I never had much of a sweet tooth.

Sure, I enjoyed candy and cake when I was a kid, but I outgrew it pretty early, and somehow I still get bewildered looks when I decline dessert at holiday dinners.

But there was one thing I never relinquished, that I eagerly awaited every year and still recall with mouthwatering regard: Groman’s Bakery seven-layer torte.

And I knew I would get one because my grandmother, Helen Jastrzemski, was a celebrated cake decorator at Groman’s for almost 50 years.

Born Helen Bailey in Manchester, England, she had been a cook in the British Army during the war. She met a Polish soldier, Kazimierz Jastrzemski, and they married and emigrated to the states. She walked into the old bakery on 13th Street in 1952 and was hired on the spot.

My grandparents were good friends with the Gromans, and they were wonderful, hilarious people who spent countless hours at that bakery and its more modern replacement on Second Avenue. She would arrive at 6 a.m. and decorate dozens of cakes every day, and he would drive delivery vans as the sun rose on weekends.

I would weave through the tables in the coffee shop and find my way to the decorating room, the aroma of that unique Groman’s icing thick in the air and the floors slick with flour and sugar. I wanted to play with the cake-toppers and watch as she created whole gardens of little flowers, pressing them out of a tube one petal at a time with machinelike precision.

Year after year after year my Nana gave style and color to the most important moments in people’s lives; birthdays and anniversaries and graduations. She made my own wedding cake. Sadly, she passed in 2004 and Groman’s closed while I was away, performing my own service in uniform, so my kids didn’t get to experience that taste that lingers for a lifetime. But my daughter, who loves baking, came with me to Kemmerer Museum to take photos and hear about our family history from Richard Groman Jr., who grew up with my father and aunt, and whose father helped build the bar in my Pop-Pop’s basement.

It wasn’t “just” a bakery. It touched so many lives for so many years because it was indelibly linked to traditions; daily routines and family celebrations. My family most of all.

I never had much of a sweet tooth, but more than sugary treats, Groman’s made memories that endure.