Examiner Papers - May 2007

Dessert Gallery’s expansion makes room for even more sweets

By ANDREA SUTTON

Sam Kagan watched intently as the St. John’s Maverick logo was printed onto a butter cookie at the March 13 Dessert Gallery Kitchen grand opening. At another station, he dipped his own long-stemmed strawberry into chocolate.

He was among the friends and family who joined Sara Brook to celebrate the opening of her company’s new central baking site, located on Knight Road near Reliant Park.
 
The 5,000-square-foot kitchen comes at a time of expansion for Dessert Gallery. Its third store is scheduled to open in Sugar Land this May and a new online store will launch nationally later this year.

Until now, all baking had been done at the original Kirby store, in a kitchen that was about 1,400 square feet — about one third of the size of the new baking space. Brook said staffers were practically working on top of each other and the baking had been split into two shifts. Now, there are separate stations for cookies, cakes and decorating.

New equipment like 80-quart mixers will allow the bakery to more than double its current production. Some tasks, like rolling cookie dough, have been automated, but the recipes have stayed the same.

The possibilities for continued expansion opened by the kitchen are just another chapter of Brook’s 24-year baking career, which began with her own catering company, Executive Sweet, when she was 21.

Brook began her career working out of her parents’ Meyerland home, catering desserts for restaurants and individuals after scrapping plans for law school. She had been working at a law firm while studying for the LSAT after graduating from the University of Texas when she realized that a legal career was not for her.

She decided to pursue her lifelong love for sweets instead.

“I think (my parents) didn’t really know what to make of me doing this and making it up as I went along,” Brook said.

Eddie and Davna Brook had mixed feelings about their daughter’s sudden career track change.

Her mother thought it was wonderful. Her father, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure. “She comes home (from college) and starts baking cookies,” said Eddie Brook, who questioned the sense of his daughter’s decision. “She proved me wrong. It’s been a pleasure being proven wrong.”

They, and their other two children, are proud of what Brook has accomplished. Although Executive Sweet flourished, she left in 1988 after selling it to partners. She then began Sara Brook Desserts, which she operated out of the River Oaks Grill.

It was then that her chocolate sauce gained popularity and she began selling The Great Chocolate Cover-up nationally. She later sold the company.

She thought she had retired from the baking business, but when her daughter, Jennifer Kagan, began nursery school, she found herself bored. She founded Dessert Gallery in 1995, opening the location at 3200 Kirby.

In 2003, she opened a second Dessert Gallery location at 1616 Post Oak Boulevard.

Brook said her love for cooking and sweets began at a young age. “I was born with a chocolate tooth in my mouth,” she said.

She’s had a love for cookies since she was young. When she was 3, her babysitter taught her to read not from “Dick and Jane” but the back of a chocolate chip cookie package. Her entrepreneurial skills also began at a young age. As a Girl Scout, she was the top seller one year.

“She’s worked very hard,” Eddie Brook said. “It didn’t happen because she sat around and thought about it.”

He believes this is just another chapter in his daughter’s baking career and that she’s going to progress much further.

Brook, too, is making plans for the future, saying she hopes to expand further into Houston and beyond.

Perhaps the sign at the kitchen that reads “World Headquarters” best sums up her plans.“I’ll take over the world one cookie at a time,” she said jokingly.