The aroma, when you first enter, is…miraculous. Fresh ground coffees, pies of every description, and the unmistakable smell of flour, sugar and eggs baking in a glorious concoction somewhere in the back.
This is Sweet Endings, a corner bakery and bistro at the end of the Deep Ellum strip on Elm, just across from Cafe Brazil. Owner Tina Davidoff opened the little shop 10 years ago with her brother Terry as a way to bring more life to the downtown area and to make a living while raising her young children.
“At first, we just did dessert and coffee for the evening crowds,” Davidoff says. “But soon I was talked into providing a lunch menu as well.”
The longtime professional baker was determined to maintain the same strict standards of made-from-scratch freshness for her sandwich and hot-lunch offerings as she had established for her confections. That attention to detail has paid off in a booming catering business and a growing on-line enterprise as well.
Customers can choose from a plethora of cheesecakes (eight or nine varieties are on hand at any given time), cream or fruit pies, muffins, several kinds of cake – Italian cream cake is a perennial favorite – or commission a special confection for a birthday or wedding. Kosher varieties are even available.
Davidoff cities a “group of guys from Corsicana who come down and regularly wipe me out of my buttermilk chess pie” as a testament to Sweet Endings’ loyal following.
Her brother passed away some years ago, but his influence continues in her commitment to the Deep Ellum area. “He was here when no one else was,” she says, “and I have no plans to leave.”
SWEET ENDINGS
2901 ELM ST.
DEEP ELLUM
214-747-8001
FAX 214-747-8002
Chocolate Cream Pie
(serves 7)
1 ¼ C granulated sugar
½ C flour
4 egg yolks
2 C milk
¼ C cocoa
2 oz. butter
1 ½ tsp. vanilla
Combine sugar and flour in medium saucepan. Beat eggs slightly and stir into the flour and sugar mixture. Stir in the milk and cocoa. Whisk mixture together over medium heat. Continue stirring frequently until mixture thickens. Remove from heat when filling coats the back of a spoon. Stir in butter.
1 9” pie crust, baked
2 C whipping cream
2 Tbsp. powdered sugar
Pour filling into cooled pie crust. Allow filling to cool. Beat whipping cream and powdered sugar together until very thick. Do not over-beat! Top pie with whipped cream. Garnish with chocolate shavings if desired.
