Charlotte, NC is increasingly becoming one of my favorite cities to visit. Our team made our way there from Miami as a part of our 4th Annual Black Foodie Tour in celebration of National Black Business Month.
After a customer at my ice cream store in Miami Gardens raved about the quality of the cakes and the richness of the cheesecakes at a NC bakery he couldn’t remember the name of, I turned into an FBI agent to track down this tasty bakery using his vivid description of its vast menu offerings.
Once I located the shop, we hit the road. BW Sweets Bakery is located at 3126 Milton Rd, Charlotte, NC 28215 and has some of the richest, moistest and most delectable sweet treats you can imagine.
Owner and baker, Frankie White’s passion for baking and making his family and friends smile led him to create BW Sweets. A self-taught baker and entrepreneur with little experience owning and operating a business, White started from the bottom with a journey that included closing, reopening, losing time, money and unimaginable loss. The bakery is named after his son, Bradley White, who died after a lengthy battle with cancer; an emotional fact that made the delicious desserts that much sweeter.
We started our experience with his Reese’s Cup Cheesecake that includes swirled chocolate and peanut butter cheesecake, topped with fudge and Reese’s cups. As both a chocolate and peanut butter lover, I was in heaven.
His creation of the perfect texture for his cheesecakes, which are custards at the end of the day, is remarkable. The smooth, soft, yet rich cake allowed the flavors to permeate uninterrupted with your palate serving as a score keeper regarding the placement of the dominate flavor of rich milk chocolate or peanut butter.
This deliciously holistic incorporation of flavors was consistent in every single item we enjoyed. Cheesecakes are quite difficult to perfect but Mr. White is well on his way.
Next I tried the best of both worlds with the Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownie. Please be warned that if you are on any sort of diet or weight management plan, do not even look at it because it’s impossible to not eat the entire thing. It’s incredibly sweet, but so rich and smooth that if Anita Baker’s singing was a brownie, this would be it.
I followed up with a strawberry lemonade cheesecake that mimicked the iconic drink so well, I wanted a shot of gin to pour on top of it to get my mellowing out on and poppin. (I absolutely love a quality shot of a premium gin with homemade strawberry lemonade! It’s refreshing, tasty, and provides the right amount of sweet and tartness for the gin to reveal itself along with all the beautiful botanicals within, but I digress.)
We even got to experience giant bright red apples incrusted with everything from clear candy, white chocolate, to strawberry crumbs. The nostalgic candy apples took me back to my days at the local youth fair.
My final item was my favorite, The German Chocolate cake. As a chocolate lover and snob, I am hyper sensitive to bad chocolate creations and a super hard critic because growing up, I lived next to and worked for a chocolatier who packed thousands of chocolates to be shipped around the United States. I would be in there eating those chocolates like it was no tomorrow, which eventually got me fired; but to this day, I have no regrets.
Mr. White’s rendition of this popular cake is what I would imagine Samuel German created in 1852 when the cake was first introduced to the United States. Get ready to enjoy the best chocolate cake on the planet with its gooey coconut and toasted pecan filling, a dark and super-moist chocolate cake, and deliciously creamy chocolate buttercream on top!
White’s cake is an upgrade from my favorite baker in Miami that will give you an out of body experience for at least 20 seconds as you enjoy each morsel of this unapologetically decadent and indulgent show stopper.
This spot is not for you if you’re watching or counting calories; instead, it’s a place for celebrations and enjoying life without giving a damn about guilt because sometimes you need to have these moments of happiness.
This is now my go to spot if I need cheering up when visiting Charlotte. I look forward to stopping by again. Come to think of it, I’m going to call brother and see if he can ship me that damn cake this week now that I’m thinking about it. You will have NO REGRETS when visiting this delicious spot, well, maybe your personal trainer will. Call them at (704) 464-0767.
