he quickly climbed on board. “I’m happy to get involved and follow my career path a little more,” he said.
Although her cake ventures in the south didn’t go as planned, Adams said she brought back some valuable cooking lessons and traditional cake recipes. “Living in the south I learned to make the best, most authentic red velvet and southern lemon raspberry cake,” she said. From this she said she would take an idea and tweak it to make it her own, like her cheesecake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.
The Cakery will be doing a monthly promotion when they open where customers can make up their own flavor and Adams will choose one each month. The winning cupcake flavor will be named by the creator for all to try and the winner will receive a $25 gift card to the store.
There will be eight flavors of everyday cupcakes available to customers along with two vegan cupcakes, and the flavors will rotate every so often. The cupcakes will always be buy five and get one free. “Almost all of my cupcakes can be made vegan. It’s something I’ve been working on for years,” she said.
If the cupcakes aren’t a sweet enough treat to satisfy a summer craving, The Cakery will carry select flavors of Lake Effect ice cream as well. Lake Effect is the only local business Adams said she has partnered up with so far but is looking for someone local who does soda for traditional sodas and floats down the line. “Since Lake Effect has a Loganberry ice cream, and since it’s a big deal in Buffalo, I’ve created a Loganberry cupcake,” she said.
The cakery will provide baked goods including cookies cupcakes and cheesecake. While this all sounds delicious, Adams said to remember that it is a cakery so her cakes will be foremost. Starting now on Facebook The Cakery is offering a wedding promotion to help spark business. “No one wants to eat the same cake top years later. If customers book a cake by Sept. 1, I am offering to recreate the top of the cake for their first anniversary,” Adams said. She said this way it was her original work and she can remember the cake to the last detail, making the tradition both memorable and divine.
For Benkelman, cake design and graphic design are the same thing. He said graphic design is just taking an idea a client comes to you with and getting it from your brain onto paper. “Now I have a design and I have to sculpt it into a cake,” he said.
Benkelman said he is very optimistic about the Cakery since it is in a centralized location and it’s not something big in the area. The Cakery will be adding another local business and something positive to a specific area which can eventually bring in more people and create a few jobs. “There is nothing else like it in that location,” he said.
As far as the community they have joined, Adams said she is excited to be in a place where there are a lot of kids and families around, especially with the Elmwood Village Charter School and the Theater of Youth just steps away. “People were asking if we were open right after we got into the building and the kids would stop to tell us not to turn it into a bar,” she said. “It was very cute and I promised them it wouldn’t be a bar.”
Adams said after a while she plans to make Tuesday night “Cupcakes and Cookies with Kids” night, where the kids will be able to decorate either six cupcakes or six cookies and take them home to share with family and friends. She said she hopes this will start in July and the rate would be about $30 an hour.
Tim White, box office manager for the Theatre of Youth, said he is delighted to have the connection reestablished in the neighborhood. “We think it is wonderful that we will have another business neighbor that will be catering to the families and children,” he said. “We had a great connection with Sweet Tooth when it was there and really excited to have that back again with a new business.” White said he is excited to have the relationship between the patrons of the theater and the Cakery and that he wishes Adams all the best.
“We couldn’t get a better location,” Adams said. “This is the heart of Buffalo. We’re very fortunate to have this opportunity.”
The doors to The Buffalo Cakery will be open Tuesday through Saturday, 11 to eight and Sunday from noon till about six.
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