Passion For Pastries

FROM FOR THE RECORD (Thursday, January 21, 1999): Correction Class postponed: Valentine’s Day treats cooking class at Fugazzi Bakery, 810 N. Monroe, has been postponed until Sat., Feb. 6. Call 324-9290 to register.

By the time Karen Edwards was 15, all her friends were sweet on her treats.

“Everyone had me making their birthday cakes for them,” said Edwards, the pastry chef for Fugazzi Bakery and Cafe in Spokane.

She learned to bake at her grandmother’s side, but the love of cooking that blossomed wasn’t something that could be taught.

“I was able to pick it up because I have a passion for it,” Edwards said. “If you don’t have a passion, you shouldn’t be doing it.”

The petite 36-year-old didn’t start out in the restaurant business. A San Francisco native, Edwards went to New York University to study fine arts.

After graduating, she taught elementary school for several years, but got burned out. A friend who was going to graduate school in Spokane coaxed Edwards into checking out the area.

“I was ready to get out of the big city,” she said, adding that this region’s outdoor activities are among the reasons she stayed.

Shortly after she arrived here two years ago, Edwards became friends with Cafe 5-Ten chef Michael Waliser.

“We have dinner parties where people bring things, and she brought a goat cheese and leek tart that was great,” Waliser said.

On the strength of that savory starter, he hired her to work at Huckleberry’s, where he was cooking at the time. Later, when he opened his own place, Waliser brought her in to do desserts.

“She didn’t have a whole lot of training, but she had the passion and she knows what’s good,” Waliser said.

Last fall, Edwards was offered the job at Fugazzi, which includes creating desserts for the bakery and cafe as well as the dining room in downtown Spokane.

Since she started, the glass cases at the bakery on Monroe - and, now, also at the Howard Street store - have filled with all sorts of temptations worthy of blowing your diet.

Just a smidgen of the ever-changing assortment includes pecan tarts, white chocolate cheesecake, homey fruit pies, macaroons, chocolate ganache cake and a pound cake topped with slices of brilliant blood oranges.

She can’t stand fussy desserts that look better than they taste.

“I’m not a Martha Stewart-y kind of perfectionist,” Edwards said. “My stuff is more rustic, more homestyle.”

Yet, the stylish selections on the dessert menu at Fugazzi’s upscale dining room make quite an elegant impression.

For instance, her napoleon is built on delicate planes of phyllo. They’re layered with dollops of pastry cream flavored with the sweeter, smaller Meyer lemons that are available only this time of year.

“I really like using seasonal ingredients,” Edwards said.

Already, she’s thinking ahead to spring, with some of her best inspirations coming in the middle of the night.

“I’m really in an experimental mode,” she said. “I’m coming up with new things every day.”

Her biggest challenge is getting the recipe down on paper, so others can execute her creations.

“I do a lot of things by sight, and that’s hard to do when you’re working with baking soda and baking powder,” Edwards said.

Edwards has decided to share her enthusiasm for baking and will teach monthly classes beginning this Saturday at the bakery, 810 N. Monroe.

“We’re going to keep it small because it will be really hands-on,” she said.

The focus of the first session, Saturday at 11 a.m., will be Valentine’s Day treats. Participants will make a blood orange souffle and a chocolate tart. The cost is $10 per person; call 324-9280 to register.

Polenta Cake With Roasted Fruit

This dense cake, one of Edwards’ signature desserts, gets much of its sweet flavor from fruit.

1/3 cup butter, at room temperature

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

2 large eggs

1/4 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon grated lemon rind

1/4 cup polenta (or yellow cornmeal)

1-2/3 cups cake flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup Granny Smith apples, peeled and chopped

Roasted fruit:

3 cups of any seasonal fruit (pears, apples, nectarines, plums or

quince), peeled and halved or quartered, depending on your preference

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup Grand Marnier

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat butter and brown sugar at medium speed until well blended. Add eggs, one at a time. Add milk and lemon rind. Combine dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture, blend well, then add apples.

Spoon batter into 9-inch round greased pan. Bake for 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool while you prepare roasted fruit.

Increase oven temperature to 425 degrees. Mix sugar, vanilla and Grand Marnier with the prepared fruit. Cook in a roasting pan for 15 minutes or until the fruit has softened. Let cool for 5 minutes. Pour roasted fruit and juice over the polenta cake and serve.

Yield: 8 servings.

Nutrition information per serving: 335 calories, 10 grams fat (27 percent fat calories), 55 grams carbohydrate, 5 grams protein, 74 milligrams cholesterol, 3 grams dietary fiber, 280 milligrams sodium.