The Canton resident has been a pastry chef for more than two decades and can win over just about anyone with her sweet treats.

"I've done everything from A to Z the last 22 years," Mrs. Cutler, 46, said. "I was always baking as a child. I always made crepes at 10 years old. I was baking pies and cakes. When I look back, it was about that and arts and crafts. Every Friday, I would go to the library and check out books on baking and arts and crafts. Then the weekends I was busy, busy, busy baking."

As she got older, she decided to major in art at the State University of New York Geneseo, where she went two years on a scholarship, but her heart was really in the culinary arts.

"I love working with my hands and creating," she said. "Having an art background, you can use food as your medium. And the second part of it is watching people eat it and watching them smile as they eat it and enjoy it. I like the fact that people enjoy and appreciate good food."

She enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America in New York and earned an associate in occupational studies in culinary arts.

The native New Yorker began her culinary career studying with chef Greg Fatigati in Falmouth, Mass., on Cape Cod.

From there, she became an executive pastry chef with the Ritz Carlton Hotel Co., working first in Naples, Fla., then Atlanta, and then with the Occidental Grand Hotel (now the Four Seasons) in Atlanta. She also studied abroad in the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo.

But Mrs. Cutler left the hotel industry to start her own pastry business, Edible Expressions in Roswell, with her husband, Efrem, in 1995.

The couple made "real high-end" wedding cakes for "five strong years" but phased that out and turned the business into a cafe/bakery that would seat 150 people.

"It got very stressful with traffic in Atlanta, delivering (the cakes)," Mrs. Cutler said. "And the landlord needed our space so he moved us to an old restaurant. My husband is a chef, and I'm a pastry chef so a cafe/bakery was perfect. I could do cakes, and he could cook."

But the couple tired of working 12- to 14-hour days six or seven days a week and decided in 2005 to sell the business.

Mrs. Cutler took some time off, but she soon missed being in the kitchen and "wanted to get back into it." The problem was, she didn't know exactly what she wanted to do.

"I'd done it all," she said. "I worked in hotels and restaurants and owned my own business. But I went to Boston (with her husband's job), and somebody sent my husband a box of gourmet cookies. I said, 'That's what I want to do.'"

The couple moved to Canton, and she started Aunt Kimmy's Creations, an online gourmet gifts store, last November.

The name came from Mrs. Cutler, who doesn't have any children of her own, being "Aunt Kimmy" to her six nieces and nephews and five great-nieces and great-nephews.

"And I have cousins with kids who are like my nieces and nephews," she said.

The pastry chef offers 11 types of gourmet cookies - chocolate chunk, coconut macaroons, double chocolate chunk, fudge mirrors, M&M chocolate chunk, molasses bars, oatmeal raisin, peanut butter, peanut butter kisses, pecan butter balls and white chocolate macadamia nut - as well as brownies, chocolate bonbons, pecan bars, cr me brulee, cheesecake, chocolate dipped strawberries, small cakes and fruit tarts.

She also sells gifts of imported candies that she gets from New York.

The cookies are packaged in different-sized gift boxes and tied with ribbons and can be shipped anywhere in country in a packing box filled with an ice pack, foam peanuts and a card.

The other confections must be picked up at her Woodstock location.

"Everything is made from scratch," Mrs. Cutler said, noting the recipes were created by her and have been "used down through the ages." "I use whole butter. The chocolate comes from Europe. The heaviest of heavy cream. I make it look good then taste as good as it looks. That's why it tends to cost a little more, but you can really taste the difference."

So far, her best-selling gift item has been the classic combo, which is a mix of cookies and brownies, and the most popular items have been the chocolate chip cookies and the brownies.

Her favorites are the cr me brulee, apple cream cheese tarts and chocolate bonbons, she added.

Business so far has been good, with December being her busiest month thus far.

"That's usually the case in the food business," she said, noting she does most of the work herself but has friends she can call during busy times.

"December was way out of control then it tapered off at the beginning of the year. There are spikes. Summer is always slow for the food business, but it's starting to pick up."

Mrs. Cutler, whose husband is the corporate executive chef with Outback International in Atlanta, said her goal is to build a corporate client base that will "use me for corporate gifts or (when they) want desserts for functions or events or have guests they're bringing to the city and want to put a gift in their hotel room."

dharris@cherokeetribune.com