ANNOUNCER: The following program was produced in the Dr. Keiko Miwa Ross WPSU Production Studio in University Park, Pennsylvania.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: Food-- a basic necessity.

We all need nutrients to survive and thrive.

Whether your meals come from the field, the fridge, the treasured family recipe, or the takeout menu, something special happens when we come together and share a meal and a common bond.

Culinary Connections is where we celebrate the people and places that use food to connect with the world around them.

Today we'll meet Tati and Derek Polay from the Cake Shop by Tati in Pleasant Gap, Pennsylvania.

Two chefs under one roof offer exquisite sweet and savory creations and bring Peruvian culture and cuisine to Happy Valley.

Derek and Tati, welcome to the Culinary Connections kitchen.

And later, Tati shows us how she creates a tapestry of flowers using buttercream icing.

I'm Tamra Fatemi-Badi, and welcome to Culinary Connections.

NARRATOR: Culinary Connections is supported in part by the Rockwell Foundation Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania supporting the arts, science, technology, and education, and a proud supporter of local programs on WPSU and Bonfatto's Italian Market and Corner Cafe at 401 West High Street in Bellefonte, offering authentic Italian cuisine and deli items along with custom order espressos and cappuccinos.

Bonfattos.com.

Support also comes from The Tavern Restaurant Downtown State College, offering lunch, dinner, and cocktails since 1948.

Information at thetavern.com.

And McQuaide Blasko, Attorneys at Law, a regional law firm serving all of Central Pennsylvania.

Information online at FMQBlaw.com.

And by viewers like you.

Thank you.

I always loved to cook.

I was always around the kitchen, and it was my comfort place.

Well, ever since I was a kid, actually, I helped my mom in the kitchen.

Scrambled eggs and strawberry short, short, short cakes were my specialty.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: Two people with a love for food and cooking grew up 3,000 miles apart-- Tati from Lima, Peru, and Derek, from State College, Pennsylvania.

They met in another kitchen in Hyde Park, New York, at the Culinary Institute of America.

It was the third day of orientation, so they asked everybody to switch seats.

So I thought she was pretty.

I went over and sat next to her, and I talked fast.

So she looks at me and goes, what?

Yeah.

And I asked him if he could slow down.

And in that time, I had a thick accent, thicker than now.

But it was like, you, slow down?

Because I cannot understand you.

And he was like, where are you from?

And I was like, oh, I'm from Peru.

And he was like, oh, my aunt is from Ecuador.

And I was like, oh, cool.

But-- They're right next-- They were right next to it.

So I was like, oh, cool.

Been together since.

Yeah.

We've been together since then.

In 2014.

Yeah.

2014 Wow.

Almost 10 years.

Yeah, almost 10 years.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: The couple dated as they earned their chef coats.

Derek chose the culinary path and Tati found her passion in the baking and pastry arts.

Their graduation day changed their lives in more ways than one.

After the ceremony of graduation, I had the ring in my pocket.

We go downstairs.

We start taking the photos and everything, and we're holding each other.

We're next to each other, and she's looking at the cameras, and all of a sudden, everybody starts to turn with their cameras and face us.

And she looks over, like, what's happening?

She looks down, and I'm on my knee.

And that's how we got here.

I couldn't hear anything.

Immediately starts crying.

I cry, but also, everybody was like, woo.

I was like-- Cheering.

[latin music playing] After graduation, we moved to New York to start our jobs.

And both of us started at the places where we did our internships at.

So I worked at Jean-Georges Columbus Circle, which is a three Michelin Star spot.

I worked in Duane park patisserie.

It was in Tribeca, so I became the cake decorator there.

And I just enjoy it.

All the people that I worked with-- they were awesome.

While I was at the Jean-Georges we went to a book signing for Virgilio Martinez.

He's the chef of Central and Peru.

And the book signing happened to be at the Llama Inn in Williamsburg in Brooklyn.

So we went there.

It included a full meal, book signing, meet and greet, all this stuff.

And while I was there, I got to talking with the chef and the owner of this restaurant.

And they were saying how they were hiring and everything.

And so I asked if I could just come and stage, work for free, essentially, and check out the kitchen, learn some things or whatnot.

I wasn't even looking for a job.

I just wanted to learn more about Peruvian food because that's where I started to realize my passion was Peruvian food through her of course, TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: Derek and Tati lived and worked in New York City.

It was exhilarating, but not without challenges.

As a couple that were in the same industry, it was very hard for us to be together at all.

We had-- I'm a Baker, so I work in the morning.

