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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Blissful Whisk satisfies sweet tooth of Spokane Valley customers, dental patients

Liberty Lake resident Tiffany Cable was working at her family’s robotics company when she made a career change, going to culinary school and opening her bakery, Blissful Whisk. (Colin Mulvany / The Spokesman-Review)

When Blissful Whisk owner Tiffany Cable was attending the Inland Northwest Culinary Academy at Spokane Community College, she had her heart set on opening a bakery in her neighborhood.

Cable wanted to buy a site near Barker Road and Mission Avenue in Spokane Valley, but a month before her graduation, dentist Owen Packard purchased the land to build a medical office and dental practice.

She heard that Packard was looking for tenants and asked him about leasing the space next door.

“I brought him a big box of baked goods and pitched him my plan,” she said.

Packard said he didn’t anticipate that Lakeside Dental would share a building with a bakery, but changed his mind after meeting Cable.

“I was thinking of a medical office and a sweet shop seemed like a conflict of interest,” he said. “But then I met Tiffany, and I could see that she was passionate and she was going to be successful, so I decided, ‘Let’s do it.’ ”

Now, Blissful Whisk and Lakeside Dental will be celebrating their grand opening at 1612 N. Barker Road on 10 a.m.-noon Saturday, featuring baked goods and giveaways.

The 3,500-square-foot bakery offers a variety of desserts, such as huckleberry scones, snickerdoodles, turnovers, danishes and “brookies” – a combination of a brownie topped with a chocolate chip cookie. The bakery also serves specialty drinks from Ionic Coffee and Arctos Coffee.

Blissful Whisk already has received a positive response from customers since its soft opening Memorial Day weekend.

“It’s been really heartwarming with all the people that have come out and said they’ve driven or walked by every day and watched the building’s progress,” Cable said. “They are excited that now we’re finally open. There’s nothing really out here like it.”

Lakeside Dental has even decided to provide some of Blissful Whisk’s delectable desserts in its reception area to customers.

“They are very nice people,” Cable said, referring to the dental practice. “We kind of support each other.”

Cable, before making a career shift to bakery owner, was a controller for her family’s Spokane Valley-based robotics company, Ace Production Technologies.

“It was a good job, and it provided for my family and everything, but it wasn’t my love. I just always loved baking,” she said. “We sold the business in 2016, and I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do. I just knew I didn’t want to do accounting anymore, and my kids had just gone off to college. I had a lot of free time, so it was the perfect time to decide if I wanted something new.”

Cable is planning a rotating menu for the bakery’s desserts, which are made from a combination of old family favorites and newer recipes that she learned to prepare at the Inland Northwest Culinary Academy.

“I really wanted to have a revolving menu because I don’t want to get bored and I don’t want my customers to get bored,” she said. “I want to try new things, and if someone requests something, I’ll try to figure out how to make it.”

Cable said it was challenging building a business from the ground up, but Spokane-based Baker Construction made her vision for the bakery come to life. It features touches of Tiffany blue paint, teacups and a large whisk light made from a Hobart mixer dating to the early 1900s that sits on the bakery’s counter.

“We just kind of went with the whisk theme. I’m really proud of how it came out. It was just really fun to work with (Baker Construction),” she said. “Every week we would have a construction meeting to go over the (building) progress, and I would bring baked goods for all the construction workers, so that was really fun. They gave me feedback on my recipes along the way.”

Blissful Whisk has eight employees, including Cable’s best friend, Gena Ceresero, co-owner of Palenque Mexican Restaurant in Liberty Lake.

Ceresero, who works at the bakery’s front counter, said business has been steady since the soft opening.

“Every day, it’s getting better and better,” she said. “The pace has been manageable this week, and we are still hitting our goals, which is nice.”

Cable will offer breakfast and lunch options within a couple of weeks that include avocado toast and croissant sandwiches. She is also planning a membership-based care package plan for customers to “send a little piece of home to their family and friends.”

Blissful Whisk features an adjacent “teaching kitchen” that can be closed off for monthly high tea events and birthday parties. Cable aims to host after-school programs in the space to teach kids how to bake.

“I want people to come in and hang out with their kids,” she said. “I want it to be a community place.”