From managing property to homeschooling to becoming a cheesecake specialist, it’s been a wild ride for Tracy Worsham. But now she’s fully settled into her new identity as the cheesecake lady, opening a business with only one type of dessert.
For about two years now, Worsham’s been running her specialty cheesecake business, Très Bien Cheesecakes online, selling handmade cheesecakes to the Baton Rouge community. Wanting to branch out after years of homeschooling her son, Worsham decided on cheesecake because it was something she could make perfectly.
“I couldn’t bake anything else. It was horrible, I had baked a cake and it didn’t even rise,” Worsham said. “I threw it in the backyard and the ants wouldn’t even eat it. I tried cheesecakes, and I baked them for my family and they started requesting them, and that’s basically how it starts.”
Using her grandma’s cheesecake recipe for over 15 years, Worsham perfected variations on cheesecake types, with 19 different cheesecakes now available for order. While she’s accustomed to the work, cheesecakes take special effort, needing to be baked in a water bath and taking around 48 to 52 hours in order to come out perfectly.
Worsham doesn’t mind putting in the effort, though, saying that she loves her cheesecake business, meeting new people, marketing to the clientele she wants and brightening people’s days with her desserts. So far, she’s had nothing but positive responses.
“When you go and put yourself out there, it can be scary because you’re putting your creation out there, you’re putting yourself out there,” Worsham said. “You have to accept the positive and negative. We’ve got five-star ratings, and I haven’t had any bad reviews. Nobody hates to see the cheesecake lady coming.”
She’s had a lot of interesting experiences, getting requests from all over the place, including one from Mexico, and even getting recognized when she was eating with her husband at a restaurant selling her cheesecakes.
“I went and put my cheesecake card on the counter and we started walking out,” Worsham said. “And all of a sudden, there was this rustling of people around my cards and all of a sudden I heard, ‘The cheesecake lady’s here! The cheesecake lady’s here!’ And I stopped and I turned around and smiled and introduced myself to these people.”
Right now, she wants to keep her business small to guarantee cheesecake quality, as well as balance it with her personal life, but she’s always open for requests. Her specialties include Simply Strawberry, Blueberry Swirl, Bananas Foster and Turtle cheesecakes.