For him to be able to make money, he had to work at night.

Because we never had like the same days off.

And then COVID happened.

We both lost our jobs, lost our apartment, essentially.

We couldn't afford the rent anymore.

The only reason we made it as far as we did is because we were doing some meal prep for our friends in the area.

Yeah.

When we were talking, I was like, I will be OK moving back to your town.

We were like, if we move, we have to take everything with us.

We move in the morning.

We arrive at 1 PM, I think.

Our entire life changed in one day.

It was the weirdest thing.

So we were looking for jobs that were guaranteed almost or safe if there was another shut down.

So she ended up getting a job at the bakery department in Weis in Bellefonte.

I already had the experience, so it was just getting used to the new environment.

And everybody was so welcoming, and they were so nice to me.

And I worked at a few different restaurants management and settled on Pine Grove Hall after a little bit.

I was working from there, and I would do a few cakes for friends, family, and it started to spread around.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: After a few months of renting a kitchen for Tati to make cakes, an opportunity to showcase what they could create together presented itself only a few blocks away from their home in Pleasant Gap.

They told us that the space was ours if we wanted it.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: After about six months of planning, securing the finances, and dreaming together, Derek and Tati had everything in place for their new bakery except a name.

We couldn't think of a name that we liked or that clicked.

We were on a Zoom call with her aunt and uncle.

When we were talking, Franco was there.

And he was like, what about The Cake Shop?

And I was like, Oh.

That sounds good.

And we were both in the Zoom call.

And we're like, yeah.

That sounds good.

I like it.

It saved us a lot of time and trouble.

Yeah.

And frankly, it's like, yeah, The Cake Shop by Tati.

And I was like, yeah.

That's OK. We had the name and everything, and we were like, OK. We want the logo to not be a bakery logo.

No.

I didn't want the cake or the cupcake or the coffee.

My sister was like, why don't you do it here in Peru or use someone that is Peruvian?

This is what I want.

I want something that does represent baking and pastry, but also very feminine because I like flowers.

And I'm like, my thing are sugar flowers.

Lukuma's name come from a Peruvian fruit.

So I was like, this is-- and she loved dogs, so she was like, oh, my God.

I love looking-- basically, the drawing of each element that we have in our logo.

This is the flower from Lima, and that was the flower represent Derek because he's from Pennsylvania.

It was the mountain Laurel.

These are like hydrangeas.

This is the vanilla bean.

And she's like, and I thought maybe you could have a lukuma because you're Peruvian, and also because of Lukuma.

Long story short, the logo is essentially our family and our business.

I mean, it's baking and then, yeah, the avocado thing is the dog.

And the two different flowers Peru.

And so it's our family.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: Cake shop by Tati opened the doors on February 16, 2021.

Opening day was a lot.

A lot busier than any of us had expected.

It was crazy.

I think we sold out in an hour the first day that we were open.

It was nuts.

We were here at about 3:00 or 4:00 AM.

We'd leave at about midnight, 12:30, go home, sleep for a couple hours.

We were sleeping in the office.

There was a couple of nights where we were just working the last three or four hours.

And both of us were just bawling her eyes out because we're so exhausted.

We don't know what feelings we're feeling, but they're happening.

Then Andrea started, and it got easier from there.

It was never easy, but having somebody here that we could trust was a big thing.

My name is Andrea Barolo, and I'm a pastry chef decorator.

It's fun.

There's a lot of creativity involved and manually, doing things with your hands and creating.

I love making miniatures.

I've always liked to make desserts, but this is totally different.

This is such a niche.

And it's very popular right now.

You see it everywhere-- cakes, cakes, cakes, and making things that look like they're not cakes.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: Cake Shop by Tati has become known for their celebratory cakes, their daily baked goods, and for special events and collaborations around the center region.

Derek and Tati have orchestrated kitchen takeovers, intimate private dinners, and have also taken part in community events like the annual Latin fest.

I'm making Peruvian chocolate cake, or what we call torta chocolate.

Why?

It's Latin fest on Saturday, and we just like to bring everything that is Latino.

So at their production facility, part of what we're making for Latin fest is a mazamorra.

The base of the mazamorra is water with apples, pineapple rind.

And purple corn grows a lot in the Andes.

It's full of antioxidants and nutrition and all that stuff, but it's mainly just used for color.

So we're adding cinnamon sticks, clove, and fig leaves.

It's thickened with corn starch and served with a rice pudding.

So we'll be serving that warm at the Latin fest on Saturday.

[music playing] I really enjoy cakes and stuff like that.

