Demure, slender and ladylike, pastry chef Susan Wallace could be pouring tea for a ladies’ luncheon. Instead, she’s worked hard to glamorize the dessert menu at BlackSalt restaurant, turning desserts into an explosion of delectable calories wrapped up in dough, heavy cream and butter. Think Chocolate Peanut Butter Crunch Cake with Caramelized Bananas or Chocolate Chambord Truffle Cake with Raspberry Compote and Whipped Cream.
It seems she has come by this talent naturally: Her mother, Sally Wallace, once was a food writer for Ladies’ Home Journal, and like a devoted mother, taught young Susan how to cook.
“There is a picture of me at the age of 3,” she said, “with a Suzy Homemaker Easy-Bake Oven that baked cakes with light bulbs.”
Hailing from Kennett Square, Pa., Wallace credits both her mother — whose at-home cooking often centered just on baking — and her grandmothers with teaching young Wallace the secrets of the baking kitchen.
“I spent holidays and summers with my grandparents in Massachusetts,” Wallace said, “and we always focused on food. One of my favorite childhood memories is smelling the aroma of a danish called a Melt-A-Way. … I am still trying to perfect the recipe.”
While still in high school, Wallace applied to culinary school, eventually attending the International Culinary Arts Institute of Baltimore.
“I didn’t realize that the savory and pastry kitchens are two different worlds,” she said. After she graduated with an associate’s degree in baking and pastry, Wallace began her career in earnest, working at the Ritz-Carlton in Boston and D.C.
Her culinary career also included stints at the Chatham Bars Inn on Cape Cod, Mass., and the Mandarin Oriental in Washington. Wallace has been a participating chef at the James Beard House in New York, and her personal recipes have been featured in Chocolatier and Pastry Art and Design magazines.
“My mother doesn’t understand how I do so much professionally,” she said.
And it’s to her mother she still turns, figuratively if not literally, for many of her recipe ideas.
“Her recipes from the Ladies’ Home Journal are still my favorites,” she said. “I update them with a modern twist,” noting the almond butter crunch is one of her favorites, and one she often uses as a dessert topping. “The butter crunch is what I love doing.”
That, and cookies — loads and loads of cookies.
“My favorite cookie recipe is one my mother used to make,” she said. “It’s cream cheese pecan bars.”
Beyond her mother’s recipes, Wallace finds inspirations when she least expects them.
“My best recipes are done on the spur of the moment,” she said, recounting how on Valentine’s Day she was asked to create petit fours for the end of the meal.
“I had milk chocolate, pretzels and cranberries, and I topped this with sea salt, raspberry powder and pistachios.”
