From bake sale to bakery: New shop offers small, bite-size gourmet cheesecakes
Good things come in small packages is especially true when it's freshly made-from-scratch gourmet cheesecakes.
Dainty Cheesecake Company, specializing in "Dainty" fit-in-the-palm-of-your-hand size as well as "mini" bite-size and special-order 9-inch artisan cheesecakes, recently opened its brick-and-mortar bakery at 3061 Philips Highway No. 102 in the East San Marco neighborhood of Jacksonville.
Sylvia Fitzgerald, founder and owner, established the authentic New York-style cheesecake company featuring family recipes in June 2020 as a delivery-only catering bakery. Back then, the bakery operated out of a nearby shared commissary kitchen.
Dainty Cheesecake Company now is a standalone bakeshop that is take-out and delivery only. The bakery doesn't have seating.
On the menu at Dainty Cheesecake Company
Now in its soft opening phase, Dainty Cheesecake Company generally has a dozen flavors not including seasonal flavors for special occasions such as Easter and other holidays, Fitzgerald told the Times-Union.
Strawberries and cream as well as caramel pecan are "the two absolute flavors here," she said of the signature desserts.
"I'm finding down here that the caramel pecan sells like wildfire," the native New Yorker said. "All of the flavors do really well, but the caramel pecan and strawberries and cream are the flavors people are really running around for."
All the shop's cheesecakes are creamy New York-style cheesecakes.
Other favorites include:
Chocolate Ganache: Cheesecake topped with silky dark Chocolate Ganache on a graham cracker crust
Dark Chocolate Raspberry Drizzle: Cheesecake topped with a handmade raspberry and dark chocolate sauce on a dark chocolate cookie crust
White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake: Cheesecake made with white chocolate ganache and handmade raspberry sauce, sitting on a chocolate cookie crust and topped with raspberry sauce, white chocolate chip pieces and fresh whipped cream
Chocolate Cheesecake: Cheesecake topped with handmade chocolate whipped cream and dusted with chocolate cookie crumbs
Birthday Cake Cheesecake: Birthday Cake-flavored cheesecake on a graham cracker crust and topped with fresh whipped cream
The Old Fashioned: Cheesecake on a graham cracker crust
The Dainty-sized cheesecakes are $10 each. The bite-sized are sold by the dozen and range from $48 to $58 per dozen depending on the flavors, Fitzgerald said.
Available by special request, 9-inch cheesecakes range from $42 to $50 each, Fitzgerald said.
"Most people lean toward the bite-size and the Dainty because those are what's unique," she said. "And the reason people love those is because everybody can pick their own flavor to mix and match."
Family passion for cheesecake
"It's just a real passion of mine and that's what drives the business," Fitzgerald said.
Coupled with the fact she's always wanted to have her own business, a family effort makes Dainty Cheesecake Company all the sweeter.
Fitzgerald inherited her love of cheesecake from her dad. Strawberry cheesecake was his favorite dessert to make their family. It was that "creamy New York-style of cheesecake" that he loved that she grew up loving as a child, she said.
"I've always loved to bake and I knew that cheesecake was something that I would be good at because I grew up with it," she said.
A self-described "stay-at-home mom," she knew that she wanted to start her own business once their sons were grown.
Bake sale beginnings
Working out of Jax Kitchen, she launched Dainty Cheesecake Company 3 1/2-years ago "not knowing if it would flourish" at that time due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I thought I had a pretty good product. We had sort of tested it at my husband's job the year before at a bake sale. I had made the personal size [Dainty] cheesecake with just some chocolate drizzled and I sent it into work and the people just went wild over it. And they said 'You need to start a business'," Fitzgerald said.
With that encouragement and validation, Fitzgerald and her family got into the cheesecake business.
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Her husband, Tom, does the books and handles technology issues. Their sons, Thomas, Brendan and Jameson all pitch in doing whatever is needed at the shop, she said.
Dainty Cheesecake Company is open 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday. It's closed Sunday and Monday, she said.
Fitzgerald said they plan to celebrate the grand opening from noon to 3 p.m. on March 2.
Teresa Stepzinski is the dining reporter for the Times-Union. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @TeresaStepz or reach her via email at [email protected].
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This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Dainty Cheesecake Co. opens in Jacksonville's East San Marco area
