Heavenly goods
By Kerri Fivecoat-Campbell

Pastry: (noun) Baked and especially sweet goods made with pastry. Goddess: (noun) A female Deity. Those two words don't usually go together, but Kathy Huddleston, owner of The Pastry Goddess, 20120 E Jackson Dr. (near Little Blue Parkway and I-70 in the Hartman Heritage Center), wants her customers to have a heavenly experience when they visit.

The six-year-old bakery recently relocated from Blue Springs to its current location in Independence. Huddleston has been in the pastry business since 1979.

As a child, she wanted to go into veterinary medicine, but once she started cooking, she decided to make that a career. She ran a catering business out of her home and catered everything from informal dinners to formal banquets. Baking became what she decided she wanted to specialize in. "Pastries really lit me up, and I read and practiced every single day," Huddleston said.

Huddleston is self-taught, having worked in some of the finest restaurants in the country and in Kansas City. Before opening her own business, she worked at Emery, Byrd & Thayer and the American Restaurant in Kansas City. Now she sells her pastries wholesale to EB&T and other fine dining establishments in metro Kansas City including Dean & Deluca's and Ophelia's.

One of Huddleston's heroes, Julia Childs, once came into the American Restaurant when Huddleston was working. "I had the opportunity to meet her, and I had always watched her on television," said Huddleston. "She was very warm and down to earth, no big ego, and I think that is amazing because she is so talented."

Huddleston met her husband, also a chef, when the pair both worked at EB&T. They decided that Kansas City needed a bakery that concentrated on making all of their items from scratch. "

When we opened I did some research and found out that there weren't too many 'scratch' bakeries around," said Huddleston. "I had been very fortunate to have worked under some quality chefs and had built quite a number of recipes from years in the business."

While their wholesale business makes up a large portion of their sales, The Pastry Goddess also sells products to retail customers. Relocating to a newer strip mall off I-70 helped the business, giving them plenty of room for walk-in customers and enough area to open a cappuccino bar in the new store.

"This new space exceeded what we needed for space and also offered more opportunity for walk-in traffic," Huddleston said.

While dealing with the normal business headaches of moving, The Pastry Goddess kept in operation through a temporary kitchen in Overland Park for three months while construction was completed on the new location.

"We were working nights from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. to get our wholesale orders done," said Huddleston. "And then we were having to deliver the product in the day and deal with construction problems."

Huddleston said she and her husband, Doug, chose the eastern Jackson County area because of the convenience to their home and the ease of highway traveling to deliver their wholesale orders. In the first year, the store exceeded their business plan and has enjoyed steady growth since.

All of Huddleston's items are made from scratch — including icings — with fresh raw products like real vanilla and eggs. "We don't used anything processed," said Huddleston.

Huddleston said that her specialty is chocolate. She offers a wide variety of treats for the choco-aholic at the store, including eclairs, brownies, chocolate swirl cheesecake, a flourless chocolate torte, chocolate raspberry torte and a flourless chocolate cake with rich chocolate shavings.

Her success, said Huddleston, comes from her products — through the fresh, made-from-scratch approach — and by offering a variety of different pastries, cakes and pies. Huddleston's talent has her making just about anything to order including cheesecakes, pies, fruit tortes, cookies and breads. She says her one signature item would most likely be her white cake.

"This is one of the few recipes that I can truly call all my own," said Huddleston. "It is made with white chocolate, which adds to its dimension and moistness."

Huddleston said that because they make breads, they have tossed around the idea of offering a limited soup and sandwich lunch menu, but the idea remains in the planning stages.

The Pastry Goddess has four full-time employees and six part-time employees, including some of the Huddleston's children and extended family, but most days Huddleston herself can be found doing the baking in the back of the store.

Huddleston said that one of the most challenging aspects of her business is to know what to offer the public and how much. Many items can be purchased individually or as whole cakes, tortes or pies.

The Pastry Goddess is open 7 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Monday, 7 a.m.-9 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 8 a.m.-9 p.m. on Saturday. The store is closed on Sunday. For more information, call 816-795-8333.

Storefront profiles independently owned retail businesses in the greater KC metropolitan area. Suggestions are welcomed.

Contact Kerri Fivecoat-Campbell at fivecoat@kcnet.com or publisher_editekc@kcactive.com