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Fine pastry Doing what they do best
By NATALIE LARICCIA
CAMPBELL
Amid the whir- ring noise of two rotating chocolate tempering machines, Jim Tropea hovers above a large cookie sheet, carefully drizzling melted white chocolate atop fresh-baked blueberry biscotti cookies.
It’s a rainy spring Saturday afternoon, the perfect kind of day for Jim and his wife and business partner, Susan Tropea, to spend doing one of the things they do best — baking and decorating biscotti.
Owners of Tropea’s Fine Pastry — a wholesale and retail bakery based in Campbell — Jim and Susan specialize in baking gourmet biscotti, a cookie-like creation that evolved from their Italian ancestors’ recipes. The couple spent years translating and tweaking the recipes, adding their own gourmet twists.
“From my side of the family, we have very old Italian recipes, and we’ve extracted some of these recipes. We basically made them our own. We tested the cinnamon, I don’t know how many times, until we got it right,” Jim said.
It’s not surprising that the couple describe their business as a “labor of love.”
Both Youngstown-area natives, Jim and Susan have worked and baked together nearly all of their 14-year relationship. They began dating in 1996 while they both worked as bakers at the Beat Coffee House, near Youngstown State University’s campus. Married in 1997, they now have two sons, Paul, 11 and John, 9.
When their children were very young, Jim worked in executive and operational positions in the computer networking system industry — jobs that required a great deal of travel — but Jim missed spending time with his family, and he also missed baking.
He eventually accepted locally based positions in the cable industry and at a furniture store to be closer to his family.
He got back into the baking business in 2003 when he bumped into a partner of the former locally based Shelton-Mathews Chocolates company.
The partner said he remembered chocolate cashew brownies Jim and Susan made for a church dinner and asked Jim if he wanted to learn the chocolate business working at Shelton-Mathews.
Jim and Susan both worked at Shelton-Mathews, and it was there where the idea for a biscotti business began to take shape.
They began making and selling chocolate-covered biscotti at the store, and they couldn’t help but notice the treats were one of the top-selling items.
The success of the Shelton biscotti sales encouraged the Tropeas to take their biscotti to the next level — launching their home-based Tenney Avenue business in 2007.
Shelton-Mathews, which was then located in Boardman, closed in the summer of 2007.
Their biscotti line now features 14 flavors, including lemon, anise, cinnamon, white chocolate cherry, caramel walnut and double-chocolate decadence. They also have seasonal flavors like white-chocolate pumpkin and white-chocolate pistachio.
The biscotti are made with all-natural ingredients, including real liqueurs and flavorings and imported European chocolates. The biscotti also features a softer texture because they are made with real butter, Susan said.
“We love food, and we know it can be better, and that’s how we approach our biscotti. Everything about them is artisan — they’re made by hand. One of our greatest complements is when the little old Italian lady says, ‘This is the best biscotti I’ve ever had,’” Susan said.
The biscotti are a natural accompaniment to coffee and milk, but Jim said he and Susan recently discovered that certain flavors complement wine. For example, the lemon flavor pairs well with white wines, and the cinnamon is an appetizing accompaniment with red wine.
The Tropeas typically make and sell about 7,000 biscotti monthly, and the biscotti is sold at several area retailers, including the Lemon Grove Caf in Youngstown, Catullo Prime Meats in Poland, William Leonard’s Extraordinary Gentlemen in Youngstown, Vintage Estate Wine and Beer in Boardman, Struthers Beer and Wine in Struthers, Anzivino’s Italian Store in Boardman and Gloria Jean’s Coffee in Grove City, Pa.
“As a specialty store that gets to handpick the best products, we felt that Tropea Biscotti was the only biscotti that we can sell in the store. They [the Tropeas] also support local business and so do we, so we can share in that sense of community,” said Danny Catullo, owner of Catullo Prime Meats in Poland.
Jim said it’s also not uncommon for people to randomly show up at their doorstep, requesting an order or inquiring about their business.
So, what’s next for the biscotti-baking duo?
The Tropeas say they are constantly striving to keep improving and perfecting their product. They are hoping to expand their line, adding some savory biscotti flavors that would complement salads and soups and appeal to the restaurant business.
They also envision taking their business to the next level, hiring a staff and maybe starting a chocolate caf that would be a haven for local food and dessert aficionados.
“It’s an amazing journey. We can’t stop because something is really saying ‘Keep going. Keep going.’ ... I think it all comes down to loving what you do,” Susan said.