Sweet Designs – Beckmann House

The Who: Kara Beckmann
The What: Baking to Home Designs
The Where: Beckmann House
The Dishes: See The Bottom

By: Kara Beckmann

For as long as I can remember, I have been creative in every aspect of my life. The idea of taking a blank canvas and making it into whatever I could, excited me. When I was young, I would spend hours in my room working on crafts, cutting out scrapbook paper to create beautiful cards and pictures, and making everyday household items into something unique and fun. My creative spirit and love for baking really evolved in my Senior year of High School and stemmed from baking cakes with my Mom early on. For any family birthday, my Mom would make and decorate beautiful cakes and I loved being her helper. These weren’t your average birthday cakes, they were always decorated with multiple colors of homemade frosting pipped from a paper pipping bag, that my Mom magically folded together in under 5 seconds. The theme of the cake perfectly matched the theme of the party, and there would often be hand piped flowers, pearls and borders on the top of the cake. With the dream of opening up a Wedding Cake boutique, I attended Scottsdale Culinary Institute Le Cordon Bleu and received my degree in Patisserie and Baking. I loved every minute of Culinary School, and afterwards worked in wonderful restaurants alongside many locally acclaimed chefs. I worked as a pastry cook, then a Pastry Chef and taught baking classes at stores and private residences. I had wonderful clients who ordered elaborately decorated cakes and cookies for parties and get togethers. The idea of a Wedding Cake boutique seemed too limiting after being exposed to so many varieties of desserts and pastries so my idea evolved into opening a full-fledged bakery. The economy downfall led to many restaurants closing, which also led me to a different route and my bakery idea was put on the back burner, no pun intended.