Glanzer’s stint in the Django kitchen gave her some useful experience, but becoming a pastry chef required her to learn some new skills on the fly. Her trial-and-error practice involved watching a lot of YouTube tutorials from French pastry chef Pierre Hermé, among others. She appreciates her self-taught approach because she can learn from multiple teachers. Besides, “every failure is just a lesson,” she said. “That’s what I look forward to.”

Glanzer starts most days around 10 a.m., developing recipes and planning future desserts. Throughout the day, she fills orders for custom bakes or catering requests, and takes time to perfect her current recipes and baking techniques. “It takes time to ‘learn’ each individual oven. Each one has different hot and cold spots, places that heat faster and hotter, so you have to learn how to bake around them for consistency,” she said. “Baking is a science, for sure.”

Glanzer has French and German roots, so butter is almost in her DNA. She gets her middle name from her French grandmother, Jacquelyn, whose spirit she feels whenever she bakes. “It’s almost like I get to know my family more through these recipes,” Glanzer said. Her grandmother left behind a book filled with her recipes, and once, when Glanzer whipped up Jacquelyn’s divinity meringue, the taste of nostalgia brought her mom to tears. “My family is so supportive and excited about my work,” she said. “With this connection, I know I’m on the right path.”

In the future, Glanzer envisions a dessert cafe that serves craft cocktails or multicourse “dinners” of just desserts. Sometimes, she daydreams about an “Alice in Wonderland” event, “where the courses are inspired by the playful, fantasy style of that story.”