Photos by Chris Loomis FAITH WIPPERMAN  dons a red velvet cake hat; sweater, earrings and necklace provided by Bunky Boutique in Phoenix.

From designing couture chocolate for celebrities to baking old-fashioned breads or in-vogue vegan cupcakes, these local pastry pros create the
 crème de la crème of confectionary. Their jobs sound pretty, well, sweet.

Faith Wipperman
Lon’s at the Hermosa
Alice Cooper sang, “I’m 18, and I don’t know what I want.” Faith Wipperman is that age but knows exactly what she wants: a career in the kitchen.

Beyond that, the possibilities are open.

“Ultimately, there are many different ways to stay in the kitchen,” she says. “I could travel with major hotel chains, open my own restaurant.”

For now, though, the young Tolleson resident is a pastry cook at the revered Lon’s at the Hermosa.

“Cake is my second-favorite food group,” she says (bread is the first), adding that it’s her signature dish. Dessert “speaks to people,” she says.

She started an externship at Lon’s in February 2009 and in May was hired on. By the second week, she was working dinner shifts solo, even whipping up specials such as red velvet cake.

“We sold every single piece we made,” she says. “That was a confidence booster.”

Desserts with hot-and-cold combinations also intrigue her, such as a cake she made filled with chilled fruit and topped with hot, crispy meringue. Her “nemesis,” she says, is pie dough, but she’s getting the hang of it.

Wipperman showed ambition and promise early on. In high school she was part of C-CAP, the Careers in Culinary Arts Program, and snagged a scholarship to attend the Arizona Culinary Institute. She completed a nine-month program, which is geared toward those who want to cook rather than pursue careers in things like hotel management or corporate food sales.

And in November, she won the American Culinary Federation Chefs Association of Arizona’s Foodservice Student Chef of the Year award.

But Wipperman rejects the label “gifted,” saying, “I’ve put in a lot of hard work, I’ve put in a lot of hours, I practice for every competition.”

Info: Lon’s at the Hermosa, 5532 N. Palo Cristi Road, Paradise Valley; 602-955-7878, lons.com

BRYAN MOK  wears a hot chocolate cupcake (cayenne-infused chocolate cupcake with vanilla frosting) boutonniere.

Bryan Mok
Twisted V Creations
“Vegan cupcake” sounds like an oxymoron. But Bryan Mok of Phoenix one day decided to create a treat that wasn’t just “good for being vegan,” but “it’s good and everybody likes it,” he says.

That’s what spurred Twisted V Creations, a one-man business making cupcakes with no eggs, dairy or honey. He does custom orders and sells out of Toast (formerly Drip Coffee Lounge) in Phoenix.

And yes, people like them – partly because his flavors are never run-of-the-mill. He’ll put his PB&J, strawberry lemonade, margarita, green tea or chocolate with Cabernet sauce up against anyone’s plain-old pastries.

Mok, a vegetarian, was a graphic designer laid off in 2008 with time on his hands and a love of cooking. His Chinese parents owned a restaurant outside of Los Angeles, and his mother was a professional chef and baker.

“You can’t not know how to cook if you grew up in my house,” he says. Vegan cupcakes posed a challenge, but he combined chemistry, experimentation and a passion for food to make vegan goodies that are not merely edible, they’re delicious.

“I don’t tell people up front they’re vegan, just to see if they notice,” he says. “I’ve had people who are the most anti-vegan try my food and really like it.”

And don’t be fooled into thinking they’re health food – they taste too good for that.

Mok’s business started with a chance encounter. He had lunch with a friend, who liked his wares and tried to convince him to start a baking business. He wasn’t swayed, but on the way home, he stopped for tea and overheard a woman at the next table on her cell phone calling around asking for vegan cupcakes for her vegan friend’s birthday.

“It was the most random thing ever,” Mok says. “I took it as a strange sign.”

Info: Toast, 2327 N. Seventh St., Phoenix, 602-820-5512; Twisted V Creations, twistedv.com

KELLIE HUNTINGTON  shows off a sugar cookie pendant dangling from a necklace of lemon tarts, ‘scotcharoo’ bars and coconut-chip bars.

Kellie Huntington
Sweet Cakes Café
When you want made-from-scratch baked goods just like Grandma used to make, you go to Sweet Cakes Café in downtown Mesa.

You won’t find fancy mousses or soufflés here. Instead, real-life grandmother Kellie Huntington churns out scotcharoos, cinnamon rolls, lemon bars and numerous flavors of cookies the size of dinner plates, among other classic treats.

Huntington, a fourth-generation Mesan, comes from a long line of cooks. Her grandmother lived in Africa, Brazil, the Philippines and other exotic locales, where she cooked for ambassadors. Her mother baked pies for the mayor of Mesa. Two of Huntington’s sisters are caterers; one has a cooking show in Utah.

The family would crank out dozens of pies each year on the day before Thanksgiving, and neighbors started requesting them. They also baked for church boutiques – one year, they sold 600.

