New pastry chef at Hotel Pattee aims to sweeten life in Perry

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Dakota Sheer of Bayard brings three years of training at the Cordon Bleu in Minneapolis to her breads and pastries at the Hotel Pattee.

Good news, carb fans! Dakota Sheer of Bayard has brought her three years of training at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Minneapolis to the breads and pastries she now bakes at the Hotel Pattee.

The addition of a pastry chef baker to the Hotel Pattee’s kitchen lineup has been on Hotel Pattee owner Jay Hartz’s to-do list for some time.

“We’ve never had a pastry chef since we bought the hotel three years ago,” Hartz said. “Dakota’s the perfect person to rejuvenate and resurrect the Pattee Cakes program.”

Sheer started three weeks ago at the hotel, but “I’ve been baking since I could walk,” she said. “I’ve always had a passion and an interest in baking. It’s the dessert, you know? It’s what you look forward to in the meal. You see it, and it’s got to be beautiful, too. You’ve got to want to eat it. I love to seeing people’s expressions and making them happy.”

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Dakota Sheer produces a wide variety of breads, rolls, pastries — and Pattee Cakes — as the Hotel Pattee’s new pastry chef.

Sheer is a 2010 graduate of Coons Rapids-Bayard High School. She worked in a couple of bakeries in Minnesota after graduating from Cordon Bleu but moved back to Iowa in order to be closer to her family.

She lives in Bayard with her fiance, Earl, who works in Coon Rapids, so they split the commuting distance.

Sheer said she will happily cater to customers’ special-order needs, whether it is for dozens of cupcakes or one-of-a-kind birthday cakes.

“I’m open to anything people want for desserts, like pies or birthday cakes,” she said. “I like to be creative. Anything anyone wants done, I can do it. I just really like the creativity part of it. That was one of the great things about school, learning to make things you only imagined before.”

All the hotels breads are now produced at Sheer’s hands, and the revamped Pattee Cakes pastry case is well stocked with a wide variety of large and small cupcakes.

The pumpkin spice Pattee Cake is delicious.
The pumpkin spice Pattee Cake is delicious.

“My plan is to have vanilla and chocolate always available,” she said, “and then do a seasonal flavor. Then we’ll use the top of the case for scones and kind of more grab-and-go breakfast items.”

New and lower prices are also part of Dakota’s arrival, with the full-size Pattee Cakes now $1.95 and the bite-size minis now $.95.

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