Local pastry chefs share their stories of life and baking.
Our corner of the world has an amazing team of talented pastry chefs. Educated, experienced, hardworking, creative, and passionate about their work, they are the people behind the fabulous dessert you can’t forget, the Danish that sweetly started your day, and the pink birthday cake that thrilled your 5-year-old daughter. Match them with pastry chefs in any city, big or small: Ours will stand out with the best. Here, we shine a spotlight on a handful of Reno-Tahoe’s pastry pros.
Renaissance Man
Kevin Futamachi is the Renaissance Reno’s pastry chef
When Kevin Futamachi, baking and pastry chef at Renaissance Reno Downtown Hotel, was a young boy, he asked for an Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas. His wish granted, he watched through the little oven’s window, his cake building into a mound. When he was 12, he bought his first cookbooks; one was a baking cookbook by Julia Child. The first of Child’s recipes he took on was for sticky buns.
“I followed the recipe step by step, even counting the 99 whacks — 96, 97, 98, 99,” Futamachi says, recalling the step where the dough is whacked on a surface instead of kneaded.
It would seem his path was set — of course he would become a pastry chef after high school, right? Not quite. He enrolled at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno and studied interior design, then history before finishing with a degree in anthropology.
“I didn’t really decide to be a pastry chef,” Futamachi says. “It just happened.”
It happened in New York City in his 20s when he found his calling at the French Culinary Institute (now International Culinary Center). From there, he sharpened his skills in Cannes and Australia; in Napa at the Farmstead at Long Meadow Ranch; and, finally, back home in Reno as pastry chef for chef Colin Smith’s Roundabout Grill.
In 2018, Futamachi joined his friend, Renaissance’s executive chef Jacob Burton, to take the bakery to new levels. Futamachi’s pastry menu ranges from fresh bread to pastries and house-made ice creams. His handcrafted work for the dessert menu at the hotel’s The Shore restaurant has included flourless chocolate cakes and a variation of the luscious Greek dessert comprised of layers of filo with custard, galaktoboureko.
Endlessly creative, Futamachi builds his desserts in layers, often playing with atypical ingredients. Example: His strawberry “shortcake” is made of pistachio panna cotta, strawberry gelée, a pink peppercorn scone with a topping of microbasil, and strawberry sorbet. No wonder he was chosen to appear on the Food Network’s Bakers vs. Fakers in 2016. His bourbon-infused blondie with lime shiso posset and watermelon gelée propelled him to the final round (though he was later bested by the “faker”).
Vanilla chiffon cake with vanilla buttercream at Renaissance Reno Downtown Hotel
Futamachi credits his career to an Oprah Winfrey comment he once heard on TV, which he loosely paraphrases: “If you wake up thinking about something, and you think about it all day through noon and before you go to bed, then you have found your passion.”
“That’s how I found mine,” he says.
The Joy of Baking
Baking simply is not some people’s gig. They find it frustrating, maddening, torturous, and unforgiving. Cakes fall, cookies go flat, and pie crusts cook unevenly. They’d rather forget it. But for Patti Dellamonica-Bauler, executive pastry chef at Grand Sierra Resort and Casino in Reno, baking is a joy.
“I like its precision, reason, and order,” she says. “I like the steps and the order in the baking process. I like that there are rules.”
Patti Dellamonica-Bauler, executive pastry chef at Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, displays her lemon buttermilk cake with strawberries and a white chocolate vanilla bean buttercream
Dellamonica-Bauler, from Yerington, learned from her mom how to make candy, which sparked her sweet tooth. She wanted to go to culinary school at 18, but her mom encouraged her to earn a college degree first. Heeding her mother’s advice, Dellamonica-Bauler graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno, with a business degree, and headed straight to the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco.
She spent nearly two decades working in California with celebrity chefs at premium restaurants, including the original Spago in Hollywood, with Wolfgang Puck and Sherry Yard; Bistro Don Giovanni in Napa Valley, with Donna Scala; and San Francisco’s One Market Restaurant, with founder Bradley Ogden. Her last job was with One Market’s Lark Creek Restaurant Group, where she worked for 17 years as executive pastry chef, overseeing its domain of restaurants.
