The Classics is an occasional series that spotlights and celebrates Houston’s oldest bars and restaurants.

Sara Brook's love for baking dates back to when she was just 4 years old, in preschool, anxious for her turn to mix cake batter in class. That same enthusiasm for the culinary art persists today, just in a bigger setting. 

This month, her Houston-based bakery, Dessert Gallery, is commemorating 30 years, with a birthday blowout complete with an assortment of decorated cookies with customers’ faces printed on them, plus Brook’s favorite Cosmic Birthday Cake. This assembly of chocolate meringue, chocolate mousse, mocha mousse, brownie, and dark chocolate is so complicated to make that it appears on the menu only twice a year—once for the bakery’s birthday and again for Brook’s birthday in March. “I’ve been very fortunate to be able to make a career out of doing what I love,” she says. 

But one of Houston’s most renowned bakers didn’t always believe owning a bakery was her calling. The fifth-generation Houstonian studied computer science and sociology at the University of Texas at Austin before pursuing a career in law, a lifestyle she quickly realized wasn’t for her. “I was working in the law firm, getting experience, and I thought it was awful. I just thought, ‘There is no way I can do this all day, every day,'’’ she says. “I just wanted to bake."

At 21, Brook transformed her mother’s kitchen into her own at-home bakery and launched her first company, the Executive Sweet. It flourished from 1979 to 1988, when she sold it. Brook’s entrepreneurial spirit struck again just a week after the sale. She tapped into the catering world with Sara Brook Desserts, stunning customers with her chocolate sauce, which she marketed nationally and transformed into the Great Chocolate Cover Up.  

After receiving an offer she couldn’t refuse, Brook sold the chocolate sauce company and thought she would eventually leave baking for the corporate world. But while interviewing for jobs, she determined once again that the 9-to-5 life wasn’t for her, especially not as a single mom. That’s when she started Dessert Gallery. “I had my little 5-year-old with me wherever I went,” she says. “I knew I could pick her up at school and bring her back to the bakery. I didn’t have to put her in day care, and that was a big deal to me.” 

Since that leap of faith in 1995, Dessert Gallery has been a hit, creating 30 years of sweet treats and memories. Technological advances and popular baking fads have helped fuel the company’s changes and growth, but one thing has remained constant, Brook says: the love she puts into each dessert. “Trends come and go, but we’ve always stayed true to old-fashioned, homemade desserts from the heart,” Brook says.

Dessert Gallery staples include a diner carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, milk-soaked tres leches, her beloved chocolate-dipped chocolate chunk cookies, and seasonal specialties, including cupcakes of all sorts, and other sweets like truffles, brownie balls, and pecan pie bars. 

These indulgences have served as mementos at the bakery throughout the years—for engagements, couple photo shoots, and even anniversaries, including its own. The bakery’s 20th-year milestone marked the first rebrand of the company, led by Brook’s daughter, making it extra special. “I was terrified, but I trusted her,” Brook says. “It breathed new life into the company and set us up for an incredible decade.” 

In February 2024, Dessert Gallery expanded to The Woodlands with its second location, following years of data showing that the suburb was the bakery’s second-largest market. A year later, it joined Goldbelly, a national marketplace for gourmet food and food gifts, which means Brook can share and ship her beloved baked goods beyond the Houston area. 

For Brook, the success is a pinch-worthy moment. She’s proud of herself and her team for creating a Houston mainstay. “[I’m] just very grateful and looking forward to what’s next,” she says. 

If you go

Dessert Gallery will host its 30th anniversary celebration on Friday, September 19, transforming its Kirby location into a birthday party with purple and teal balloons and an Instagram-worthy photo wall. Diners who visit between 2 and 5pm can snap photos to be featured on their own cookie, free with the purchase of a dessert. Those who attend from 6 to 8pm can participate in trivia and competitions. 3600 Kirby Dr #D, Upper Kirby