You have to really be focused on it and thinking about it and actually keeping track of the stuff that you're doing.

So you have to be concentrated.

There is no fixing it after it.

For culinary, it's a little easier because if you put too much salt, you can add something else, and you will balance it.

But for baking, it's not.

You put something wrong, and then there is no going back.

Any whipped cream?

No.

Medium roast, right?

OK.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Derek.

My pleasure.

Have a wonderful day.

You too, thank you.

I always like people's reaction.

It's just-- it's a thing for me.

I love how everybody reacts.

I come here because, one, it's a local business.

Two, the bakery items are amazing.

The coffee is delicious, and Derek and Tati are two of the people I've ever met.

It's very nice here.

It's cozy.

Big selection.

The muffin-- yum.

And this is just a very comfortable area to sit and have a cup of coffee with friends.

I think it's a lovely place.

It's nice to find little hidden gems like this in State College Center County area.

And this certainly fits the bill.

Everything tasted good, and it's nice to have a latte and enjoy it.

[music playing] TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: Derek and Tati, welcome to the Culinary Connections Kitchen.

Tati is going to show us how she creates these beautiful cakes.

So I am going to decorate this cake.

It's already assembled and ready just to put some flowers and decorate and make it look pretty for any occasion.

Let's start with the brown.

And so if I were to do grass, I would do something like that.

See how it stands up, and it looks like the grass shape?

But in this case, I'm doing a bind, so I'm just letting it fall.

Like that.

Spin your cake.

And do you typically work with a chilled cake?

Is that-- It is easier because if you make any mistakes-- and it could always happen-- you can just-- it will be easier to release and clean rather than with a soft one that would probably blend all the buttercream colors.

And you don't want that.

So yeah, I prefer to work with a cold cake.

You can also do the flowers ahead of time and just freeze them, and that will also give you a more control over them and where you want to place them, especially if you're placing them on the side.

It is nice to have just grab them and place them rather than using these because you're going to see how soft they get.

OK?

So this is like my base.

This is the wreath.

And I'm going to start with the roses.

This is the way that I would usually do them if I'm working directly on a cake and I'm not showing anybody.

So I would create a little center like that.

That's my base, and then you go and spin it and create your center, and then you do a rainbow shape.

So I go one up, two up, three up.

So it always is 1, 3, 5, 7.

Always in odd numbers.

So I have my one that was the center.

Then we do the three, then my flowers or my technique is that I do double 3's.

So I go here, and I double it up.

So I pipe them one on top of the other, and it's not done yet.

So then they go in between these.

[music playing] And then we go.

It's beautiful.

Thank you.

And then you use some more buttercream to glue it together.

Sorry.

I have to move around with it.

So this is where I said you go, spin, release, place down, done.

Wow.

So that's one way.

So this is another way you create a little cone or a little center.

And I use white buttercream because nobody's going to see it, and then I do the center with the color, right?

And then, again, do the same one, two, three.

And then I go 1 2, 1 2, 1, 2.

So then they go again.

This is my last row.

This will help you get it out of the-- creating that cone will help you get it out of the nail faster because he gives you a little more of a gap.

So there we go.

How to pipe hydrangeas-- I'm not using the nail or anything.

Those ones will go directly on it.

And it's a bunch of rotation of your hand.

OK. One.

Then they can do another one here.

I know different cakes are different complexities.

Some are very simple and some are just really complex, but what's the average time it takes you to create a cake?

To decorate it?

Yeah.

I aim for 20 minutes, but it doesn't mean that everything is done in 20 minutes.

There is cakes that need decorations like fondant decorations that we start working on the week of.

And it's a whole week to do it because you do want the decorations to be dry, stable enough for transportation because sometimes I am not transporting them.

Sugar flowers usually take up to three days.

The actual process of baking the cake is a few days as well.

So you to bake the cake on one day.

You put them in the fridge to cool down so it doesn't break whenever it comes out of the cake pan, and then the next day to trim, fill, ice.

And it has to go in the freezer for 20 minutes at a time.

And rotating and everything as well.

And yeah, actual decoration process depending on the complexity of the cake, of course, can vary in how long it takes.

Yeah.

I do have a process for baking.

We have a baking day, we have a assembling day, and we have a decorating day.

The decorating day is the closest to the pickup date.

I always like to do random hydrangeas.

That's just a nice look for them.

Little pops of color.

Yeah.

And I always like-- my technique or my style is-- I can use different pastel colors, but it always has to have either blue or purple to give it a pop.

So in this case, I'm using blue.

And I always start with flowers, and I end with the green.

