Plymouth Magazine, December 2004

Chocolate Dreams

Local pastry chef bakes sweet success

By Kelly Westhoff

Love caused Rhonda Siebert to quit her job and take up a new career as a chocolatier. "I ate a truffle at Dayton's and fell in love," she confessed. "I learned how to make [truffles]. I just gave them away, as gifts, to people at work. Then people started asking me to make them and I started selling them."

As a dream formed to own a pastry shop, Siebert said goodbye to her job in marketing, advertising and finance at Northwest Airlines and enrolled in the culinary program at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. She said the switch was initially shocking, but soon she had a new degree in hand, and she had devised a business plan to establish her own pastry empire.

In order to sell her confections commercially, Siebert needed to get her truffle production out of her home and into an industrial kitchen. She found a space with one small catch—the kitchen was only available at night. Siebert weighed sleepless nights against her chocolate dreams and chocolate won. She took the midnight kitchen and "baked from five-thirty in the afternoon to five-thirty in the morning," she recalled, shaking her head.

In the beginning, Siebert's small business, Truffles and Tortes, baked strictly for restaurants, catering services and country clubs that often passed off her sweets as their own. Instead of begrudging the loss of acknowledgement, she steadily crafted a loyal clientele and a reputation for unique, creative, quality desserts. Then, in 1999, she discovered an available retail space in Plymouth with an existing industrial kitchen where she could have her own place and get off the night shift. There, Siebert continued to wholesale her cakes, tartes and pies to area businesses. Then, in 2003, she opened her door, and her desserts, to the public.

On an overcast October afternoon, customers stepped into Truffles and Tortes empty handed and stepped out with boxes of Siebert's signature torte, Chocolate Nirvana. They bought bags of chocolate covered peanut butter cookies and carefully wrapped bundles of caramel apples dipped in Reese's pieces and drizzled with dark chocolate. Siebert was ready to pour a mug of coffee—just the thing to accompany her desserts—should the customer care to linger, and a few took her up on the offer.

"My desserts are more rich than sweet," she said. "Kids like sweet. These are adult desserts. They have real liqueur in them. The cookies have truffle chocolate in them."

Taking pride in her ingredients, Siebert said: "We use dairy, real dairy, heavy cream and butter. And we capitalize on the fruits that are in season—if it's peaches and raspberries or apples and pumpkin." As her display cases change throughout the year, customers may find a Lime-Kiwi Torte, a Raspberry Rhumba, a Chocolate Pyramid or a Pumpkin Cheesecake. But no matter what, every torte, truffle and tart is beautiful—even exquisite.

Pretty pastries aren't just fluff for Siebert, they are essential to her business. "That's the fun part, to make them look nice," she explained. "How they taste is important, but people taste with their eyes first. The trick is to make them tastes as good as they look."

Rich. Thick. Bittersweet. Siebert's desserts taste even better than they look. A moan is an appropriate response. "With the truffles," she laughed, "usually people say, 'This is orgasmic.'" However, heavenly taste isn't what drives Siebert. "It's the creativity," she said. "There's never a dull moment. I've been doing this for 12 years and I'm still learning. That's what makes it interesting."

In the future, Siebert hopes to tempt more people with her desserts. She plans to increase her wholesale business baking for restaurants and hotels, and would like to add storefronts across the Twin Cities.

"It's a challenge. It's ongoing—the marketing and managing. But it's exciting. My previous experience is tied into the business end. I have the background to do it. But there just aren't enough hours in the day," Siebert said, adding that if there were she would likely use them to bake, not manage, since it's her customers' reactions to her desserts that she finds most rewarding.

"When someone says, 'That's the best chocolate cake I've ever had,' that makes all the hard work worth it."

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