well nothing brings people together
during the holiday season or anytime
like food and a good way to embrace the
season it's with sweets Central Florida
has some awesome local bakeries to
choose from and we just happen to have a
pastry chef in from one of our favorite
spots here with us now J Bowser from the
glass knife thank you so much for being
here thank you for having us yes we're
very excited with all this you brought
first of all we understand you're pretty
much a rockstar pastry chef and I'm
looking at this it's what's obvious yes
works of art tell us a little bit about
your background well I got into this
industry about 10 years ago and I have
always been passionate about food it's
been in my family for a very long time
and I was just passionate about it and
wanted to make sugar and cakes and make
people happy
well I've never been to the glass knife
so I talked about it all the time you
need every Saturday I need to bring you
what can people expect what makes this
place so special well the most special
aspect of the glass knife is this
feeling of togetherness and family and
tradition we really kind of bring that
to you and set it right in front of you
on our table it really is beautiful when
we had our tea contest remember with the
royal wedding that's where we ended up
having our little tea party and it was
so beautiful and everything was so
delicious tell us about some of the
things that you've brought for us to
admire here well we have a lot of
holiday off ok you like to decorate your
holiday as what we say so first off we
have our artisan doughnuts we scratch
make these every day and front of
flavors for the holidays we have
gingerbread cranberry ginger orange
peppermint mocha and of course our very
festive holiday ugly sweater it is the
red wine that's really cool we have our
eggnog panna cotta which has some spiced
crunchy biscuits on there we have our
gingerbread petit cake which is you know
serving for one if you're really feeling
festive and then we have our Black
Forest we kind of did our modern take on
the Black Forest pastry which is very
typical for Christmastime and then of
course we have our Rudolph reindeer here
it's our classic hummingbird cake
dressed for the holidays
what's in a hummingbird cake it's a
traditional southern cake and it's got
pineapple and banana and pecans in it
and we have a really delicious
molasses buttercream too
with it now I notice these every time
I'm in there these shiny ones sometimes
they're orange they're different colors
whatever they that is our petit gâteau
this is our onyx it's our signature so
it's a really rich dark chocolate mousse
with a coffee cream Center and we use
our onyx coffee which we serve in-house
okay I made cookies over the weekend so
I know that's probably aiming pretty
high but what tips can you offer for
people who do want to do some at home
baking this time of year first and
foremost the the biggest tip I can give
you is to do it with love to do with
your family and just as long as you put
that kind of passion and love and
tradition into it it's gonna turn out
great no matter what it doesn't matter
what it looks like because everyone will
remember that and future generations
will continue on that tradition so
that's the most important thing I'm just
going and buy some of the we we of
course have these available in shop for
you to do if you really don't want to
make them but I would encourage you to
make them with your family create that
tradition in that memory it's gonna make
the holidays so much better what are
some of the easiest things to make or
some of the most favorite things to make
if you're a novice like not as
experienced but you know always cookies
always cookies are gonna be the best and
you know there's such a range of festive
holiday cookies whether it be
gingerbread or sugar or Chocolate Chunk
any of those cookies will be really
great to kind of create that memory
what's your favorite to make oh gosh um
I I love making the cookies but the
Black Forest really is kind of my baby I
love that one the cream puff is also
really delicious oh yeah our peppermint
pretzel crunch cream puff is really
delicious and festive I'll just tell you
anything you try here is gonna be
delicious of course you know you've
gotta go I like to get the oatmeal but
this stuff is so much better yeah that's
this looks a little more tempting than
the oatmeal and one benefit of maybe
popping in and getting some of this for
your festivities does it take some
stress out of it yeah because you know
if you're not really very good at this
like you know you can be stressful
trying to make it look pretty um it
really is but we love nothing more to
help you serve on your holiday quite
honestly this is our passion and we love
to provide for you so if that's
something that you're looking for we are
more than happy to help out with your
challah
entertaining let us decorate your
holidays how far in advance if we're
gonna have some of this for Christmas
Eve or Christmas Day do we need to be
placing our orders we have a 72 hour
minimum for the classic cakes and
anything for the mini petit Cato's we
require some notice as well 72 hours so
it's time to start thinking about this
it is let's think about it and we
already decided we are booking up fast
these are hot cakes going for Christmas
so please please get your orders in yes
well chef J this is gorgeous thank you
so much for bringing I can't wait to
come see you over at the glass nine
you're in Winter Park yes yes and that's
on 52 mm-hmm it's a cool building it's a
recently redone building yeah
everything's the the you have the glass
knives in the middle of the table what
is the story behind that so the story
behind that Steve Brown our wonderful
owner his mother collected these glass
knives she had a very large depression
glass collection and these knives were
part of that and that is kind of where
the stems from she collected them and an
honor to his mother he designed this
whole place after that
they're beautiful right in the middle of
the table under glass you can sit there
eat these treats and look at that and
the light catches them so they sparkle
they're all different colors and you
gang of golden forks I think you're
gonna leave us and work there I would
hire the boss is back there I'm just
kidding I have another job it sounds
really magical I'm sure that food or
calories don't even count no not during
the holidays we don't count calories we
kept memories we're so welcome thank you
for having us chef Jade