Perfection is Melissa’s drive, and it shows. At Sweet Melissa’s Patisserie, a spacious cremerie located in Cobble Hill, the executive chef Melissa Murphy serves up an array of desserts that couldn’t get closer to perfection. Her original butterscotch pudding is offered in dessert menus across the country, and her chesnut honey madeleines were so good that a NY Times writer once devoted an entire article to them. Gobbl was fortunate enought to sit down with the kind and energetic pastry chef to talk about past inspirations, ambitious future plans, and her favorite sweets.

Gobbl: Tell us a little bit about your background.
Melissa: I went to school at the French Culinary Institute and graduated in ’95. I worked in a number of restaurants and pursued a career in pastry arts while working in the Hamptons.

Gobbl: How did you decide to open Sweet Melissa’s?
Melissa: You know when you work hard for other people, at some point you want to do it for yourself. I wanted to serve pastries not only for the mornings and lunches but also during the evenings and I wanted one right next to a theater. That way you draw that night crowd as well as a morning crowd.

Gobbl: You have such a variety of pastries here at Sweet Melissa’s. Where do you get inspiration for each of these treats?
Melissa: Most of these are drawn from childhood experience. These are all old-fashioned American desserts with great ingredients and great technique. I’m classically French trained so all my desserts are American classics with a French twist.

Gobbl: Is the process difficult?
Melissa: Sometimes it’s easy and sometimes it takes two months to perfect, like my butterscotch pudding. I didn’t want to use cornstarch as a thicker which really works to stabilize the salt and the vanilla. Without the cornstarch, the salt and vanilla tend to separate. So I had to experiment with egg yolks and different temperatures. At any time I could have used cornstarch, but I’m a perfectionist. Sometimes that’s the biggest stumbling block, but in the end it was worth it. It’s in dessert menus across the country.

Gobbl: What treats do you enjoy making the most?
Melissa: I love baking fresh fruit pies. I grew up in upstate New York in Putnam County, and my family always went strawberry picking. Those inspired me the most.

Gobbl: We noticed you have podcasts on your site.
Melissa: I hope to do a baking show someday and podcasts are a great way to work on my teaching techniques. I love teaching recipes, and I think these podcasts are informational and very approachable.

Gobbl: How is your TV show coming along?
Melissa: Well I’ll tell you something is in the works but shh that’s it! You know, it’s just a really long process – there are a lot of ideas out there, a lot of people and a great deal of money needs to be raised. It’s a lot of dealing with production and networks. It’s going to be very interesting.

Gobbl: What inspires you to create a TV show?
Melissa: My goal is to reignite America’s passion for baking. Networks have gotten very comfy with the idea of cooking, and food is now a common denominator. I think now people are ready to learn how to bake. When I was growing up, it was a time when a lot of moms stayed at home, cooked, gardened, and sewed dresses for their little girls. But because of the fast-paced era we live in now, we’ve lost a little bit of that home based quality in our lives. And I think with the recession, people will naturally become more home based out of necessity. I think the timing is right.

Gobbl: You’ve competed in a number of competitions such as the Edible Ornaments on Food Network. What were these like?
Melissa: They’re a lot of pressure because I’m such a perfectionist. Failure is not an option, and that’s my drive. I did win (and that’s great), but in that situation I think it’s important to learn, to be in the experience, and to have fun. I only realized after watching the taping that it would’ve been okay if I hadn’t won. But that’s just my personality – Type A. Competitions are fun but I do spend a lot of time preparing for them.

Gobbl: Do you interact closely with your staff?
Melissa: We have 50 employees from pastry chefs to dishwashers to waitresses. The baking staff I normally work with very closely but since February I haven’t been able to work with as closely as I would like to. It’s a necessity that as a sole small business owner, I wear a lot of different hats. That takes out from my time in the kitchen which is my real love. That’s why I’m so excited for the new kitchen (Sweet Melissa’s is under renovation and the actual kitchen is located off site); it’ll allow me to work with my staff on all levels. Another reason why I’m excited for the larger space – we’re going to have an open kitchen in an L shape. It’ll open up so many opportunities for me to interact while I’m actually baking. I teach at FCI a few times a year and I think the desserts are classic American desserts. I’d love to teach short, weekly classes at Sweet Melissa’s and you know, maybe I could bring someone from the audience to the back and have them help me.

Gobbl: It seems to be a growing trend for pastry chefs to set up shop in Brooklyn. What distinguishes Sweet Melissa’s?
Melissa: It’s funny back when I started, there wasn’t really much of a dessert scene here. I guess it’s a natural transition, hopefully it’s because people are becoming more interested in dessert. I think what really separates Sweet Melissa’s is the real attention to quality. I am a freshness fanatic, and I think my style of baking is very approachable. I’m not really into the decadent mousse cakes or desserts that people oooh and ahh over but are afraid to eat. I love muffins, hot fudge sundaes, simple homemade desserts. I love to bake everyone’s desserts better than they’ve had them before.

Gobbl: Any future plans? Would you want to write another cookbook?
Melissa: I definitely want to do another cookbook. Maybe one devoted to layer cakes, a savory book, or one more like the first.

Gobbl: Was it difficult creating your first cookbook, The Sweet Melissa Baking Book?
Melissa: It was. I wrote it all myself and tested all the recipes myself. I had these recipes, but the recipes I had were for like 10 cakes and now I had all this adjusting to do. Now we were talking one cake with household sized pans. I’m glad I did it but what a process!

Gobbl: Where do you enjoy dining out?
Melissa: I am a big Brooklyn supporter and Brooklyn has some really wonderful restaurants. I love Ki Sushi on Smith St. Lucali’s Pizza on Henry. Edon is a brand new dumpling place with weirdly shaped but delicious ices. We like cooking a lot too. We moved just so we could have a grill.

Tags: baking, brooklyn, cookbooks, fci, melissa murphy, sweet melissa's patisserie, tv appearances