Pastry chef Tatiana Wingate keeps a baking legacy alive with Sprinkled Sweetness in Society Hill

It’s Tatiana Wingate’s time. Sunday, Aug. 22 marks the soft opening of Sprinkled Sweetness, the dessert business she started 13 years ago out of her home in West Philadelphia.

Sprinkled Sweetness, a dessert bar and takeout counter with 12 seats inside and four outside, takes over from Homemade Goodies by Roz at 510 S. Fifth St. in Society Hill.

It is a homecoming of sorts for Wingate, who worked for Homemade Goodies owner Roz Bratt after graduating from the Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College. Bratt’s bakery closed in late May 2021 after 24 years.

Wingate owes her pastry career to her son, Malachi, 15, who is spending his summer vacation helping his mother set up the shop, alongside his grandmother (and Tatiana’s mother), Bernadine.

Wingate was a 17-year-old student at World Communications Charter School when she had him. For his second birthday, she figured out how to make him a Spongebob cake that not only impressed him, her friends, and her relatives, but gave her the confidence to start her business.

Then, she said, she wanted a formal education — not only in cooking but in marketing and administration — to grow her business more professionally. At age 20, she enrolled at the Restaurant School. While weighing a culinary career against a future in pastry, she said she came to a realization: Pastry chefs often work in the mornings, which allowed her to spend more time with Malachi.

All the while, Wingate grew Sprinkled Sweetness as a cottage business. Fans raved about her wedding and other occasion cakes, her decorated cookies and macarons, and her intricate portable desserts served in small, clear drinking glasses. (”I dream in buttercream” is part of her Instagram profile.)

After leaving Bratt’s bakery, she decorated cakes at Isgro Pastries in South Philadelphia before striking out on her own in September 2017. Then came a call earlier this year from Bratt, who was looking for a baker.

“We talked, and I needed help and she needed a place to make her cakes,” Bratt said. “One thing led to another, and the rest is history. I’m glad it’s gone to another baker. She’s an incredible decorator.”

Though the final interior decoration is a few weeks from completion, the shop is ready to go, with new equipment and a new floor.

Wingate said she has a simple mission for the shop: “I want to create a dessert experience that people haven’t had in Philly and to also help encourage people. I want to allow people to come into my kitchen and learn.”

Her line also includes vegan and gluten-free items and exactly one carry-over from Homemade Goodies: the challah. Though Sprinkled Sweetness is not kosher-certified, “I know how to twist,” Wingate said with a smile.

Sprinkled Sweetness, 510 S. Fifth St., Philadelphia, will be open from 1 to 6 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 23 for its soft opening. Regular hours thereafter will be 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.