You ask anyone where to go in Chicago for dessert, chances are you will be directed to Brown Sugar Bakery for its famous “Carmel Cake.”
The bakery was founded in 2004 by Stephanie Hart on Chicago’s South Side and since has grown to a total of three locations offering more than 20 cake flavors, cupcakes, pies, peach cobbler, bread pudding and more.
And if offering the best of Chicago’s desserts isn’t enough, things are getting sweeter for Hart.
She is buying out a historic 84-year-old candy factory known as Cupid Candies. She’s using the funds from a $500,000 small business grant that she received from the state of Illinois.
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Hart was one of 32 minority-owned businesses that collectively received more than $11 million in grants to support expansions and revitalize their communities.
With money, Hart told the Chicago Sun-Times that she will bring her cake manufacturing and shipping to the Cupid Candies site, located at 7637 S. Western Avenue.
Cupid Candies was founded in 1936 by Paul Stefanos. Cupid Candies is well-known throughout Chicago and the Midwest for its premium handcrafted chocolates.
Hart has plans to combine the two brands together and said she will keep the more than 20 employees on staff.
The Cupid Candies staff will continue to produce ice cream and chocolate products as well as the cakes of Brown Sugar Bakery.
With this new acquisition – you can expect some new dessert creations such as a brownie encased in an ice cream bar with a pretzel as the stick.
Excited? So are we!
