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By Request Betty Shimabukuro |
Teeny-weeny
itsy-bitsy bitesMini-pastries are the perfect
love bites for that special
Valentine’s Day treatF rances Pons thinks small, in a big way. Her stock in trade is a line of little bitty pastries, the production of which she's gone into big time -- or as big as you can get working alone in the basement kitchen of a church in Makiki.
Pons launched her new dessert company, Sugar Rush by Frances, on Dec. 1 and by Christmas she'd been slammed with orders -- "like a freight train," she says. "Oh God, I almost needed a sedative."
Going small when it comes to baking is extremely labor-intensive. Mini-pastries involve pressing bits of crust into tiny molds, coaxing little discs of cheesecake into uniform shapes, decorating dozens of itsy, bitsy pieces.
When it comes to cooking at home, if there is a season for such intricate work it would be the ramp up to Valentine's Day, when you can demonstrate your love by really putting some time into a baking project. And assuming that you only have one true love, you won't have to make too many.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Decked out as Cupid for Valentine's Day, Frances Pons puts the finishing touches on a tray of taro cheesecakes, a recipe she developed in response to a request from a Star-Bulletin reader. Pons' company, Sugar Rush by Frances, specializes in mini-pastries.
This in mind, Pons offered baking tips in response to two reader requests -- for taro cheesecake and Dutch apple pie, both in miniature. Those recipes are on Page D4, but first a bit more on our mini-minded baker.
Pons was born and raised in Japan, but her father was from Hawaii, so she did a lot of back-and-forth traveling. She ended up in San Francisco, though, where she found a job as a corporate manager "making gobs of money."
To relieve job stress, she started baking cheesecakes and giving them to friends, who eventually started offering her money to bake them on demand. She came to realize that her job wasn't making her happy, but the baking was. "All along the one thing that gave me joy was making these cheesecakes."
So she quit the job and went to cooking school, eventually becoming a pastry chef. For a time she owned her own company, Cheesecakes, Unlimited. Three years ago she moved to Hawaii be closer to family and took a job at the Koolau Golf Resort. It was there that she discovered the power of small.
It all fits in, she says, both with the trend toward smaller portions, and also our love of the never-ending restaurant buffet. "If you're a pig swine like me and you go to a buffet -- out of my way. You want to try everything, but you can't."
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Boxed sets from Sugar Rush start at $14.30 for 16 pastries. To order call 949-4948 or visit the Web site, sugarrush-byfrances.com.
Mini-pastries offer a chance to sample many flavors and textures without turning into an elephant. "We still want our cake and to eat it too, and this is a way to do it."
The idea for Sugar Rush was born, Pons says, when she baked up a dessert tray of miniatures for a wedding at Koolau. She watched as four very large men, each holding a Bud Lite, camped out at her dessert station, eating pastry after delicate pastry.
"I thought, yeah, this is going to work."
Pons provides custom trays of pastries for parties and gifts. About an inch across, they are nestled into decorative paper cups, then placed on trays or in fancy boxes that she imports from Italy.
The holidays behind her, Pons is anticipating another crush of orders for Valentine's, Easter and Mother's Day. It all means lots of time on her feet in the kitchen hovering over the oven and unmolding tiny tarts, cheesecakes, custards and chocolate pyramids.
Not that she's complaining. "It's about having fun, it's playing every day. If I drop dead tomorrow, I'll be doing this in heaven."
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Asterisk (*) after nutritional analyses in the
Body & Soul section indicates calculations by Joannie Dobbs of Exploring New Concepts,
a nutritional consulting firm.
