by David Cecelski
On the way to a 60th wedding anniversary party the other day, we stopped at Bread of Heaven Bakery in Goldsboro. This is one of my favorite bakeries. Located in a little strip mall at 301 South Ash Street, Bread of Heaven has the feeling of a dessert table at a big church supper. They had tall, old-fashioned pineapple upside-down cakes there, fluffy banana cream pies, delectable-looking chocolate layer cakes, gorgeous lemon meringue pies, and a whole lot more.
The proprietor’s mother is Bread of Heaven’s chief cake baker and when you look at the bakery’s display case, you just know that her cakes have tempted the faithful for decades. The bakery’s inspiration is the church—a Holiness church, I believe—and its cakes are a fixture at local church suppers, weddings, homecomings, and funerals.
We bought a little sweet potato cake for the children to eat on the drive east and a sweet potato pie to take to the party. They were both wonderful. The flavor was the essence of sweet potatoes and, unlike most bakers, they didn’t over-do the sugar. I wasn’t trying to fool people at the anniversary party into thinking that we had made a homemade sweet potato pie, but I think we could have gotten away with it.
photos by David Cecelski