In 2018, she returned to Nevada, to an entirely different setting — a huge bakery space in the belly of a major casino-hotel in Reno.
“This was a whole different level of volume to get used to,” Dellamonica-Bauler says, “200 to 219 varieties of pastries, 120 pounds of cream cheese for cheesecakes, and 150 pounds of pizza dough daily.”
Her job as executive pastry chef is, she says, “to make lists.”
For a moment, let’s say you have invited eight people for dinner. Your to-do lists might include buying recipe ingredients, and preparing make-ahead dishes, and day-of-dinner preparations. Now, multiply that dinner for eight by thousands. That’s what Dellamonica-Bauler does every day — makes lists to keep the bakery running seamlessly as she looks over her daily plan book of banquets, VIP dinners, conventions, and several of GSR’s restaurants. But she gets her hands in the dough, too.
“I’m a working pastry chef,” she says.
She explains that she often experiments and creates new pastries, such as a vegan mousse cake with a gluten-free crust.
She praises her staff, noting that three of her bakers are original employees from the MGM days (the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino, built in 1978, was the GSR’s predecessor).
“There is tremendous history here,” she says proudly.
From Busser to Boss
When Kayline Johnson tells you she is a workaholic, she isn’t kidding. In her 35-year culinary career, she has done almost every job imaginable, from humble busser to cocktail server, line cook, cake decorator, assistant pastry chef, and finally, the highest pinnacle, executive pastry chef at Atlantis Casino Resort Spa in Reno.
Kayline Johnson, executive pastry chef at the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa bakery in Reno
At one point in her early pastry career, her commitment to supporting herself in the baking business meant getting off of work from her baking job at Circus Circus Hotel Casino in Reno at 7:30 a.m., driving to Carson City to do a coffee shop’s daily doughnut deliveries, then driving to Dayton to decorate cakes at Smith’s Grocery Store before driving home to Silver Springs. It was a schedule she repeated daily.
She has a lifetime passion for baking, beginning as a first grader in Coos Bay, Ore., with a first-place prize for her ladybug cake in the school’s annual cake-decorating contest. In fifth grade, her entry was a school-lunch-tray cake, featuring piped-white-icing spaghetti, malted-milk-ball meatballs, green-icing peas, and candied orange slices. Did she win?
“I can’t remember. But in my mind, I did,” she says, smiling. “It was my most favorite cake.”
Johnson’s strawberry Champagne cake
Johnson earned her culinary credentials at Portland Community College and Portland’s Western Culinary Institute. In the early ’90s, she came to Nevada on a visit and ended up staying when she was offered a job at the Carson Nugget in Carson City.
It was her first bakery job and it jump-started her future. Her next move was to Reno, for a pastry chef position at Sands Regency, where she stayed for nine years. But when the hotel casino “eliminated the pastry department,” she was out of a job. Coincidentally, the Atlantis needed a pastry chef. She applied and was hired in August 2012 as one of the assistant pastry chefs. A year later, she was promoted to the top position — a major leap for Johnson.
“I was kind of scared to start here — it was so big,” she says, “but I’ve learned so much.”
As the pastry boss, she delegates and directs. Her duties include creating pastries to fit themed banquets or working with the sommelier to pair a dessert with the wine for the Atlantis’ popular wine dinners. And she’s been honored for the job she’s done: The High Sierra Chefs Association named her Pastry Chef of the Year in 2015, and the Nevada Women’s Fund recognized her as a Woman of Achievement in 2018.
They’re distinctions she is “so proud, humbled, and honored” to have received, she says.
Dynamic Duo
Sierra Bakehouse in Truckee is tucked away on Pioneer Trail in a small warehouse area. It is a wholesale bakery four days a week. On Fridays, it opens to the public. On those days, Kristy Kirsch and Daniella Rinaldi, the owners and pastry chefs, roll up their metal door at 8 a.m. On the other side of the door, early-bird customers, who usually have been waiting since 7:30 a.m., file in.
