Silver Spring Drive is a busy street; so it’s easy to miss the storefront for Tiffany’s Dessert Bar at 460 W. Silver Spring Dr. 

But, if you love desserts, it’s worth your time to check out this new Bayshore dessert destination, which is baking up delicious scratch-made cheesecakes, cupcakes and other sweet desserts, all of which can be pre-ordered online for scheduled pick-up at the shop.

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A passion for baking

The namesake for Tiffany’s Dessert Bar (and the woman behind the business) is Tiffany Gilmore, an accomplished home baker who launched her dessert business out of her home in 2019. But her business grew steadily enough that she found herself looking for a commercial kitchen.

“I grew up around folks who baked,” Gilmore says. “My grandmother – we called her Big Mama – used to make mew sweet potato pie for breakfast with Sanka coffee. My family was also big on holidays, so we cooked and baked together.”

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Gilmore says she carried on the tradition, baking cakes for her childrens’ birthdays and bringing treats to parties and family gatherings. In fact, it was a party in the summer of 2019 that made her decide she might just have what it took to start her own business.

“I was asked to make a cheesecake for a family party,” she says. “And I remember sitting at the party with my husband, and I literally couldn’t eat my meal because people kept passing money down the table and asking me to make things for them."

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Gilmore says she took it as a sign. “I’d been in the corporate space for over 20 years,” she says, “And I was just done.”

Gilmore left her 17-year position as a Six Sigma consultant with United Healthcare, created a Facebook business page and started selling desserts. Her business, which she called “Tiffany’s Tasty Treats” grew quickly, she says, and by the holidays, she’d built a loyal following.

But, when the pandemic hit in March of 2020, the world stopped. Business slowed and Gilmore says she shut down the business entirely for two months, using the time to evaluate and consider how to proceed safely.  

When she reopened in June, she says business was slow; but it picked up again during the holiday season and remained steady. She says business was good enough that she began exploring the availability of commercial kitchen spaces. Along the way, she says she responded to an advertisement seeking pop-up shops for empty storefronts at Bayshore and landed the former Edible Arrangements storefront.

It took months, she says to renovate the interior, installing the needed kitchen equipment and giving the kitchen a bit of personality. She also contracted with a local designer to pull together a name, color palette and logo that fit the higher end clientele that Gilmore wanted to target. But by September, she was ready to debut her newly rebranded business, Tiffany’s Dessert Bar.

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Sweet offerings

On the menu at Tiffany’s Dessert Bar, guests will find a menu of scratch-made baked goods created with high quality ingredients, many of which are organic. 

That includes Tiffany’s popular New York style cheesecakes, which come in four core flavors (plain, strawberry, cherry and cinnamon roll) plus a cheesecake of the month (currently caramel apple), priced $35 and up.

There are also old fashioned bundt cakes (topped with a choice of lemon, caramel or chocolate drizzle), cupcakes ($25 per dozen) pound cake, carrot cake, blueberry lemon loaf and caramel cake (starting at $25) along with macarons, Italian meringue cookies ($5 and up). Other party-worthy desserts, including cake pops, bars and chocolate covered strawberries are also available, as well as custom layer cakes in flavors like birthday (chocolate or vanilla cake with sprinkles), carrot, chocolate, lemon or vanilla, all priced at $6-9 per serving.

What guests won’t find are cases filled with desserts in a bakery-like setting. And that’s intentional.

“I’m very environmentally conscious,” says Gilmore. “I want to control my carbon footprint, and that means I want to create as little waste as possible.”

Instead, guests are asked to pre-order their baked goods online, selecting a date and time for pick-up. From there, the items are made-to-order, ensuring a fresh product and easy pandemic-friendly pick-up. 

Gilmore says that she recommends that customers place their orders at least seven days ahead of time to ensure they get the dates and pick-up times they’d prefer.

In the case of holiday offerings, which will be posted on the Tiffany’s Dessert Bar website later on this week, Gilmore recommends ordering as soon as possible. Ordering cut-offs for Thanksgiving items will be Nov. 16, and the cut-off for Christmas orders will be Dec. 12.

She also says she hopes that people will think of her and other local businesses as they decide where to spend their money.

“When you choose to support local businesses,” she says, “Not only do you end up with a better product, but you really help your community to grow. The only reason why my business is here is because of the support I got from the local community. And I’m so grateful for that.”

Pop-up this weekend

If you can't wait to try a slice of Gilmore's cheesecake, you're in luck. Tiffany's Dessert Bar is hosting a pop-up event at the Sam’s Club on Bradley Road and 124th Street on Saturday, Nov. 6 and Sunday, Nov. 7 from noon to 5 p.m.  Featured items will include small cheesecakes, carrot cakes and (a rarity) cheesecake by the slice.