Pastry chef now shows her sweet side

It's sweeter here.

Our cakes, cookies, pastries all are on the sugary side, at least compared with what Amy Scherber has baked in New York for 16 years at her much-lauded Amy's Bread shops. And our cinnamon rolls look nothing like the East Coast's earnest twists.

"People in Minnesota like them with more sticky icing," said Scherber, who grew up in Wayzata. "New Yorkers are more calorie-conscious."

Or tiresome.

Oh, just kidding. Ours are not the only sweet tooths in the nation, or Scherber wouldn't have produced "The Sweeter Side of Amy's Breads" (Wiley, $34.95). Recipes are for more than 70 favorites from her three bakeries in New York City, from her famous Pink Cake through Lime Cornmeal Cookies and Rustic Mini Peach Pies.

Scherber was in Minnesota last week to sign books at St. Olaf College, from which she graduated in 1982 with a degree in marketing. So ... she's a baker now?

"Yes, but the liberal arts education all figured in," she said, laughing. "The French I took helped me when I baked in France. The accounting helped me make my business plan, and the writing helped me with my book."

Scherber's path to baking had its roots in her parents' Norwegian and German heritage, although her father's job at Pillsbury played a role, albeit not with the expected lesson.

"My mom would always make the Bake-Off recipes, and Dad would bring home foods they were working on," she said, miming a practiced rap of a biscuit can against the table edge. "We'd have all kinds of toaster pastries and weird waffles -- and then there were these wiener wrap things."

Brown rice and veggies

Today, she mostly eats brown rice and vegetables, partly to demonstrate the advice she gives to aspiring bakers. "You really have to be in shape to do this work," she said. "I always tell them, if you're going to start a business, make sure you're healthy."

For those of us who just want to bake, her key piece of advice is to buy a kitchen scale. Weight measurement is the best way to ensure consistent results, and to avoid the dangers of using too much flour.

Scherber wrote the book in partnership with her pastry chef, Toy Kim Dupree, an Amy's Bread employee when the first store opened in 1992. In 1996, they wrote "Amy's Bread," which made a splash, then went out of print. The good news for bakers is that it's being reissued in paperback in December 2009.

Today, Scherber bakes less for work, and more at home for her husband and their son, Harry, who's 4. She leans more savory then sweet, but in any case says that "baking is a small indulgence. And at the end of the day, you have something to show for all your work."