About

The Alchemist’s Hand Pipes Buttercream…

About Linda Naylor

Essential Confection is the product of my lifelong, somehow inborn, interest in baking and pastry, an interest that was birthed in the heyday of box cake and brownie mixes.

Over several decades I made attempts to attend culinary school… once when my son, now 35, was a toddler when I researched and nearly fell prey to the lure of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY; and again in 1995 when I enrolled in Cincinnati’s Midwest Culinary Institute for core course work.

Not until I concluded a 25-year career in an unrelated field did I act on the knowing that I didn’t want to reflect on a life without formal culinary education. Two years later, I graduated from the Oregon Culinary Institute with a Baking & Pastry Management degree, and unique perspective on professional baking. Today I have achieved three years as pastry chef of an Italian trattoria in Lake Oswego, OR, a culture I have loved and revered since I was a teen.

Essential Confection was born of the desire to produce European buttercream tortes; in-season pies and crostata with the very best quality local ingredients as a testament to my fearless grandmother; and specialized, challenging American regional confection products.

Each creation is a gift… an exquisite little package of creativity and science… an emblem of life’s celebrations. Essential Confection celebrates the events of our customers’ lives.

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