Meet Alea LoCascio | Baker & Business Owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Alea LoCascio and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Alea, how has your background shaped the person you are today?
I’m from a upper middle class Italian family in Colorado Springs. I grew up surrounded by good food and a passion for cooking that was out of this world. Everyone in my family has a deep love for good food, so it wasn’t a shocked when I continued on with that as my career. While the love for food was definitely there, the home I grew up in was also very abusive and unfortunately I lost a lot of my childhood to that. When I finally left that home, it became a mission of mine to find something that made me happier than anything else to spend my life working on rather than continue the miserable cycle I came from. I’ve spent over 3 years working on changing my life to be focused on my passion, baking, and it has paid off in so many beautiful ways.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My art is in the form of baking. I grew up in the mountains so I’ve always had to work in high altitude but the craft I have built for high altitude baking is unmatched. It’s one of my proudest skills. I have spent so many hours and practice batches tweaking my own recipes so they’re creating fluffy cookies, thick brownies, and glorious muffin tops. Every time I “failed,” was just a moment to learn, which keeps pushing me to challenge myself further. Aside from the fluffiness of my products, the actual flavors and presentation also help me stand out. My passion for baking and creating delicious food is shown thru my baked goods. I have a huge love for flavor development, and its something I don’t see a lot of in this industry. Most of the time things are just sweet with little flavor, so I’ve worked hard to make sure sugar isn’t the star of the treats. It’s important to me that you have different levels of flavors & textures.
My life has not been easy at all and I’ve been doing a lot of this on my own, especially for the money aspect, but I wouldn’t trade where I’m at now for anything. I get to do what I love every day and bring a smile to people’s faces with the food I create. What could be better than that.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If I had a friend come into to town, I’d show them everything from pikes peak to garden of the gods to the sand dunes to Estes Park. The scenery here is absolutely gorgeous. I think thats one of the most important parts about colorado, is the natural beauty everywhere around here and I’d definitely wanna highlight that.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I want to give a shout-out to my sous chef, Chance. He does all of the cakes in my business but he’s also helped me build The Baked Brownie into what it is today. With all of the tears, sweat, and long hours in this job, it’s hard to keep people around but he’s been here with the same amount of passion, striving to create beautiful desserts for the people around us.

Website: Thebakedbrowniestore.com

Instagram: The.baked.brownie

Image Credits
PC: Alea LoCascio