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Susan Notter
Executive Pastry Chef
Pastry & Confectionary Consultant
For two years in a row, Susan Notter (click here to read her accomplishments) has been named one of the Top 10 Pastry Chefs in the U.S. by Pastry Art & Design Magazine. She is one of five members of the National Culinary Team, which, for the last two years, has been competing internationally with the world's finest chefs in a series of cooking contests, culminating in the International Culinary Olympics in Berlin in October 2000. For Susan this is all a step, a building block. "You are always challenged to do better," she says. "There is no end to it."
Susan Notter never wanted to do anything but bake and make pastries. At ten, she made fancy birthday cakes for her three younger sisters. At 19, she graduated from culinary school in her native England while working at a local pastry shop in her spare time. After culinary school, she hopped over to
Germany where she worked for a large confectionery shop, getting immersed in every aspect of pastry making. "It was a lot of fun," she says. "I was doing what I loved doing all day long and was even paid for it."
From Germany, Susan went to Switzerland, her "mecca of pastry". She did stints in the chocolate departments of two renowned Swiss pastry shops, Bachmann's in Lucerne and Honold's in Zurich. "Chocolate is really what Switzerland is known for," she notes. "I was learning exactly what I always
wanted to in that country. We still did a lot by hand, which was a good experience."
She spent evenings taking more pastry classes and ended up being an instructor and business manager at Ewald Notter's sugar pulling and sugar blowing school, forerunner of the International School of Confectionery Arts, now based in Gaithersburg, MD. The couple traveled the world--teaching,
demonstrating, being showered with honors and prizes, publishing two books "Sugar Pulling and Sugar Blowing" (1987) and "That's Sugar" (1992). The latter book won them a gold medal from the Gastronomical Academy of Germany.
In 1998, Susan left the school and joined Albert Uster Imports where she specialized in plated desserts than decorations or showpieces. "If you have a plated dessert with different components that may be warm or cold, soft or crunchy, you can work with it a lot more," she says. "I enjoy being creative and at the same time making things that taste good." She does a multitude of other things at Albert Uster Imports such as recipe and product development, training of sales staff, working with customers, shaping brochures and catalogs. "There is always more to learn," she observes. "You never know everything." Susan Notter is not one to pass up an opportunity to broaden her expertise.
After 3.5 years in the role of Corporate Pastry Chef, Susan has decided to transition her role to that of Consultant to permit more time for teaching and training. Susan continues to develop recipes and make presentations demonstrating the art and technique of pastry making on behalf Albert Uster Imports. Her insights on the industry and artistic techniques are featured in the Pastry d' Assemblage section of www.auiswiss.com.
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