SHORELINE — Despite the unusual name, Kittyhugs Baking Company in North City is a typical bakery.
Just don’t ask the bakers to bake bread.
“I don’t do bread,” Beeman said. “Good bread is available everywhere, so I am not going to do bread.”
Kittyhugs Baking Company, which has been open in North City since last August, is a wholesale bakery specializing in high-end desserts. All items, such as chocolate decadence, lemon tarts, carrot cake and espresso brownies, are made from scratch.
“I do mostly desserts and sweet things,” said owner Jacqueline Beeman. “So many people have been knocking on the door asking if I was open.”
The bakery recently opened to the public two days a week, on Fridays and Saturdays, due to interest from the public. Beeman, 54, and two other employees are busy the rest of the week baking desserts for catering companies, weddings, nursing homes and restaurants such as North City Bistro, Village Yarn &Tea Shop, and Buckleys on Queen Anne.
As the bakery specializes in baking wholesale items restaurants, except for two days a week, items available to the public vary weekly. One week Beeman will offer chocolate desserts, usually four choices, and another week, she will prepare varieties of cookies.
“I like to give them a taste of what we do,” Beeman said. “We do have special orders if they don’t see something.”
The bakers usually turn-around items in 24 hours, although some items, such as chocolate decadence, may take up to 36-48 hours to prepare. There are different menus for the public and for restaurants.
“That doesn’t mean the littler things aren’t good quality,” Beeman said. “I will fuss over them to make sure they look perfect.”
A full-service bakery with counters and display cases was not included in designs for the bakery, Beeman said, because she would likely have to throw away items at the end of each day. Baking for specific orders is much more her style.
“I can’t throw away food, it drives me crazy,” Beeman said. “If I had to throw away food that wasn’t sold I couldn’t do it.”
Beeman, a New York native, moved to Seattle at the age of 21. She later relocated to California with her husband, but the couple eventually returned to the Seattle area and settled in Shoreline.
Beeman began cooking at the age of 5 because her mother was “not a good cook.” She attended nursing school, not culinary school, and was a stay-at-home mother for a number of years. When her daughter graduated from Shorecrest High School in 2004, Beeman was ready to open the bakery.
Space still is available in a diabetic baking class being offered for the first time at the bakery.
The seven-week course is needed, Beeman said, because many diabetics are misinformed when it comes to diabetic baking and diabetic diets. Beeman was diagnosed as diabetic in 2004.
“There is so much misinformation, such as that diabetics can never have sugar again,” Beeman said. “They just have to lower it and consider it as part of a carbohydrate count.”
Favorite diabetic recipes include a French apple cake, pork chops, steak and roasted potatoes.
Megan Maurice, 22, is the bakery manager. She said the public has enjoyed the bakery being open two days a week.
“It is a way for us to get our name out there,” Maurice said. ” And it is often a way for us to try out new recipes after we perfect them.”
All recipes at the bakery are developed over time, Maurice said. Bakers usually start by looking through cook books to get a general recipe, then bake the product several times, adding and eliminating ingredients until the recipe is perfected.
And for those wondering about the name, it is named after Beeman’s cat, Juju, who positioned her arms in a hug when Beeman broke both ankles in June 2001.
“She would hold her arms like a hug,” Beeman said. “So I named two e-mail address kitty hugs and then the business.”
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