Decadent Delight

Dessert, pastry shop in Deda's old spot

by Sally Mitani

posted 1/25/2010

Cheesecake is for sale again at 416 West Huron, the tiny shop in a wonderfully forgotten little warren of buildings under a railroad trestle. Originating as Sandy Ryder's Say Cheese, it became Deda's Bakery and closed in 2008. It is now Decadent Delight.

Owner Bryant Stuckey, thirty-five, is gracefully athletic--he looks more like a tennis player than a guy who spends all day up to his elbows in butter. He's been in the dessert business at least ten years. He graduated from pastry school in Chicago in 1999, then worked in Lincoln Park's Bittersweet Pastry Shop before moving to Ann Arbor seven years ago with wife, Gwen Harrigan, to start a family (they now have two kids). He started Decadent Delight in 2003, mainly as a wedding and specialty cake business, and moved into the Huron Street space a year ago, but "the wedding season kind of caught up with me," he says, and he finally opened for walk-in business in November.

In addition to cheesecake and his wedding cakes, Stuckey sells petite, high-layer cakes, and a selection of small one- or two-serving treats: cupcakes topped with a large ruffle of buttercream, miniature tiramisus, fruit-topped creme brulees. His holiday cookies are so beautifully decorated that one customer gasped "Did you make those yourself?" and then flushed, realizing the question was vaguely insulting. OK, that person writes for Marketplace Changes--and yes, Stuckey does make them himself.

Decadent Delight, 416 W. Huron. 761-8740. Tues.-Fri. 8 a.m.-4 p.m., Sat. 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Closed Sun. & Mon. decadentdelight.com   

[Originally published in January, 2010.]