Specialty Bake Shop Opens Saturday

Baked By Angels holds its grand opening on Saturday at 9 a.m. with a selection of Linzer Torts, specialty cakes, custom designed cupcakes, shortbread cookie, Irish Soda Bread Scones and Popovers.  Owners Diane Banta and Phyllis Damiano share the baking duties at their Pearl River bakeshop.

Damiano of West Nyack makes all the cookies while Banta of Nanuet bakes the cakes and is in charge of much of the intricate decorating.

“She is very gifted with the molding of the fondant and sculpting,” Damiano said of her business partner. 

Damiano, who works for a pharmaceutical company, will be at the bakery evenings and on weekends. Banta will run it during the weekdays.

“We’re just two women trying to make it work,” said Damiano on Wednesday.

Damiano said neither one of them has had formal training in baking but both have a passion for it.

“I’ve been baking forever,” she said, adding that when she was 14 she worked one summer at a local bakery. Damiano said she has been baking cakes and cookies for family and friends’ special occasions since she was a teenager.

Cookies can be made in any shape and ordered with designs of the customer’s choosing, as can cakes or cupcakes.

“If people send a picture we do whatever they want,” she said, showing photos of prom dress, tuxedo and Star Wars character cookies and wedding and birthday cakes. 

Cookies come in chocolate chip or shortbread with buttercream or fondant topping. Popovers and Irish Soda Bread Scones will be available on weekends and cupcake flavors will change frequently. At least one gluten free product will be available daily and items can be ordered as well.

The two began setting up the 450 square foot bakery in February and had a soft opening on May 11 just before Mother’s Day. It is located at 3 Veterans Parkway in Pearl River off Middletown Road and close to the border of Nanuet. 

“I think it’s a perfect location,” she said.

On Saturday, would be customers can sample a chocolate Irish cream cake with Bourbon flavored infused butter cream frosting. Since Sunday is Father’s Day, Banta and Damiano created a “hamburger cupcake with cookie French fries” for $15 and “slider cupcakes with French fries” for $16.

Baked by Angels is open Tuesday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The phone number is 845-920-1818 and the bakery is on Facebook.