Sweet Dreams

Meet four Gwinnett bakers who have garnered loyal followings for their crave-worthy desserts

BY TESS MALONE

longtime love of dessert and a desire to start a business inspired these four entrepreneurs to open some of Gwinnett County’s best-loved bakeries. Whether they’re baking pies for the holidays, assembling macarons for afternoon pickme-ups, or whipping up cheesecake shakes to make Instagram followers envious, each has perfected their treats and captured the hearts of their local communities.

Cupcakes were all the rage when Shawn Brown realized cheesecake could be the next personal-sized dessert—and a way to pivot professions when she lost her corporate job. In 2013, she launched the first CheeseCaked in Lawrenceville, serving her fluffy baked cheesecakes topped with peach cobbler, s’mores, and strawberry churro. Sometimes the cheesecake itself is the topping, like with her rainbow shakes designed to go viral. The bakery has moved across the metro area over the years, but she’s now serving cakes, shakes, and even grilled cheese from her home base in Norcross. For Brown, baking is more than a livelihood; it's a life force. After she nearly died in a car accident that killed her infant son, Brown took a part-time job decorating cakes at Publix as a creative outlet. CheeseCaked offers a similar solace. “I didn’t realize the baking was helping me heal from the accident,” she says. “Bringing joy to people was my relief—to see people so happy when they take their first bite and their eyes roll back in their head is a delight.”

Briana Carson similarly found baking after she lost her corporate job and attended culinary school to figure out her next step. For her pastry class’s apple pie final, she became obsessed with crust and left school to develop her recipes. Despite the risk, her husband, Greg, was supportive, gifting her an industrial trash can full of baking supplies right before he deployed with the National Guard. Carson perfected her mini pies and started selling at the Suwanee Farmers Market, developing a following for her Dutch apple pie, seasonal chess pies, and quiches. Her favorite is the maple pecan, a nod to her New England roots. In 2012, she opened Crave Pie Studio in downtown Duluth because of its strong sense of community. “Pie ingredients coming together is like a melting pot, and that’s what’s best about community, too,” Carson says. “People whose wedding pies I baked come back with their children now.”

7 MustHave Desserts

Taste the flavors of Gwinnett with these unique sweets

Pecan Turtle

Layers of chocolate envelop pecans and caramel in this giant version of the classic candy at the Chocolaterie. All chocolates are handmade and hand-painted on-site at the downtown Duluth shop.

Choc Corn

Snack on white chocolate–dipped popcorn for the perfect mix of salty and sweet at Lawrenceville’s Special Kneads and Treats, a nonprofit that helps employ adults with special needs.

Banana Pudding Cupcake

All the flavors of this Southern staple come through in this banana cupcake frosted with vanilla buttercream at Grayson bakery

Sweet Brown Suga

Alcohol-Infused

Bourbon Butter

Pecan Ice Cream

Can’t decide between pie or ice cream?

Have both with Daddy O’Brien’s bourbon-infused ice cream with a whole homemade pecan pie in Sugar Hill.

S’mores Eclair factors: the weather with humidity in the summer and dryness in the winter or almond flour being a natural product that isn’t consistent throughout the year,” Jack says. As they fine-tuned the recipes, the couple gave out samples to friends, who jokingly asked what “the lab” made each week. In 2015, they made it official with selling lychee and rose, Oreo, and salted caramel macarons paired with espresso drinks. Lan continues to experiment, creating the viral unicorn macaron that led them to start shipping nationally in 2018. Recently, they added geode-covered macarons. Even with the growing fame, each macaron is still made by hand.

Beard Papa’s tops its signature choux and pie crust cream puff with chocolate and bruleed marshmallows. Fill the inside with chocolate, vanilla, or green tea custard at its Peachtree Corners or Duluth locations.

Oreo Cheesecake

Brownies

Lawrenceville’s Blue Rooster Bake Shop and Eatery is known for its cakes and pies, but this decadent brownie with rich cheesecake swirled with everyone’s favorite chocolate sandwich cookie is a certified crowd-pleaser.

Flashback to the Flint stones with this cerealcoated creation found in Suwanee and Duluth. Eight rice-flour dough balls combine to create Mochinut’s famous doughnut with its crunchy exterior and chewy inside.