Recipe Testing with Tiffany MacIsaac

We had the rare opportunity to invade Tiffany MacIsaac’s home and watch her work her magic. That’s where she’s baking out of, in addition to a downtown kitchen, as a part of her newly launched Buttercream Bakeshop—at least until her storefront opens downtown next summer. You know Tiffany from her stint with Neighborhood Restaurant Group, and most specifically Buzz Bakery. When she left NRG, it was the oven timer heard ‘round the world, and everyone’s been waiting to see what she would do next.

That’s because flour, sugar, and butter aren’t the only ingredients she folds into her creations—there’s heart, too. “A couple came to me for their wedding, not knowing what they wanted,” she tells us. “So I asked them to share their love story.” The couple met at summer camp, so the project at hand was creating a s’mores gift for wedding guests to take home. We watched as she figured out how to get marshmallows to taste like campfire long after they’ve cooled down. A blowtorch was the weapon of choice.

Our s’mores themed afternoon continued as Tiffany tested recipes for a s’mores cake. She folds graham crackers into the batter, uses a fudge buttercream, and coats the cake with a eye-catching shell of toasted meringue. Ever meticulous, Tiffany tests until she gets it just right, referencing a binder full of Excel sheets along the way. At her future shop, she looks forward to having creative freedom and full control of the customer experience.