Two Girls and a Whip
Boozy batters, artistry, and cupcakes galore on Front Street.
by Pamela Denney
Shinika Parham and co-owner MK Dunston, of Two Girls and a Whip, create cupcakes, layer cakes, and 3-dimensional one-of-a-kinds.
Photographs by Justin Fox Burks
For me, a cupcake’s appeal is in the icing, piped on top in delicate swirls like a debutante’s tiara. At Two Girls and a Whip, my proclivities are confirmed when I peel off the wrapper of a strawberry cupcake and sink into its pale pink buttercream dotted with candy pearls. The icing is Swiss meringue, a classy version of American buttercream perfected by baker MK Dunston, one of the shop’s namesake Two Girls.
A self-taught cake wizard, Dunston came upon Swiss meringue in an instructional video and loved the icing’s texture for three-dimensional cakes. At the shop, she and Shinika Parham, a culinary school-trained chef, whip 40 egg whites, eight pounds of butter, and 40 cups of powdered sugar for every 20-quart batch of icing.
"We bake from scratch in small batches, and we don't freeze anything," says Caroline Dean, co-owner of Two Girls and a Whip.
Whipped egg whites are key to the icing’s appeal, says Caroline Dean, Dunston’s business partner (and the other Girl). “Lots of people who don’t like buttercream, often do like ours,” Dean says. “It’s lighter and fluffier and less cloyingly sweet.”
Open more than a year in a refurbished brick storefront on Front Street, the charming cakery with its aqua accents, open kitchen, and cupcake case adds to the neighborhood’s ongoing renaissance. Gus’s Fried Chicken, Old Dominick Distillery, and The Gray Canary restaurant are two blocks away, and to the south, apartments and condo conversions proliferate.
Customers who walk in the shop find rotating cake flavors, pulled from more than 60 options. Standards like chocolate and carrot cake mingle with fun exotics like the Coco Naughty, a boozy rum-filled cake with coconut cream. Special order cakes — available in three-dimensional designs or six, seven, and eight-inch layers — shape the heart of the business. “I like to say, if you can dream it, I can bake it,” Dunston says.
The shop’s imaginative approach also extends to savory combinations, showcased in periodic cupcake dinners. Up next: A cupcake and beer pairing at Ghost River in January, and on Valentine’s Day, a four-course cupcake brunch at Bardog Tavern.
People are crazy about your boozy batters. Tell me about a boozy cake you like.
MK Dunston: For the chocolate Guinness cake, we make a simple syrup with Jameson and brush it on the cake very liberally. And for the cake’s mousse icing, we add Bailey’s Irish Cream.
The shop’s name is adorable. Who thought of it?
Caroline Dean: One day Aldo [Dean, Caroline’s husband] said, ‘I have an idea for your name.’ We loved it because in the cooking world, a whisk is often called a whip. And lots of people stop in front of the shop just to take pictures of themselves with our logo.
17 Berkshire
European pastries, macarons, lattes, and tea in Overton Square
by Hira Qureshi
At 17 Berkshire, self-taught baker Nuha Abuduhair serves gorgeous pastries and meringue-based macarons. She rotates macarons regularly, but the shop, in Overton Square, always features at least a dozen different flavors.
With its marble countertops and colorful macarons, the lighthearted personality of 17 Berkshire in Overton Square gives little clue to the patisserie’s therapeutic underpinnings.
But for owner Nuha Sofiyan Abuduhair, perfecting European pastries was a creative way to handle the post-partem depression that followed the birth of her second child. Baking was something to look forward to, she says, much like an old friend.
“It was there for me at all hours of the day, and I could spend hours brainstorming the look and taste of my next pastry project,” says Abuduhair, a former registered nurse. “It was a cheap therapy: Eggs, flour, milk were all ingredients I readily had on hand.”
