Former Dallas Cowboys Executive Pastry Chef Opens North Arlington Bakery

Katie Kennedy, owner of the Cakery (photo by Karen Gavis)

A former head pastry chef who oversaw the creation of 100,000 desserts for Super Bowl XVL has opened up a North Arlington bakehouse.

“We bake everything from scratch,” said owner Katie Kennedy after putting the final touches on a pink confection with the flair of a sculptor.

Kennedy, who moved The Cakery to Arlington from Southlake in September, says she started out helping her mother and grandmother in the kitchen and later realized that baking cakes was something she wanted to pursue. She attended Le Cordon Bleu Culinary School in Austin and then worked for the Dallas Cowboys for five years before leaving to start her own business.

Along with The Cakery, which specializes in custom cakes with buttercream frosting, Kennedy also owns its sister company, Marcona Kitchen, which provides catering.

“Really we can do anything,” she said of the bakery which whips up individual birthday and wedding cakes and also supplies high-volume corporate orders.

Kennedy says The Cakery creates 100 cakes each week for the American Girl Bistro at Dallas' Galleria mall.

“You can take your doll and have a birthday lunch there,” she says. “And if you have a cake there, it’s from us.”

Depending on the orders, Kennedy’s team of pastry chefs sometimes show up for work at 5 a.m. Next week, they will begin adding pumpkin cupcakes and spooky desserts such as witch finger cookies to the menu, she said while recalling former creations like a skull with worms coming out of the eye sockets and a mummy.

Currently, gold embellishments and unicorns are popular themes, Kennedy says. She once made a four- foot unicorn cake with rainbow wings among a garden of cookie flowers.

(photo by Karen Gavis)

The Cakery’s sweet selection includes cookie pops and fudge as well as cupcakes in a variety of flavors such as vanilla, red velvet, chocolate, strawberry, Italian crème, and cookies and crème. We tried the peanut butter, bacon fudge which was lined with a chocolate crumb bottom and featured freshly cooked bacon bits throughout.

Kennedy says she's glad to have a central location within the metroplex. The bakehouse is located at 2430 N. Davis Drive.

“A lot of people who work here [at the Cakery] live in Arlington including myself,” she said. “Arlington is just growing so much. I think it’s a really good place to be.”

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