French macarons prepared by Kirsch and Rinaldi
Friday’s array of fresh pastries is a loosen-your-belt extravaganza, with sticky buns, breakfast galettes, stromboli, scones, lemon bars, focaccia, and more. The bakery’s signature pastry is the croissant with a twist — it’s made with whole wheat flour (sacré bleu!) and savory.
Then the door rolls back down at 2 p.m. on Friday, and the bakery returns to wholesale only, with a bread menu for the surrounding area’s hotels, resorts, and sandwich shops. All the baked goods are freshly made daily.
“There are no leftovers to sell the next day,” Rinaldi says.
Kristy Kirsh and Daniella Rinaldi, owners of Sierra Bakehouse in Truckee
Both women have pastry experience and education behind them. East Coast-born Rinaldi is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., and Chicago’s French Pastry School. Her credits include working as a pastry chef at Michelin-rated restaurant Gary Danko in San Francisco; The Ritz-Carlton Orlando; and Manzanita, the fine-dining restaurant at The Ritz-Carlton, Lake Tahoe.
Reno native Kirsch graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno. After college, she spent a summer in Florence, Italy. Its food culture fueled her interest to return home and attend the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco.
Sierra Bakehouse started as a sweet dream cooked up when Rinaldi and Kirsch worked together at the Coffeebar Bakery in Truckee.
“I wanted to open a bakery of my own, but I didn’t know how to do it,” says Rinaldi, who had a garage full of professional baking equipment she’d collected. Kirsch had the same idea in mind plus a UNR business degree, so they formed a partnership.
Before Sierra Bakehouse opened two years ago, Rinaldi brought one of her treasures to the bakery: a special bread bowl that had once been her great-grandmother’s. Seven-year-old Rinaldi learned to make bread with that bowl from her father, just as he had learned from his grandmother. The old 21-quart aluminum bowl has changed in appearance through many years of use.
“It looks kind of unappetizing,” Rinaldi says, “but there are little dents and scratches on it that tell stories.”
The bowl sits atop a refrigerated unit, a lasting symbol of pastry history and a new chapter for Rinaldi and Kirsch.
A Man of Taste
A burly man wearing a white chef coat stands behind the counter of Franz’s Backstube Austrian Bakery and Fine Pastries in Reno. His presence and loud voice fill the room.
“That’s a 10-table ring you got there,” he says to the customer buying cookies for her friend. She looks baffled. “That’s what we say in the business — that (diamond) ring can be seen from 10 tables away.”
Meet Don Holtzer, the owner and award-winning pastry chef whose business card says “Franz’s (and in smaller print) by Don.” It means the name Franz Hauser gave the bakery still is honored. Today, Holtzer is the baker for this business, which he bought in 2011 from Hauser, his longtime pal.
Owner and pastry chef Don Holtzer at his bakery, Franz’s Bakstube Austrian Bakery and Fine Pastries, in Reno
Holtzer, 62, has accumulated experiences and solid friendships in the pastry world. But he didn’t start out aiming in that direction.
“I was 18 and I liked girls,” he says.
So he took a job in a local food-service company that catered to airlines, in hopes of meeting a “stewardess,” as flight attendants were called then. He met pastry chef Werner Schmitt instead, and Schmitt took Holtzer under his wing.
Learning from the best is a theme in Holtzer’s 45-year pastry history. In his early career, he worked at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas with Hauser and Josef Pasa, who later opened Josef’s Vienna Bakery & Café in Reno. (Holtzer also worked at Josef’s with Pasa.) Later, his career journey took him across the nation, working for Hyatt and Marriott hotels from Kansas City to Chicago, New York City, Arizona, and Washington, DC.
He’s appeared on the Food Network in eight competitions sculpting sugar. He worked at The James Beard House restaurant in New York City, where he created a dessert of apple sorbet with a sugar-blown apple. He collaborated with pastry chefs involved with inauguration ball banquets for former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Bon Appétit magazine named him one of the 30 top pastry chefs in the U.S. in 2008. He also received the High Sierra Chefs Association’s award for Pastry Chef of the Year in 2013.
