LOUISE BOLGER | SUN
Cindy Tutterow's cakes, pies, cookies and other confections are
available on Pine Avenue in Anna Maria.
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t met a person who doesn’t have a sweet tooth, even a tiny one. Well if your sweet tooth is screaming to be fed, you need to take a nice little walk along Pine Avenue to a sweet little shop called Hometown Desserts.
Cindy Tutterow doesn’t remember when she didn’t love being in the kitchen. Growing up on a farm in North Carolina, she learned to cook with what the farm produced and bake from scratch with family recipes.
She became a Manatee County school teacher, then a stay at home mom, and kept baking for friends and family. One day a restaurant owner had some of the cake she baked for a friend and asked her to make some for her restaurant. That simple request grew into a seven-year, home-based business and then three years ago, into one of Anna Maria’s Historic Green Village’s favorite businesses.
It’s hard to describe how many cakes, pies, cupcakes, scones, cookies and brownies are available in this adorable mini space. It’s even harder to believe that it all comes from the kitchen right behind the retail shop where everything is baked in house.
And as Tutterow will modestly tell you, she supplies at least a dozen restaurants and shops both on and off the Island with her bakery goods every day. Not to mention her growing wedding cake business that was just recognized by the Wedding Wire Website, which chooses the top 5 percent of wedding venders in the country based on their brides’ feedback.
Hometown’s layer cakes are available in 6-, 8- and 9-inch sizes with lots of choices like, carrot, chocolate Oreo, chocolate fudge, chocolate Kahlua, chocolate mousse, raspberry truffle and red velvet. Tutterow’s coconut cakes are some of Hometown’s favorites and fly out the door. The original comes from her grandmother’s recipe, but you can also get chocolate, lemon, red velvet, strawberry and the not to be missed key lime.
There is also a large selection of cheesecake in all kinds of flavors and pies including pecan, apple, key lime and more as well, as an assortment of quiche. Breakfast is a great time to stop by Hometown Desserts for coffee a scone or a cookie. She also sells the dough to make your own scones and ships the coconut macaroons. Anything can be special ordered, and there are individual slices of many of the cakes and pies available in the shop every day.
Hometown Desserts has been mentioned in Southern Living Magazine, on visitflorida.com and Trip Advisor in addition to the Wedding Wire. Tutterow is considering a second location, and based on the number of people who came into the shop during the short period of time I was there, she definitely needs one.
She thanks her husband Kelly, who has helped her realize her dream and continues to help out in the kitchen, as well as her three staff members and considers herself very fortunate to do something she really enjoys.
After a couple of minutes inside of Hometown Desserts, your sweet tooth will have turned into sweet teeth. So go ahead and feel free to satisfy the craving one tooth at a time. What could possibly be sweeter?
HOMETOWN DESSERTS
507b Pine Avenue, Anna Maria
941-896-3167
www.facebook.com/hometowndesserts
Monday – Saturday: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Sunday: 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Visa & MasterCard