Just desserts: Celestial sweets

Entrepreneur creates chocolate-dipped treats inside pizzeria

By JAN HOGAN
VIEW STAFF WRITER

Photos By Louie Traub/ViewTop, Jennifer Liberti, president of Heavenly Dipped, creates a chocolate-covered strawberry for her business, which operates inside of D?Amore?s Pizza, 2101 N. Rainbow Blvd. Below, some of the treats sold by the business are displayed at the site.

She seems to have boundless energy.
Jennifer Liberti, an East Coast transplant, works as a cigarette girl at Caesars Palace at night and spends her days as a pastry chef for D'Amore's Pizza, 2101 N. Rainbow Blvd.
That's also where she prepares goodies for her new business, Heavenly Dipped. The relationship evolved after Liberti met the pizza parlor owner and asked for business advice.
The venture features items such as fresh fruit, pretzels and marshmallows, all of them dipped in chocolate.
"She's killing me, it's so good," said Joe D'Amore Jr., who runs the northwest restaurant. "I'm trying something different here every day."
His father, recently in town from California, where the family has eight pizza parlors, agreed.
"Here we are, specializing in low-fat pizza, and she makes this," he joked.
Business has been so brisk since Liberti started it six months ago, it's caused her to add a catering arm and a wholesale arm.
"She has way more energy than I do," said Kayli Bjornsen, a Realtor. "She's like the Energizer Bunny."
The Internet helps generate business. To keep it all going, Liberti sleeps only four or five hours a night and has even stayed up 24 hours to complete orders, she explained.
"That day, I lived on Red Bull," she joked.
Megan Payne, owner of Makeup In The 702, uses Heavenly Dipped in bridal showers goodie bags.
"Who wouldn't want a big, juicy strawberry dipped in chocolate, to take home, instead of a party favor that you throw away?" she said.
Liberti herself doesn't eat any of her chocolate-dipped goodies. OK, so only once in a while.
"I don't like to eat it, I just like making it," she explained. "What do they say? 'Never trust a skinny cook' -- but I'm running around so much, I stay thin."
After college, the New York native worked in business accounting and created 3-D cakes on the side. Realizing that was what made her happy, Liberti took a new tack and enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.
The demanding course included studying chocolate under Daniel Budd, known for creating the White House chocolate centerpiece for the Clintons' annual Easter celebration.
For her internship requirement, she headed west and landed a job as a sous chef at the Rio.
But trying to determine how to make 5,000 desserts in the shortest amount of time took its toll on the culinary school graduate and so she struck out on her own, she said.
Her interest in angels prompted the name of the business. "I'm not out to make a lot of money or be famous," she said. "If I could just do this, make my chocolates, I'd be happy."
For more information, visit www.heavenlydipped.com.