Meet Susan Kolman of Artful Sweets in North Scottsdale

Today we’d like to introduce you to Susan Kolman.

Susan, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’ve traveled a very circuitous route changing careers, not just jobs, multiple times before I followed my true passion. At a certain juncture in my journey, I was lucky enough to have my husband encourage (PUSH and CHALLENGE – lol!!) me to re-evaluate my career. I had moved quickly up the corporate ladder at a huge company but as he put it “every Sunday your whole body changes because you don’t want to wake up on Monday morning and go to work.” Months later after winning a long-overdue promotion, I quit and enrolled in pastry school. At the time we were living in Maryland and after graduation, I worked as Pastry Chef in several well-respected restaurants in the Washington, D.C. area and then had the great fortune to work in the research and development kitchen for AUI Fine Foods, a world-renown importer of pastry ingredients and food products.

For me, it was like attending finishing school. I worked with and trained under some of the best pastry chefs in the world, fine-tuning and expanding my skills and repertoire. Moving to Scottsdale in 2007, I taught baking and pastry at Estrella Mountain Community College in Avondale, Classic Cooking Academy in Scottsdale, and Scottsdale Community College. Missing production and interacting with customers, I then devoted my efforts to building The Thumb bakery’s repertoire and reputation in North Scottsdale for several years. In January 2019, I left The Thumb to open Artful Sweets, LLC, spreading my creative wings by focusing on custom-designed cakes and desserts.

Has it been a smooth road?
There are so many pieces to the puzzle in owning your own business. I love everything about baking and pastry, from watching cakes rise in the oven to developing new recipes and learning new decorative techniques. I also love getting to know my customers and knowing my work brings them joy. So, for me, the biggest challenge is marketing. For example, I spent long hours this summer building my website and struggling with how to best use social media. I didn’t grow up with these tools, so it’s like learning new languages – SEO, hashtags, alt-text…. !! I’m excited now that my website is published and social media followers are building. This winter, I’m exhibiting at the Arizona Bridal Show January 11-12, 2020 at the Phoenix Convention Center. I’m already working on display cakes and can’t wait to meet bridal couples (come see me at Booth 229).

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Artful Sweets story. Tell us more about the business.
Artful Sweets creates custom, made-to-order cakes and desserts for all occasions and every “sweet tooth”. I pride myself in delivering cakes and desserts that are dazzling to look at and bursting with flavor. As a custom business, I help make celebrations extraordinary by bringing people’s visions to life. Using my classical French training and my artistic skills, my designs range from whimsical to sophisticated; simple to intricate; trendy to traditional. All cakes and desserts are made from scratch using seasonal fruits, premium chocolates, fragrant spices and freshly roasted nuts – there are no mixes, no powders in my world. Customers often come with pictures and ideas they like and then through working together we fine-tune and focus on themes, flavors, and flourishes that will make each cake uniquely theirs.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
As a business closely tied to fashion, there are always new trends on the horizon. Interestingly, old traditions often return in popularity. For example, buttercream is now as popular as fondant as a gorgeous finish for cakes. A beautiful trend right now is painting on cakes using techniques adapted from oil painting on canvas. Each year the Pantone company designates a color of the year which becomes popular for house paint, clothing, cars and also impacts cake design. Popular trends in wedding cakes include bold colors, especially black; geometric patterns and designs; variable size stacked tiers; tall single tier cakes; and stone, marble, or concrete finishes. Although seen nationally, the decorative addition of cacti and succulents on cakes and cookies is especially fun with our desert environment here in Phoenix. These trends are strong and will most likely continue to evolve in the future. Decorated cookies as party favors for bridal or baby showers, wedding place cards and table numbers are increasingly popular featuring elaborate design options.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.artfulsweetsaz.com
• Phone: 480-268-0615
• Email: artfulsweetsaz@gmail.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/artfulsweetsaz
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/artfulsweetsaz

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