BETHLEHEM, Pa. – A new bakery is bringing people together for more than something sweet.
It has all the ingredients to help people on their journey through grief.
Angela Malpedo, owner of Frosted Chaos bakery at 518 Long St. in Bethlehem, visited 69 News at Sunrise to tell us more.
The space was the original home of Granola Factory, a 20-year-old bakery that is continuing operations at another Bethlehem site.
Malpedo established Sugar Babe Cupcakes as an online business in 2010 before opening her first brick-and-mortar location in 2012 at 14 W. Broad St. in downtown Bethlehem.
In 2015, she moved operations to another Bethlehem storefront at 308 W. Broad St. before relocating again in 2017 to a section of the Bethlehem Dairy Store on Linden Street.
She closed the stores after her father got diagnosed with cancer. She decided it was time to pull back and focus on helping him and her mom.
She continued to bake on the side.
She said she got an opportunity a few months back at the spot that she is now going in to reopen her business.
She had worked there 18 years ago for the Granola Factory. She had not had formal experience in baking at that point, but they gave her the opportunity anyway, she said.
That’s when she started to bake cakes and cupcakes and started to branch out and open up her own store.
When the opportunity came about, “I thought, ‘this is full circle, I have to take it,’” she said.
She then left her full-time to job to open her new shop, Frosted Chaos.
“It just felt like it was meant to be,” she said.
She since lost her dad to cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic. She talked about how running the shop has helped her through her grief. She said baking has always helped her to relieve stress and get out to find an outlet for her grief.
She said that during the pandemic she baked for first responders and people on the front lines to give back to honor her dad.
She has since become a certified grief counselor. She said she ran grief support groups and wanted to take it to the next level.
Malpedo baked pumpkin bread at the 69 News at Sunrise show Tuesday.
Here is the recipe:
Screenshot