This Philly pastry chef teaches amateurs, pros, and kids to level up their baking

Tatiana Wingate has been in the baking business for 15 years. In that time, she’s mastered the art of concentrating on two things at once.

“I can talk to you while I work,” she tells a visitor to her Society Hill bakery, Sprinkled Sweetness, as she handles a piping bag filled with royal icing. She pipes star-tipped bursts of forest green frosting onto a sugar cookie Christmas tree. She adds a squiggle of chestnut brown at the bottom for the trunk. Into the dehydrator the cookie goes, so the icing can set. Once it’s dry, she’ll brush white icing over the ridges of green and top it off with red berries, laid down with a series of staccato squeezes.

These are just a few of the motions, rhythms, and skills Wingate teaches in cookie-decorating classes. They’re offered when the bakery’s schedule allows — when she’s not whipping up cakes, baking up batches of custom cookies, or filling made-to-order beignets.

Wingate launched Sprinkled Sweetness Academy five years ago, starting with “Cakepreneurship,” a weeks-long class geared toward ambitious bakers as young as 8 years old.

“[The kids] would come decorate a thing and then we would go over business practices that little ones can understand, but it’s college-level stuff,” she explains. The students would go home and practice, then return for another round the following week. One particularly stellar student, Prospect Park’s Cydney Cain, appeared on Food Network’s Kids Baking Championship and launched her own bakery.

“As that started to gain popularity, the adults were like, ‘Wait a minute, we want to learn that also.’”

Since then, Wingate’s course selection has evolved into a rare mix of entry-level classes for adults (think Cakin’ with a Twist: cake decorating with wine and appetizers), serious schooling for serious kids (there’s a pastry-centric summer camp for kids who want to start their own business), and four-hour workshops for adult entrepreneurs looking to expand their knowledge.

“I have a lot of clients who have their own cottage businesses who were like, ‘We want to decorate on a higher level, or we need to know how we can become completely legal.’” She coaches adult clients on marketing, pricing, cost control, and more. She’s had several students quit second or part-time jobs to take their businesses full-time.

(Who’s easier to teach? Children, hands-down, she says. “Kids, you can give them 1-2-3-4, They’re gonna go 1-2-3-4. Adults, you go 1-2-3-4. We go 1-4-3-2-7-6.″)

Wingate herself graduated from a home-based business. She started Sprinkled Sweetness in 2007 and grew it over the years since, earning her degree from the Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College while working at other outfits. She took over the bakery at 510 S. Fifth St., formerly Homemade Goodies by Roz, in August 2021.

In the long lead-up to going brick-and-mortar, Wingate has diversified her business even beyond educational offerings. She sells homemade meringue powder, decorating supplies, and in the near future, the bakery’s cookie dough. She also takes orders for custom cookie cutters, thanks to a 3-D printer she invested in. She’s designed a number of her own shapes — including a lineup of Thanksgiving dinner cookie cutters — and fielded commissions for Fortnite-themed stamps.

Custom cakes remain the biggest slice of Sprinkled Sweetness’ overall business, but Wingate has a soft spot for cookies, especially when it comes to decorating them. “It’s like needlepoint or knitting,” she says. While cakes can be chaotic, cookies are relaxing. “For cookies, it’s like, ‘Let me sit in this little area and Zen out for a few hours.’”

Sprinkled Sweetness, 510 S. Fifth St., 215-309-2263, dessertsbysprinkledsweetness.com. To sign up for a class with Wingate, visit sprinkledsweetnessacademy.com.