A little Southern. A little old-world. Never boring.
Nightshade & Sugar is a small-batch cottage bakery in Oklahoma City making pies, tarts, Scotch scones, and confections with bold flavors, good pastry, and a healthy suspicion of anything too predictable.
The menu is rooted in the food I grew up with, the places I’ve lived, and the things I actually want to eat.
Hi! I’m Elise.
I grew up with one foot in the South and another in Europe, which probably explains a lot about the way I bake.
There’s Texas and Alabama in the mix: fruit pies, butter, pecans, familiar flavors, things meant to be shared.
But there’s also the childhood I spent in Europe, where scones, Bakewell tarts, marmalade, pastry, and afternoon tea never felt particularly exotic. They were just food.
Nightshade & Sugar lives somewhere between those two worlds.
I’m less interested in making desserts that are elaborate for the sake of being elaborate and more interested in making something you take a bite of and immediately want another one.
Good pastry. Strong flavors. A little history. A little mischief.
That’s the idea.
Why the Poison Cabinet?
Nightshade & Sugar started with a contradiction I liked: something beautiful, tempting, and maybe just a little dangerous.
That idea eventually became product names like Sweet Cyanide, Velvet Hemlock, Forbidden Fruit, Black Briar, and Mourning Biscuit.
The names aren’t dark just for decoration. The best ones have a reason behind them—an ingredient, a bit of food history, a botanical connection, or some strange little fact that sent me down a rabbit hole.
That curiosity is also where Notes From the Apothecary came from.
I like knowing why flavors work together, where recipes came from, and how something people have been eating for hundreds of years ends up on a small-batch bakery menu in Oklahoma City.
Small Menu. Serious Intentions.
You won’t find custom fondant cakes, twelve kinds of cupcakes, or a hundred-item menu here.
I’d rather make a smaller number of things well:
Pies. Tarts. Scotch scones. Confections.
Some stay on the menu. Others show up for a season and disappear again.
Everything is made in small batches and sold by preorder for local pickup in Oklahoma City.
Made by hand. Made with intention. Never boring.
A classic apple pie still gets to be a classic apple pie.
But blackberry might get thyme.
Cherry might get almond.
Shortbread might show up dressed for a funeral.
And sometimes dessert gets named after poison.
That feels about right.