Black Forrest Cake from Franz’s Backstube
In returning to Reno, Holtzer completed the circle when he bought Backstube. The bakery still carries Austrian pastries and breads, freshly made daily. The parade of cakes, displayed in a revolving case, are meticulously detailed, and the bakery’s specialty cakes are renowned in the Reno-Tahoe area for their gorgeous, intricate designs and distinctive flavors. Holtzer also boasts remarkable calligraphy skills.
“I can write anything you want on a cake,” he says. “I’ve even written in Mandarin.”
Reno-based food writer Sandra Macias — a mediocre baker whose most laughable disaster was lemon bars that were upside down — loved meeting the professional pastry chefs profiled here. They were gracious with their time, helpful, and fun to talk with. They clearly love what they do.
Resources
Atlantis Casino Resort Spa
3800 S. Virginia St., Reno • 775-825-4700 • Atlantiscasino.com
Franz’s Backstube Austrian Bakery and Fine Pastries
3882 Mayberry Drive, Ste. C, Reno • 775-624-2921 • Franzsbackstube.com
Grand Sierra Resort and Casino
2500 E. Second St., Reno • 775-789-2000 • Grandsierraresort.com
Renaissance Reno Downtown Hotel
One S. Lake St., Reno • 775-321-5811 • Renaissancereno.com
Sierra Bakehouse
10736 Pioneer Trail, Ste. 12, Truckee • 530-562-9494 • Sierrabakehouse.com
RECIPES
Buttermilk Biscuits
(courtesy of Kevin Futamachi, baking and pastry chef, Renaissance Reno Downtown Hotel in Reno. Makes 12 biscuits)
These buttermilk biscuits are good plain or for biscuits and gravy and strawberry shortcake.
½ pound (2 sticks) butter
2½ cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
Place butter in freezer to chill at least 30 minutes. Meanwhile, mix flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in large bowl; reserve in refrigerator. Whisk together 1 egg and buttermilk; reserve in refrigerator.
Take dry mixture from refrigerator. Using the large side of box grater, grate frozen butter into dry mixture. Mix thoroughly, making sure there are no large butter chunks. Take refrigerated wet ingredients and pour into dry ingredients, mixing with a wooden spoon until dough comes together. Be sure there are no dry spots. Do not overmix.
Put dough on floured work surface and form into a 12-by-6-inch rectangle. Lift the long side of dough and fold to the center line of the rectangle. Repeat same procedure on other side. Now fold long rectangle of dough in half. (In pastry, this is called a book fold.)
Roll out dough to ½-inch thickness and cut with 4-inch biscuit cutter. Place on parchment-lined baking sheet. Chill in refrigerator 30 minutes.
Preheat convection oven to 375 degrees F or standard oven 350 degrees F.
After chilling, egg wash biscuits. To do so, use a fork to beat remaining egg with 1 tablespoon water and brush liquid on top of biscuits. At this point, you can add some decorative sugar, if you are making strawberry shortcakes.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until biscuits puff up and are golden brown.
Coconut Macaroons
(courtesy of Kayline Johnson, executive pastry chef, Atlantis Casino Resort Spa in Reno. Makes 1 dozen cookies)
7½ cups desiccated unsweetened coconut (do not use sweetened coconut)
5¾ tablespoons cornstarch
½ cup light corn syrup
⅔ cup water
3¼ cups sugar
1½ cups egg whites
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon vanilla
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare baking sheets with parchment paper.
Mix cornstarch and unsweetened coconut in large bowl. Set aside.
Put corn syrup, water, and sugar in large saucepan. Mix slightly and bring to boil. Add unsweetened coconut and cornstarch mixture, mixing with a spoon until well blended. Then pour into electric mixer with paddle attachment. On low speed, slowly add egg whites, salt, and vanilla, mixing until batter is stiff.
Meanwhile, let batter cool (so as not to burn hands).