After catering her friends’ baby showers, Abuduhair built a following on Instagram, where her feed with its cake and macaron pictures connected her to like-minded creatives. Next, she expanded to festivals, sellling out at her first event. After landing a loan, Abuduhair and her husband, Alaa Abuduhair, secured the space and named the shop after her childhood address in Memphis: 17 Berkshire. Open since July, the patisserie specializes in a variety of European sweets that are infused with Abuduhair’s Arab culture and Southern upbringing. Orange blossom, a common Arabic flavor seen in many desserts, is incorporated in her macarons, lattes, and cupcakes. Abuduhair also uses rosewater and cardamom, other flavors popular in Middle Eastern cooking.
“I love merging the Arab world with my Southern upbringing — it’s an unexpected fusion on so many levels,” Abuduhair says.
Macarons are the shop’s most popular and time-consuming dessert. The process begins with whipping egg whites into a meringue and then gently folding the meringue into an almond flour mixtures. The piped macaron shells dry slightly before they are baked, cooled, and filled with a dollop of buttercream or ganache.
Fillings are far-reaching, including toffee, pistachio, and espresso. The shells absorb the moisture from the filling, a process called maturation. Abuduhair lets her sandwiches sit for at least 24 hours to mature. “The unique filling is what gives each macaron its flavor,” she says. “Patience and practice are the name of the game.”
What’s your favorite dessert?
Nuha Abuduhair: At the end of the day, I’m just a chocolate-chip cookie girl. They make me very happy.
How are your macarons different from other locations?
NS: What sets our macarons apart is that we’ve got a good variety of the flavors that are always rotating. It’s intriguing to see what we’re going to come up with next.
Lucy J’s Bakery
Croissants, rustic bread, and sandwich cookies in Crosstown Concourse
by Pamela Denney
Aretha Davis fills cookie sandwiches at Lucy J's, where owners Tracy and Josh Burgess pay employees a living wage. "We knew our ultimate goal, but we didn't know what it would be like," Tracy explains.
The popular precept “baking is love” finds many meanings at Lucy J’s Bakery, which opened a Crosstown Concourse retail store in mid-September. First, the bakery’s owners, Josh and Tracy Burgess, renewed their commitment to one another while learning to bake at home. And foremost, at least half of the bakery’s employees — once homeless — now earn a living wage. And finally, there’s me, as I blissfully brush away crumbs from the seat of my car. I’ve just eaten a chunk of the bakery’s baguette, and its soft center and crunchy crust are perfect in every way.
From the start, baking and altruism drove the couple’s retail mission. While learning to bake, they started volunteering at the Dorothy Day House, where homeless families can rebuild their lives while staying together. Today, Tracy is the nonprofit’s development director, while Josh handles the bakery full-time.
Lucy J's owners Josh and Tracy Burgess.
Much of the bakery’s product mix comes from customer requests. For instance, Lucy J’s operated a kiosk in Crosstown before the retail store opened, and baking options were limited. So, when customers asked for cinnamon rolls, bakers added cinnamon and sugar to the croissant dough instead. “Now, the cinnamon sugar croissants are one of our biggest sellers,” Tracy says.
Bakers arrive at 3 a.m. six days a week to produce the bakery’s flaky croissants (a two-day process) and a comprehensive menu of other scrumptious treats: muffins, macaroons, cupcakes, scones, sourdough bread, seasonal pies, chocolate eclairs, triple-berry Danish, mini-fruit tarts, and cookie sandwiches like oatmeal raisin cream pie filled with cream cheese icing.
“The French say making a perfect croissant is a lifelong pursuit,” says Josh, and I have to agree as we watch baker Craig Lyons expertly roll and turn croissant dough filled with flakes of chilled butter.
“We had two French families who were living upstairs,” Josh continues, laughing. “I don’t know what they were saying exactly, but I think they were dogging me on the shape of my croissants. Still, they came back every day to buy croissants and bread.”
What special flavor is coming for January?
Tracy Burgess: We definitely want to do Italian cream cake. It has the same concept of a carrot cake, but it takes us into winter. And it’s my favorite.
Do people understand how you are trying to change the face of homelessness?
TB: Many of our customers know that we intentionally hire current and former residents of Dorothy Day House, and I think that awareness helps to break down the stigma of homelessness.
