Every food establishment has a specialty and that holds even more true for bakeries. I knew that when I wanted to start a pie business which is another reason I enrolled in a pastry school: to see what else I enjoy doing and possibly add to the menu. What I found out from school and doing internships was that I loved making croissants and just about anything related to viennoiserie. Coming out of the pastry school and having a much better idea as to what I'm looking for, I was searching for a job where I would make viennoiserie and use a dough sheeter on a regular basis. In French, that ..read more

I was asked this question when a customer picked up their order recently. The short answer: it depends on what you're looking for. Are you looking to improve your baking skills or are you looking for new recipes? Will you work in the food industry afterwards or will you continue baking at home? Can you learn from home or working at a pastry shop instead? To complicate things even more, there are also basic and advanced programs that you can enroll in. Enrolling in a pastry program is by no means cheap. It can easily be at least $30k so whatever your reasoning is, it must be valid. T ..read more

When it comes to pastry, it's all about learning the basics. The base of a cake, pastry cream, macarons, and tart, for instance, all have different techniques of incorporating ingredients into the product. How complex you make it is just an extension of the basics. At Maison Christian Faure, we learned about folding, whisking, temperature control, and lots more to optimize both texture and flavour; mostly the former. After understanding the simple steps, it's up to the students to create an identity for ourselves. Putting everything together, one of my simple creations was the Peach ..read more

Whew! I've finally had time to sit down and gather my thoughts to write this post after a crazy November and December of making pies around the clock, battling through snow storms during deliveries, keeping up with a bunch of papers that have been piling up, and taking and editing hundreds of pictures - very few only make it to social media for your information. In this post, I'd like to share some of the things that I've learned this past year with you and the plan going forward with Ma Pies. After all, it's been slightly over a year since I made pies from home and shared at The Farmers ..read more

I received a text from my friend Little Richard (not THE Little Richard), and it read: "Have you used an air fryer for your pies??? You have to try it!!!" He got excited when he successfully air-fried my pocket pies and knowing that I'm a neanderthal when it comes to technology, he had to let me know with three exclamation marks to grab my attention. Prior to last year, air fryers were foreign to me. Yes, I've heard of them but I grew up using a toaster oven so why would I bother with an 'As Seen on TV' product? A couple of weeks later, another friend let me know that she ..read more

If you listened to my interview on Calgary Business Podcast, I was talking about my time in New Zealand and how I liked their unique Cranberry Chicken Camembert pie. The host, Allen Wazny, jokingly mentioned that I was gonna make one. Well, even though he wasn't serious, I was on the hook since it went public! While I lived in Auckland, there were lots of meat pies to choose from and they were so common that they were available at corner stores. Many of the shops I went to was a stop-and-go with perhaps a bench or two to dine in. The Cranberry Chicken Camembert pie wa ..read more