In 2004, Huntington went into Sweet Cakes and told the owner she was jealous, because she’d always wanted her own shop. To her surprise, he said he might be willing to sell it. She soon became its fifth proprietor.

“Six weeks later, I owned the place,” she says. “I was in banking for 20 years. It was a big leap of faith to do this.”

She changed most of the recipes, save for the five-layer brownie – “I couldn’t improve on it,” she says – and has cultivated a devoted following.

Now, three of her four children work at Sweet Cakes, and her son’s wife makes all the cupcakes. Her husband also worked there for a year after he was laid off.

Huntington has expanded the space twice and in late 2009 was stretching again, putting in a yogurt and dessert bar to attract the after-school crowd and Mesa Arts Center patrons before and after shows.

Info: Sweet Cakes Café, 21 W. Main St., Mesa; 480-461-9529, sweetcakescafe.com

REUF DRAGOLJ  sports a homemade chocolate brownie tie; hat provided by Bunky Boutique in Phoenix.

Reuf Dragolj
Bread Basket Bakery
It’s not easy for small businesses to hold their own against big companies, especially when it comes to baked goods.

“It’s hard to compete with a factory bakery,” says Reuf Dragolj, who bought Bread Basket Bakery in Scottsdale in 2006 with a partner, taking it over from its original owners. “They make 10,000 buns, we make 100.”

But he found a niche with breads and pastries free of preservatives and additives, such as high-fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils. All sweets, except for sugar cookies, are made with brown sugar instead of refined white sugar.

“We do everything the old-fashioned way,” he says. “Most of it is done by hand.”

Some of the recipes are carried over from the original owners, but others – including the decadent chocolate-dipped brownies, ginger cookies and cinnamon bread (“it makes excellent French toast,” Dragolj says) – are his own creations. Macaroons, oatmeal cookies, sugar cookies and scones also are popular.

For the more health-conscious, he sells high-fiber, fat-free muffins made with oats, applesauce, organic whole-wheat flour, honey, baking powder, sea salt and fruit. Pastries average about $1.50 each.

Originally from Bosnia, Dragolj, now of Phoenix, learned to bake by secretly watching his mother. “In Bosnia, it’s embarrassing for guys to cook,” he says. “My dad doesn’t believe I’m doing baking. He never cooked anything in his life.”

He left Bosnia and lived in Germany and Poland before moving to California in 1998. A trained electrical technician, he knew no English when he came to the U.S.

Now, the fluent and personable Dragolj sells wholesale to Whole Foods, Sunflower Market and restaurants such as Roka Akor and Papago Brewing Company, as well as three farmers’ markets and his storefront at Camelback and Miller roads.

“Eighty percent of my customers are people who are here at least once a week,” he says. “Some of them are here every day.”

Info: 4436 N. Miller Road, Scottsdale; 480-423-0113, bbasketbakery.com

JULIA BAKER drapes herself in her work: a two-tiered cake-like structure that mimics her one-of-a-kind wedding cakes, and a stunning, layered chocolate bodice.

Julia Baker
Julia Baker Confections
The aptly named Julia Baker didn’t start out in her chosen field. Her palate developed while she traveled the world working as a statistician for a software firm.

“I really fell in love with Wolfgang Puck and Charlie Trotter and knew that was what I wanted to do,” she says.

She moved to Paris in 2000, trained at Le Cordon Bleu and worked at the lauded Lasserre and Le Grand Vefour restaurants before moving to Paradise Valley for love. The relationship fizzled, but a new business bloomed.

After getting a gig making chocolate amenities for VIPs at Sanctuary Resort and Spa, Baker’s work caught the eyes of celebrity guests, and she started creating custom chocolates and cakes for stars such as Bono, Britney Spears, Alicia Keys and Paris Hilton.

She launched her retail chocolate line in December 2007 and went national in February 2008, getting attention for her eye-catching, faux Louis Vuitton handbag packaging.

“My other passion in life is couture,” she says. “Even the cakes I do are highly influenced by fashion designers.”

But Baker knows that while creative design is important, taste is numero uno. Her artisan chocolates are made with top-notch ingredients and no preservatives.

People appreciate quality even in a down economy, she says, but she has modified her price plans: She now offers two-piece truffle boxes at AJ’s Fine Foods for $5, instead of only larger boxes. Wedding cakes have been downsized, too, averaging $2,500 per cake instead of $5,000.

Baker’s next move is to market a chocolate bar for $5 or $6 to allow her to go mainstream. But her specialty market is still strong: At press time she was set to open a “real Parisian chocolate shop,” selling individual chocolates, pastries and drinking chocolates, in the InterContinental Montelucia Resort and Joya Spa.
 
Info: Julia Baker Confections, juliabakerconfections.com; InterContinental Montelucia Resort & Spa, 4949 E. Lincoln Drive, Paradise Valley, icmontelucia.com, 480-627-3200