Valentine's Day sweets: Se7en Bites, P Is for Pie, B Cupcakes and the Soda Fountain

Confectioners are sometimes a forgotten segment of our city’s thriving artisanal food scene, yet it seems that with every passing week, new sweet shops materialize faster than crevices in your dentin. Salted caramel has become about as popular an ingredient as bacon, and, indeed, many of these savvy sugarmongers seduce us with both – the “dark chocolate salted peanut butter bacon crumble cupcake” at Se7en Bites being one prime example. Yes, it’s a mouthful, but what a mouthful it is. To help with your Valentine's Day sweets shopping, we take a closer look at four new shops that have mastered the art of hitting the sweet spot.

First up, the Milk District's Se7en Bites.

On any given weekend, the tables inside Se7en Bites will be occupied and the line to get into Trina Gregory-Propst’s bright (and tight) Milk District bakery will be out the door. Accept it; embrace it; ain’t nothing you can do about it. Once you’ve come to terms with that inevitability, you can go about enjoying some of the finest baked goods in the city. Cold hands make good pastry, so the saying goes, and Propst’s icy paws have landed her creations on some trendy tables (Fresh, Pom Pom’s) – creations like the salted caramel dark chocolate pecan mini pie ($7), with its phenomenally buttery crust. It’s the sweet that started it all for Propst, but the bandanna-wearing proprietor can just as easily finish you off with a lemon cupcake injected with huckleberry-vodka ganache and topped with Italian meringue ($3), or a double-fudge brownie with chocolate chips and espresso sea salt ($3.50). This is a sweet and savory bake shop, and I was hoping to try the chicken pot pie during one brunchtime visit, but they were fresh out, so we sampled a generous portion of a tomato, pesto and goat cheese quiche ($8.50), as well as the Se7en Benedict ($7.75) – crispy green tomato, over-medium egg, and two sublimely crispy pieces of baked (yes, baked) bacon in between dense biscuits we wished were served warm. The bakery’s name refers to the seven bites of food Propst was allowed to eat after gastric bypass surgery. For patrons of Se7en Bites, such limitations will undoubtedly be hard to stomach.

Se7en Bites: 207 N. Primrose Drive | 407-203-0727 | se7enbites.com

Next: P Is for Pie Bake Shop in Audubon Park.