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Rebecca's Recipe for Success
from-scratch advice:
Pastry
dough is one
thing,
but if you yearn for the crisp, green
variety you’d better
have
business smarts. Either
hire a
business partner or obtain a
business
degree
to
complement culinary skills.
Work in a
professional
kitchen before
opening up your
own place to see
if
you enjoy the daily grind of that
environment.
Organize
your recipes on the
computer.
Don’t get
discouraged if an original
recipe flops at
first. Test, tweak, and retest your
concoctions
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Text By Cathy Gordon •
Photograph by Laurie Smith
“As far as dessert goes, the gooier the better,” Rebecca
Rather says with a
slight Southern drawl. She should know. With her
popular Fredericksburg café,
the Rather Sweet Bakery, and the recent
publication of her second cookbook, The
Pastry Queen Christmas, this
born-and-bred Texas gal is up to her elbows in
dough.
Her crowning
glory? A treat she calls Texas Big Hairs Lemon-Lime
Meringue Tarts.
“Folks can’t get enough of them, and they also love my chicken
pot pies
in cream-cheese crust,” she says.
Rebecca started cooking out of
necessity at age 10. “My mother was sick, and the housekeeper’s only
specialty
was mayonnaise-and-tomato sandwiches,” she recalls.
Fast-forward several years,
and she was catering neighborhood functions
in Houston with her daughter,
Frances, on her hip. Working as executive
pastry chef for one of the city’s top
restaurateurs, Tony Vallone, she
realized she’d found her true vocation.
After seven years in
Fredericksburg, she couldn’t be happier. She bakes
daily and still
finds time to tend to a menagerie of pets and a massive herb
garden.
She recently opened a new restaurant, Rebecca’s Table, just down the
street from the bakery. Everything from mayonnaise to sauces to bread
is made
from scratch.
She and her business partner, Dan Kamp, ran
the bakery without
a staff the first year. “But the town really
embraced us, and we thrived. Being
in business is always a challenge,
but we’ve never had any sticky
problems.”
No, “sticky” applies
solely to the lip-smacking smorgasbord of
goodies in Rebecca’s bakery
case. “Oh my gosh, I’m still trying to lose 20
pounds I gained with the
Christmas cookbook!” she says with a laugh. “And I’m
hoping to do a
candy book next, so I’m really in trouble.”
(a) Apple-spice cake drizzled
with
caramel
makes customers crave every moist
morsel. (b) A
scrumptious panna cotta from Rebecca’s holiday
cookbook is topped
with
hibiscus syrup and dried fruit. (c)
“Baking should be all about
having fun,” Rebecca says.
(d)
Rather Sweet exudes Texas
charm, with old farm tables and a chalkboard
menu. Rebecca employs a
staff of 24, here and at her new
restaurant. (e) Tantalizing treats await
customers. (f) Cute
cookie bags.
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