Sara Brook, CEO, founder and award-winning pastry chef for Dessert Gallery Bakery & Café, enjoys mixing up fabulous cake batters among other all-American, buttery, rich, homemade desserts.

“I was born loving desserts, especially chocolate,” said Brook, a native Houstonian, fifth-generation Texan and the youngest of three children.  Those who knew Brook as a child are not surprised at the career path she chose.  “I have always had a passion for baking – I enjoyed looking at pictures in cookbooks and coming up with my own recipes, or perfecting others.”

After graduating first in her class from The University of Texas with a degree in computer science and sociology, Brook was working at a law firm and studying for the LSAT when she glanced around the room and decided that everyone in the law office seemed a bit too serious.  “I was determined to come up with a plan to spend days doing what I loved,” she said.

At the age of 21, Brook launched her first dessert business, “The Executive Sweet,” which flourished from 1979 until 1988 before she sold out to partners.  One week later, Brook launched “Sara Brook Desserts,” a dessert catering company that she operated out of the River Oaks Grill.  When customers repeatedly asked for a chocolate sauce she had created, Brook decided to devote full time to marketing and selling her sauce, “The Great Chocolate Cover Up,” nationwide thorough specialty and gourmet food stores.  In 1992, Brook sold the company and continued working with the new owners as a consultant for two years.  In 1995, Brook founded her third dessert company: Dessert Gallery Bakery & Café, Houston’s premier dessert bakery.  Since opening, Dessert Gallery has consistently been recognized for “Best Desserts in Houston” by a wide variety of publications.  In 2001, Brook received the prestigious “Award for Culinary Excellence” as “Pastry Chef of the Year” from My Table Magazine. 

Today, the woman-owned enterprise includes two locations in Houston (the second location opened in 2003) and has over 40 employees.  “It’s always been a family affair, first with help from my grandmother and now from my teenage daughter, Jen,” said Brook.  That family also extends to Brook’s employees, some of whom were hired through the YMCA refugee settlement program and have been with her for years, and also Danny Jackson, who Brook has worked with for 21 years.  “My employees are very loyal, passionate and dedicated,” she said. Her third store, located in Sugar Land (a suburb of the Houston metro area), and a Houston-based commissary are currently under construction and scheduled to open in 2007.

When asked how the WBE certification had assisted in her success, Sara replied:  “My certification facilitated the opening of doors to corporate accounts that are the bread and butter of my business! I’m sure the doors would have opened eventually, but the WBE certification speeded the process considerably! I got a lot out of my participation on committees and programs, especially the mentoring program. I’m a HUGE believer in the value of a WBE certification and also the WBEA!!!”