Pastry chef brings edible art to Falls Park Farmers Market
May 1, 2020
One of the new vendors at this season’s Falls Park Farmers Market, which opens Saturday, is a pastry chef who creates edible art.
Keyes Clemmer of Prairie Cocoa & Confections will sell her signature creations each week along with special themed items that will change every time. Her farmers market venture is known as Prairie Confections because she won’t have cocoa there.
Clemmer has a long history as a savory chef and later as a pastry chef, operating an Italian restaurant in Boston, owning a bakery in New York City and starting an edible art business in Indianapolis. She ended up in Sioux Falls after her husband took a job with Sanford Health.
Since arriving here two years ago, she has been making Italian desserts for R Wine Bar & Kitchen and cakes for weddings at the Hilton Garden Inn Downtown, but that work has dropped off.
Clemmer said she has been taking her time to decide what type of venture to create here.
“I didn’t want to be a bakery. I’ve been an executive pastry chef. I have a high school student at O’Gorman, so I want to do things where I can have that flexibility.”
Her edible art business in Indianapolis, which included a contract with the Colts of the NFL, also sold its goods at a farmers market, so that made sense for Sioux Falls too. In addition, she’s working on a hot cocoa truck and wants to offer pastry classes.
“We’ll see where it branches out. … My dream is to have a chocolate speakeasy with gourmet desserts with elements of chocolate.”
The farmers market provides a venue for her to introduce her edible art to more people in Sioux Falls and to flex her creativity, especially with the weekly themes.
She’s kicking that off with the “After the Storm” rainbow cookie, the “Under the Prairie Skies” South Dakota-shaped “lollipop” cookie and the “One Heart One World” chewy vanilla bean cookie.
One of her signature original creations is the cocoa cookie cup. It’s a chocolate chip cookie shaped as a cup that’s lined with chocolate. It comes with a straw, and the idea is to fill it with milk for an all-in-one dessert and drink.
Other treats that will be available every week are push-pop cakes with layers of cake and frosting and Prairie Cookies, which are a cross between sugar and butter cookies with a choice of frosting.
Her baked goods also can be ordered online for delivery or drive-thru pickup at the market, or if customers miss that deadline, they can contact her through her Facebook page to place an order.