And after the green, I add more flowers.

I'm going to do some yellow roses too.

And now I can start with my yellow.

How many cakes do you typically do in a week?

We average 10 to 15.

We have a whole team that works with us, and they are all very talented.

They all have different skills.

Some of them, I have trained.

Some of them that have natural talent.

It's a nice teamwork where you can collaborate with everybody's skills and let everybody grow in the skills that they have.

The bakers that are working with me-- they have all trained with me.

So they all know what colors I like, what tones I like, what I don't like.

And I know what they like too, and I know their style, or I know what the styles they work best on.

So now we're going to do the greenery.

Yes, now I'm going into the greenery.

So I just cut the top of the green.

And this is the leaf.

And I can show you how the leaf look.

Oh, yeah.

Beautiful.

So you can do a longer one like that.

And that's why you want your buttercream to be a little bit colder, just so you can stand up like that.

Can you hold it?

OK.

So now I'm just go under the roses, and then-- sorry, I'm covering, but I'd like to go inside, outside.

I'm sure you hear it a lot, but this cake is too beautiful to eat.

Thank you.

Yeah.

It is nice to hear that.

But I do want people to eat it.

Yes.

Tastes as good as it looks.

Yeah.

So there we go.

See how it just starts filling up with the green?

And then sometimes I use a sprinkles.

You can always use little white sprinkles to make little looks of little flowers or little clusters.

And I can always make the colors that people ask me.

Or they give me their palette, and I just work with it.

Part of my style is also combining these with sugar flowers because sugar flowers are one of my passions.

So right now I don't have any sugar flowers, but what I would do is, I would add some little white hydrangeas or other pops of color and just place them around.

And it just gives it a different textures, different looks.

This one looks shiny.

The sugar flowers look more matte, so they will have different looks.

And you could also put them higher.

So right now I try to position them like more naturally.

The sugar flowers would also be able to of hang or do all the other movements that the buttercream flowers can't.

This is absolutely beautiful, like I said.

You hate to cut into it, but I'm sure, as Derek said, it tastes as good as it looks.

So of course, you're going to, but this has been amazing.

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

It was our pleasure.

Thank you for having us.

Now, here we're going to look at a staple that's quickly becoming a legend-- the croissant.

The croissants.

The croissants are definitely our signature.

I have my dough here.

I've rolled it up to 7 millimeters, which is the cutting thickness for most of our pastries that we do here.

So I'll just transfer it over from the roller onto the counter so I can cut them by hand.

One.

Then, for the chocolate croissants, we go about 8.5 long.

So I can get two croissants out of each of these rolls.

The chocolate croissants, or the panel chocolate, get two chocolate batons.

I like to take my time just because I like them to be really uniform.

They'll go into storage, and then every evening, we proof batches of croissants as necessary for the bakery and for wholesale orders.

[bus engine slowing] Every morning, we go on the deliveries to our wholesale spots in downtown.

I leave about 7:00 AM so the croissants are fresh every day.

So we're on our way to go and do that now.

[music playing] Bye, guys.

See you, Derek.

[music playing] I mean, it tastes amazing.

Melt in your mouth, and yeah.

I just have to keep myself from eating them every day when they arrive hot and fresh.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: The croissants are even immortalized on Derek and Tati's arms.

That's right.

Croissant tattoos.

All the employees are the reason that we can do what we do.

They're talented.

They're eventful.

They are curious and want to learn and want to showcase things they know and are passionate about as well.

They're really, really what drives us.

The people here are just really fun.

I always feel happy to be here, and it's super collaborative.

They're my favorite bosses I've had so far in my 20 ish years of being a laborer, so Mr. Derek is super enthusiastic about everything.

Ms. Tati isn't quite as energetic about every little thing.

She's very calm and very precise, which I think makes a good counterpart to Mr. Derek.

They work very well together.

We've grown a lot as people and not just bosses.

We've both learned to communicate a lot better.

I think that's the biggest take away of being a business owner, is learning how to communicate efficiently.

We want to be known for being a good person and a good boss that does good cakes.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: What Derek and Tati Polay have created together is much more than cakes.

Thanks for watching Culinary Connections.

NARRATOR: Culinary Connections is supported in part by the Rockwell Foundation, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, supporting the arts, science, technology, and education and a proud supporter of local programs on WPSU.

ANNOUNCER: More episodes of Culinary Connections and a full menu of local programs are available at video.wkar.org or on the PBS app.

And to experience a whole world of international cuisine, check out World Kitchen at wpsu.ORG/worldkitchen.

[music playing]