[passing on the love] sugar

one of the most important things to me as a small business owner is to see other entrepreneurs and small businesses succeed! i firmly believe in the benefits of community and this believe exists in my professional life just as much as it does in my personal life!! and, i want to make sure that the world knows about the awesome people i get to know and work with as a part of my own small enterprise!! thus, i have created the passing on the love interview series, a monthly feature that introduces you to someone great and gives a little insight to who they are [and what their business can offer you]!!  

my very good friend, kristen has just launched her own business! sugar is a bakery devoted to providing super tasty [and sugary] treats that both your palette and your eyes will feast on!

last week i spent some time with kristen while she baked and took this opportunity to 'interview' her for a new series of blog posts i hope to keep up with [it is my desire to support and promote other local businesses. i believe that helping other businesses grow and reach their goals is an important part of making any small business successful!!].

so internet, please meet kristen, proprietor and baking extraordinaire of sugar.

what is it about baking that excites you?

there are a few things really. it’s partly interesting flavour combinations – those that are new or unique that you cannot find just anywhere, or making a little twist with an old classic, like reinventing it or giving it a new life. for example, the classic chocolate chip cookie becomes the matcha green tea chocolate chip cookie or, taking the traditional blueberry buttermilk scone and doing a peach blueberry thyme scone instead!

where do these interesting flavour combinations come from? what is your inspiration?

inspiration is drawn from a variety of sources, dependant on who is ordering, what is being ordered or what I think people might want. when baking for the bistro [on the boulevard] i will look online for the latest flavour trends. white chocolate raspberry lime cheesecake was popping up everywhere [on food blogs and food shows] so i took this trend and turned it into a scone flavour. my strawberry cream scone is a take on the traditional strawberry shortcake. the popular lavender earl grey cupcake became the lavender earl grey scone, and i added vanilla bean because i love to layer flavours.

inspiration also comes from flavours that i love myself. i love turkish delight, my favourite kinds being pistachio, and rose. thus inspiring the white chocolate pistachio scone infused with rose water. for me its kind of... oh I don’t know! it’s like it is just in me to be adventurous with flavours. and not just any flavours but ingredients that work well together. but my excitement for flavour? now that came from my mom. 

what would you say is the flavour combination that has excited you the most? the combination that has your mouth watering?

oh, i don’t know!  i really loved the peach blueberry thyme and lemon combination. the thyme and the lemon is so fresh and earthy with the fruit. that is what summer tastes like to me. it’s not that adventurous but it’s just such a beautiful combination... it’s not even mine [invention].

so you mentioned that baking the same traditional things or composing the same flavours over and over becomes daunting and takes on the feelings of a chore rather than excitement. can you explain that?

i really like to have some creative license or liberty with what i am baking because it is super fun for me to come up with things. but when it’s at someone else’s expensive that can be stressful too! i would feel awful if someone asked me something and i gave them something i thought was good but it didn’t sell. ‘cause certainly don’t think i have my finger on the pulse of the st. stephen palette... everyone’s tastes are so diverse. 

you seem to have found your creative outlet for this season in your life or perhaps embraced your first creative love.  baking seems to give you a way to express the creative inside you!

 yes. and you know i find it doesn’t just end with the product. it’s how it is packaged, delivered and too, which appeals to the other part i me that loves design and pretty things and is inspired by design and pretty things. 

you mentioned that your excitement for flavour comes from you mom. do you want to talk about that a little?

my mom i think was a bit of genius when it comes to cooking. she told me she didn’t know how to cook when she married my dad so she took classes at the community center but she was cooking for my dad’s palette back then, which was liver and onions [gagging sound]. i don’t what happened exactly, but as my dad became successful [in his work] they were able to try out expensive restaurants, which i think helped my mom appreciate food more. and as soon as my mom starting appreciating food and what could be done with food, that became her art form. she was a very creative lady and i think that once she found an outlet and something that she had a gift for... with this discovery, something just exploded like fireworks. and she began making classic dishes with a twist, and it almost became game at the dinner table for us, guessing what she put in. “oh i taste thyme or i taste garlic...” all these different flavours we would learn. she eventually went to culinary school in london [le cordon bleu], which ultimately gave her the credentials to be who she already was. and every time i came home  [on break] from school she would be testing new recipes and always asking me “tell me, what do you think of this?” she would have beaten a chicken breast to it’s last life and then rolled inside some toasted nuts and berries and cheese inside and then wrapped that in pastry or something crazy. it was so delicious! just being around my mom made everything more interesting. 

 every job, even ones that we LOVE, has parts that are not very appealing. what is that ‘thing’ for you?

DISHES! but what i have turned [the dishes] into is my catharsis. it has to be something that is relaxing or a wind down from the baking. because the baking is king of a rush or a real high and there is always a bit of trepidation, “oh is it going to turn out? is it going to taste good?” and then when it is done and it turns out exactly how you wanted it to be it’s like “aaAhhhH!” [squeal!].  it’s this strange euphoria, and to wind down from that, I put on a movie and pour a glass of wine, or if it’s a bbc movie it has to be tea in a pretty cup.

   

i had to leave before the cake was completed, but i did get a little taste test put together with scraps! oh my goodness, devil's food cake with rich chocolate buttercream and fresh raspberries: devine!

you can follow kristen’s journey with ‘sugar’ on her blog, like her on facebook, and order her goodies online using this form.

love and sunshine,
shannon-may