Cakes, Chocolates & More heart cake and cupcake, Butters Brownies, Box o' Chocolates from the Austin Gift Box Credit: Photo by John Anderson

Luxe Sweets

241-1544
www.luxesweets.com

Austin-based husband-and-wife team Soraiya and Azim Nagree is the heart and soul of Luxe Sweets. Seeking her passion for food, Soraiya left her job as a chemical engineer to undertake Le Cordon Bleu pastry program at Texas Culinary Academy and soon was baking up a storm, with Azim as her taste-tester. They now have an online business that delivers handmade cookies, biscotti, bark, fudge, brownies, and other goodies – made from scratch using only the finest ingredients – to your home or office.

Luxe Sweets is not a stranger to the Austin Chocolate Festival, having taken first, second, and third places in three of the four categories they entered, with their chock-full chocolate-chip cookie earning the Best Cookie honors. Some of their products are available in retail stores around town, including Oakville Grocery, 3309 Esperanza Crossing #100, in the Domain. Their cookies are at Royal Blue Grocery, 247 W. Third, and Texpresso, 2700 W. Anderson; the biscotti are at Trianon the Coffee Place, 3201 Bee Caves Rd. #163; and the classic French-style macaroons are at Whole Foods; these are crispy meringues on the outside with a fluffy biscuit texture on the inside, sandwiched with a creamy icing inside.

Of course, they have a special lineup of treats for Valentine’s Day, including French maca­roons in red raspberry, chocolate, pink rose, purple lavender, and yellow lemon, plus heart-shaped linzer cookies, hazelnut-strawberry bark, rose-infused fudge, and raspberry-pistachio chocolate cake. Ordering through the website is a piece of cake (oh, I just had to!) – just make sure to give them 48 hours’ notice for delivery. What a cool idea for surprising a loved one, right? – Claudia Alarcón

This article appears in February 8 • 2008.

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Kate Thornberry worked in renowned Austin restaurants for 30 years while pursuing a reasonably successful career in music. She began contributing to the Chronicle in 1988 and became a regular contributor to the food section in 2006.

Mexico City native Claudia Alarcón has made Austin home since 1984. She worked her way through college in the local restaurant industry, graduating from the University of Texas in 1999. She has been a Chronicle contributor for 15 years and presents lectures and workshops on topics related to the foodways of Mexico, both locally and internationally.