Babylon Bakers Open Small Shop For Sweet Invention 'Shuga Pie'

BABYLON, NY — Micheline Cummings and her partner Terry Haughy are self-taught bakers who've been creating a unique confection for 12 years that they are now selling in a small Babylon Village shop called The Shuga Pie Cake Shop.

"The secret is out," Cummings joked to Patch. The Babylon bakers dubbed their invented treat "shuga pies," referencing how the round cakes look like whoopie pies, but are made of sugar, like a cake.

Cummings and Haughy operated Madame Butterfly Cakes in Babylon, creating custom cakes, for 20 years. It was there they started creating little round cake pieces with the cut-off pieces generated by the shaping of their elaborate wedding and event cakes. Two pieces of cake are held together by a frosting cream middle to make the shuga pie.

After closing Madame Butterfly due to the pandemic, along with a wholesale vegan bakery that sold desserts to Whole Foods, Cummings and Haughy decided to expand the shuga pie business. They opened a small shop with a walkup window in the alley that connects Deer Park Avenue to the municipal parking lot, next to popular taco joint Swell Taco.

All the sugar pies are vegan, but many non-vegans enjoy the taste and don't even realize the cakes are made without eggs or milk, Cummings explained to Patch.

"Customers were requesting [vegan desserts] because of the taste," she said.

"It should taste good: dessert, cake, cookies, shouldn't taste like health food. It should feel like dessert and be a little decadent."

The shuga pies, which feed one or two people, come in a range of classic favorite flavors like confetti, birthday cake, chocolate and cookies and cream and then new twists added to the menu weekly, like a banana flavor. The shop is open Thursdays 1 to 6 p.m., Fridays 12 to 6 p.m. and Saturdays 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. (until they sell out) but the couple hope to add more days this spring.

People are telling us "they've never been so excited to go down an alleyway," Cummings jokes.