With its warm ambiance and rows of baked goods and desserts on view, World Catering & Bakery has more layers than just what’s in the cakes. The space hosts a day-time café, too, that offers a coffee bar and take-out and sit-down meals. It also creates catered cakes for weddings and other celebrations.
Customers seeking cakes for momentous days can browse the selection of white, chocolate, and specialty cakes. The bestselling cake is the vanilla bean rum, which is a white cake flavored with vanilla bean rum syrup and elevated with buttercream icing. The next most popular cake is the Strawberry Fields: a butter cake accentuated by fresh strawberry jam filling and cream cheese icing.
“That is generally what I bring to people when I take cakes with me to events. It’s always a hit,” Monica Allen, co-owner and pastry chef, said. All their cakes can be customized to personal preferences and visions when ordered at least 72 hours in advance.
Inspired by cultures around the world, the desserts live up to the business’ name in the form of Swedish tortes, tres leches, tiramisu, South American alfajores, and Russian tea cookies. Other popular desserts are lemon tarts and cherry pies. Cookie standouts include Canadian maple crunch, island coconut chew and chocolate chip squares.
For comfort food, the most popular hot sandwich is the Cuban sandwich, and their most popular cold sandwich is the grilled chicken salad sandwich. According to Allen, most customers say that this Cuban sandwich is “the closest thing to an authentic Cuban sandwich they’ve had in Houston.”
My personal favorites at this spot are the Cuban sandwich and their new mini cherry pies. A savory combination of slow-roasted pork, sliced ham, Swiss cheese, pickles, and mustard on homemade ciabatta bread, the Cuban is flavorful and delicious. A delightful burst of rich flavor at the right level of sweetness, their mini pies are biscuit-like: an outer layer of cloud-shaped crust stuffed with a jam-like filling and fresh cherries.
Allen and co-owner Meagan Curtis are trained chefs with a culinary school background. Both have earned the titles of pastry chef and pastry specialist.
Allen explained that part of the quality of their business springs from the sincere unity of their partnership since she is Black while Curtis is not.
“We are women-owned. I think that is a feat in itself – not only the fact that I am a woman of color, but the fact that a woman of color and a woman that is not of color can come together and be as unified as Meagan and I are,” she said.
“I don’t care if you are blue or pink; I want you at World Catering Bakery. I don’t care if you are poor or rich; I want you at World Catering Bakery. Family doesn’t stop at the employees; we extend it to the customers as well,” she added.
World Catering & Bakery
1073 Silber Rd.
Houston, TX 77055
(713) 780-4351
https://www.
Sunday 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Monday – Friday 7 a.m.. – 4:30 p.m.
Saturday CLOSED
— by Nicole Ting
