Just in time for the holidays, a new bakery is opening on Tues., Dec. 1 in the heart of Kingwood. Cakewalk Bakery in the Rustic Woods Shopping Center will provide custom cakes, pies, tarts and other hand-made baked goods.

Cakewalk’s proprietor is Ashley Wenner, a pastry chef and graduate of the Alain & Marie LeNotre Culinary Institute in Houston. Wenner honed her baking skills through working at Cakes & Culinary Creations and most recently Moody Gardens’ pastry department in Galveston.

She decided to branch out on her own after Hurricane Ike impacted the hospitality business in Galveston. Opening Cakewalk Bakery is a homecoming for Wenner, who grew up in Kingwood and graduated from Kingwood High School in 2002.

Her specialty is decorating cakes of all shapes and sizes to celebrate weddings, birthdays and special occasions. She insists that all her bakery products be made by scratch. “A lot of bakeries take the easy way out and use frozen product,” she explains. “Here everything will be homemade.”

Home is where Wenner first fell in love with baking. “I was always in the kitchen with my mother and grandmother when they were cooking,” she recalls. “I’d bake for my friends and family until they told me to stop because they were gaining too much weight!”

Wenner will utilize some of her tried-and-true family recipes at Cakewalk as well as others that she has perfected over the years. Some of her favorites are her grandma’s caramel cake, her great-grandma’s sweet potato pie and Cake Balls, cake mixed with icing then dipped in chocolate. Cake Balls are available in many flavors and can be decorated to fit sports, birthday, and holiday themes. Cakewalk will also offer miniature pastries which customers can just “grab and go” – perfect for a last-minute dessert.

Because Kingwood is her hometown, Wenner feels she has a good pulse on what her customers will want in a local bakery. “I have had so much positive feedback from people I know in the community,” she says. “They say that they welcome a good place for custom bakery items. I plan to offer something new and different which gives them the ‘wow factor.’”

Cakewalk is taking pre-orders for the holidays. Wenner invites the community to stop by and check out Cakewalk’s holiday menu.

The store is located at 4003 Rustic Woods Dr. next to Soccer 4 All. Store hours are: Tues. - Fri. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sat. 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information, call 281-360-0025 or contact cake.walk@hotmail.com