I sat down with Sue to talk with her about the business she’s owned for 11 years and how her passion for art and baking have come together resulting in beautifully designed baked goods. Check out the new episode of Bite Me below.
Tell me about your business and how you got started.
I actually started as an artist. I went to school for fiber and ceramics but I’ve always worked as a chef from the time I was 15 years old. I found that I wasn’t making any money as an artist so I decided to make chefing a full-time career and went back to school at Schenectady County Community College. I found that pastries were really my strength, probably because of the art background.
How long have you owned your business?
This will be my 11th year.
What do you do at Sweet Sue’s Copper Pot?
We started off doing all of my treats but we decided to expand to breakfast, lunch and a catering menu. So we pretty much do everything now except dinner.
Tell me about the Troylet paper cake
We came up with this idea to do the Troylet paper cake. A lot of chefs at the time were doing little rolls of toilet paper and we decided to take it a step further and create a label that said Troylet paper on it and wrapped it up in a tissue paper roll. I thought we would sell maybe 100, but we ended up going on the national news and sold a little over 1000 of them and it was just me making these.
How are you able to create such beautiful designs with frosting?
As I began playing more with buttercream as an art form and using the different types of tips like the Russian, Korean and American tips, I began to really fall in love with it.
What is the difference between a Russian tip and a Korean tip?
So Russian tips are blunt and have different kinds of holes so that you can pipe out something like an entire flower. A Korean tip is a really thin tip where you can do really thin rose petals. You’ll see the roses on a Price Chopper cake which is an America tip but a Korean tip is far more gentle.
How has the past year affected you?
Some interesting things did happen as a result of this past year. A lot of businesses had to come together and help each other in ways that we wouldn’t have before. We had to lift each other up and work together and I made some really wonderful strategic networks and relationships. One of them was with Stack’s Espresso Bar in Albany and we get along really well. Right now we have a great relationship where I do the baking for them and we talk about what the future could look like if we combined ourselves. Instead of being a small outlet specialty shop, what would it look like if we merged?
Sweet Sue’s is located within the River St Marketplace at 433 River St in Troy.