Queen of Hearts is the right card for dessert
By Eleanor Shelton

Why is it that pastry chefs are usually thin? Don’t they taste the sweet delights that they are creating?

Taste, yes. Eat full slices of, no says Terry Morrow, owner and chef of Queen of Hearts, a bakery at 103 N. Ann Arbor Street in Saline.

“I don’t eat a full slice of anything and I try to workout—lifting the 50 pound bags of flour keeps my upper body in shape. The lower part I hide in baggy chef’s pants,” laughs Morrow as she pulls at the black and white checked easily recognizable uniform. Morrow is petite and has a ready smile. Maybe one of the reasons that Morrow is so cheerful is that she also owns the Drowsy Parrot, a Saline coffeehouse institution where adults find great coffee and pastries and teenagers find it a cool place to hang out.

Morrow thinks that it is the best of both worlds. “In January and February Queen of Hearts is a little slower because there aren’t many orders for wedding cakes, but the Drowsy Parrott is busy with people wanting a hot cup of coffee. In the summer the bakery is in full swing with orders for wedding and confirmation cakes,” says Morrow.

Before making baking her career, Morrow was a registered nurse who worked in trauma at the University of Michigan Medical Center. She took classes in the Culinary Arts program at Schoolcraft Community College between shifts.

“I changed careers slowly,” recounts Morrow. “I liked cooking but was not focused on it. I loved the beautiful results of pastry. In cooking it is not necessary to measure ingredients precisely. Working with pastry is like creating a work of art, it’s exacting.”

Before the Queen of Hearts and the Drowsy Parrott, Morrow ran a bakery out of a commercial kitchen in the Maple/Miller area of Ann Arbor. She baked for several area restaurants, though she is shy about naming names. “The customers at these restaurants think that they bake their own desserts, I don’t want to embarrass anyone.” Morrow bakes for the sheer pleasure of the art. Even in the height of wedding season when she could easily take orders for six or seven cakes a weekend she will only take two.

“I bake, decorate and deliver them myself. I want them to be perfect, just right for the client,” says Morrow. A word to those planning summer nuptials, Morrow is already booked for June and July.

Morrow is a voracious reader, which is a good thing as she has a husband and two teenage sons who take over the television with sports. She loves reading cookbooks, where she gets ideas for her beautiful creations. “I got the idea for the Princess Cake from the The Village Bakers Wife by Gayle and Joe Ortiz. I also love The Silver Palate Cookbook by Sheila Lukens and Julie Russo where I got the recipe for the Parrott Cake, a take of their carrot cake. Half of a pink domed Princess Cake, topped with a marzipan frosting sits in the refrigerated case of the Drowsy Parrott, obviously a hit with the patrons. Morrow also reads books that are written about food or about chefs, like Soul of a Chef by Mark Ruhleman.

In the Winter Morrow creates edible bucolic scenes with her Buche de Noel with meringue mushrooms, marzipan snowmen. Or how about a tree made of cream puffs filled with Bavarian cream and dipped in caramelized sugar? Throughout the year Morrow makes traditional and personal favorites like tiramisu, tortes, white and dark Falling Leaves, a chocolate chiffon cake with white of dark chocolate mousse filling. These creations (and there is a long list of others that she makes) are delicious, beautiful and full of butter, be warned! Morrow doesn’t shy away from the real thing. Maybe that’s why she loves baking; the precision, the flavorful ingredients and pleasing her customers.

There are times when it gets stressful, says Morrow, working on a catering order and wedding cakes and trying to keep the display case at the Drowsy Parrott filled (with the appreciated help from another local baker, Benny from Benny’s Bakery around the corner on Michigan Ave.).

“I guess trauma nursing was good experience for baking. When I’m stressed working under event deadlines, I know in worst case scenario no one is going to die,” laughs Morrow.