The Cake Picnic Tour brings dessert enthusiasts across the country
Guest at the Cake Picnic were instructed to bring a layered dessert, bringing the cake total to 613.
Some people bake by the book.
Kate Grennell says she relies on “intuition” when creating “elevated” pastries and other dishes.
It’s the method she’ll use when she opens her French-style cafe, La Joie Bakery, in downtown Redding. The eatery is going up on the corner of Yuba and Market streets, a few doors away from the Redding Public Market, which also is under construction.
What should diners expect to find on the establishment’s opening day, estimated for mid-October?
Think tasty French-style pastries with premium ingredients, she said.
“Every American knows what a cream puff is, but our version is bigger. It’s got compote and jams and fillings and mousses inside. So it really takes it kind of to the next level,” said Grennell.
La Joie will also serve soups, salads and sandwiches, as well as French confections gâteau, or cake, and pâte à choux, a dough that’s used to create a wide range of classic French pastries, from cream puffs to éclairs.
“And we do things that we call cake parfaits, which are basically layers of cake and mousse and curd in a little cup that you can eat with a spoon. Kind of like an English truffle, but just tiny, little bite size,” said Grennell. “So desert catering has been increasingly growing outside the realm of just a regular cake and cupcakes.”
In a nod to her Russian heritage, Grennell said the cafe might rotate in a few brunch menu items, including borscht, a beet soup.
She’s also eyeing sometimes including piroshki on the menu.
“The way that my family has always done them are they’re dough pockets. They’re filled with either potatoes or cabbage or rice, hard boiled egg, onion, garlic and a ground beef. And then they’re fried and served with a sauce on the side,” one perfected by her dad that contains mayonnaise, apple cider vinegar, onion, garlic and seasoning salt.
In addition to serving from-scratch pastries and brunch food, a liquor license is pending for the cafe so it can offer mimosas to people coming for brunch or a glass of wine to go with a slice of cheesecake, said Grennell.
A Redding catering business with the unorthodox start
Grennell said she, her husband, Bryan, and their six children moved to Redding six years ago from the Seattle area, where Grennell built a corporate restaurant background. She’d worked as a general manager for Starbucks and Olive Garden and was a district manager for Burger King.
Her husband has an accounting background.
Fifteen years ago, they opened their own bakery in Stanwood, a town north of Seattle, which got great online reviews.
But the short-lived venture lasted only about year.
While successful as a corporate manager, Grennell explained, “I didn’t treat my business the same way. It was more emotionally led than it was financially smart. We didn’t have a great location. We didn’t spend any money on marketing. We didn’t have any cash reserves. And so it served as a good and expensive lesson for us to learn those things and now we know better.”
They came to Redding, where her husband stayed in finance.
Grennell went on to start a catering business that got an unorthodox start.
In a local parents’ group on Facebook, a woman Grennell didn’t know posted that their lemon tree had produced a bountiful crop and people were invited to come pick the fruit. Grennell said she and her daughters went over, chatted briefly with the person who’d made the post and collected a few grocery bags full of lemons.As a thank you gesture, “the next day, I brought her back a jar of lemon curd and some French macaroons,” said Grennell. As it turned out, the woman, Sadie Hess, owns an independent living company. Grennell stepped up to offer them catering services, operating since 2022 from a commercial kitchen near the Redding Library.
One thing led to another and now Grennell said her company, Lemon Tree Ventures LLC, caters both corporate events and weddings. After La Joie Bakery opens, they’ll have their own kitchen and the business will have indoor-outdoor seating for about 50 customers.
Grennell said she eventually got on the radar of the K2 Development Co., which is building the Redding Public Market downtown, by taking a sampling of her pastries to the company’s office.
“You can talk to me all you want and have words, but if you can taste something that I’ve made, you’ll know everything that you need to know about me,” she said. “And I think that’s kind of the heart and soul of the business is really we just show you who we are by what we serve.”
Michele Chandler covers dining, food, public safety and whatever else comes up for the Redding Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. Accepts story tips at 530-338-7753 and at mrchandler@gannett.com. Please support our entire newsroom’s commitment to public service journalism by subscribing today.
Dining and Cooking