If using a piping bag, add batter to it and pipe out small rosettes (about 2 inches in diameter) on parchment-paper-wrapped baking sheet. Or scoop out batter with a tablespoon and drop on prepared baking sheet.
Bake 10 minutes. Check cookies and bake longer if needed until cookies are golden brown.
Butterscotch Pudding
(courtesy of Patti Dellamonica-Bauler, executive pastry chef, Grand Sierra Resort and Casino in Reno. Serves 10 to 12)
“This is a recipe I have been making since culinary school, when I worked for Bradley Ogden (a James Beard Award-winning chef),” Dellamonica-Bauler says. “I’ve tweaked it over the years, and it continues to be a customer favorite.”
3½ cups heavy cream, separated
½ vanilla bean, scraped
9 ounces butterscotch chips
6 extra-large egg yolks
¼ cup dark brown sugar
½ cup cream, room temperature
¼ cup water
2 tablespoons Scotch liquor
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F and place oven rack in center position.
Place butterscotch chips in bowl large enough to accommodate all ingredients. Add to medium saucepan 3 cups cream, vanilla bean scrapings, and salt. Whisk to combine and heat to near boil. Pour cream over butterscotch chips; allow to sit for a few minutes, then whisk until chips are melted. Set mixture aside.
Combine water and brown sugar in small saucepan, and cook until sugar slows and bubbles are dime sized — mixture should smell like caramel. Turn off heat and let sit for 1 minute. Carefully add reserved ½ cup cream and Scotch to the brown sugar. Whisk to dissolve.
Next, add mixture in saucepan to cream-and-butterscotch mixture. (This is your pudding base.) Add a cup or more of pudding base to the yolks; then whisk the yolk mixture back into the pudding base.
Pour pudding mixture into shallow ovenproof dish measuring at least 8 inches long. Cover dish with foil. Place a rimmed cookie sheet (or low-sided roasting pan) into the oven and place pudding dish on the sheet. Carefully pour hot water into the cookie sheet or roasting pan, ¾ to 1 inch deep.
Bake pudding until just set (there will be a slight jiggle). Timing will vary by oven. Remove from oven and strain into individual cups, 4 to 6 ounces in each. Cover and refrigerate until set (minimum 5 hours).
Serve chilled with lightly sweetened whipped cream.
Mudslide Cookies
(courtesy of Kristy Kirsch and Daniella Rinaldi, owners/pastry chefs, Sierra Bakehouse in Truckee. Makes 24, 2-ounce cookies)
16 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 eggs
1¼ cups sugar
¾ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
8 ounces walnuts, roughly chopped and lightly toasted (can use other nuts, if preferred, as well as dried cherries or chocolate chips)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. If using nuts, lightly toast in oven, then cool completely.
Melt chocolate and butter over double boiler just until melted. (Don’t overheat.) In a mixer with whip attachment, whip eggs, sugar, and vanilla to ribbon stage. Add chocolate-and-butter mixture to egg mixture and mix to combine.
Combine dry ingredients (flour, salt, and baking powder) in small bowl, then add to chocolate mixture. Mix to combine, making sure to scrape down mixing bowl.
Scoop, using a medium/small cookie scoop or tablespoon, onto baking pans lined with parchment paper. Leave about 3 inches between each scoop. If dough is too wet to scoop, let it sit at room temperature for a few minutes until it sets up more. Bake cookies for 12 to 15 minutes until they are set and beginning to crack slightly on top.
Shortbread Cookies
(courtesy of Don Holtzer, owner/pastry chef, Franz’s Backstube Austrian Bakery and Fine Pastries in Reno. Makes 40 cookies)
1 cup sugar
12 ounces (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3½ cups all-purpose flour
Pinch of sea salt
1 or 2 egg whites, as needed
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Place all ingredients in mixer with paddle attachment, then mix together until well blended. If mixture doesn’t come together, add 1 or 2 egg whites.
On a floured surface, roll out dough to ⅛ inch thickness. Cut out with cookie cutter or biscuit cutter, and place on parchment-covered cookie sheet. Bake 15 minutes.
