DON’T BE SHY. PUSH YOUR SPOON all the way through the toffee date cake, grabbing some warm toffee sauce and cold horchata ice cream in the same bite. And don’t skip the pumpkin tuile on top, which adds a snap to the gooey, soft dessert designed by Santacafé executive pastry chef Rebecca Freeman.
“I think about the entire experience,” says the 35-year-old Chicago native. “The flavor contrast, the texture contrast, the temperature contrast. I make it in bits and pieces, but the end goal is to taste it all together.”
The dessert—modeled on traditional English sticky toffee pudding—is crafted during a lunch service while she juggles multiple components of other sweets for that evening’s dinner crowd. Freeman is in near-constant motion, whipping refrigerated coffee-chocolate ganache for the opera cake—a French version of a tiramisu—then quickly separating egg whites from yolks to make meringue for the banana pudding sundae. “It gets very disjointed, but everything comes together in the plated desserts.”
Over the last decade, Freeman has become one of Santa Fe’s top pastry talents. Her blend of sophistication and earthiness recently earned her national recognition and posts at two of the city’s premier restaurants, Santacafé and Coyote Cafe.
Executive pastry chef Rebecca Freeman’s signature opera cake.
She trained at Kendall College, in Chicago, and moved to Santa Fe in 2012, crafting desserts for Geronimo and the Compound. Later, while executive pastry chef at the Club at Las Campanas, she also ran a pop-up bakery called Worn Whisk as a creative alternative to the traditional country club atmosphere. She developed a cult following for her inventive pastries and cookies—with flavors like apple churro cheesecake—and custom wedding cakes. (She still takes special orders.)
In 2023, the American Culinary Federation named Freeman Pastry Chef of the Year—noting her expert balance of sweet and savory ingredients and incorporation of higher-end items like foie gras and truffles. She also stands out for the ease with which she shifts between or fuses techniques, along with her willingness to spend days preparing components of just one dessert.
Restaurateur Quinn Stephenson brought her to Santacafé and Coyote Cafe and Rooftop Cantina in January 2025. “Rebecca is the best pastry chef I’ve ever worked with,” says Stephenson, who has heard “oh my God” from tables more times than he can count. “I feel so proud that our guests have such a wonderful last bite.”
Freeman usually spends mornings at Santacafé before heading to Coyote for dinner-service prep, assisted by two pastry cooks at each location. “I match the desserts to the restaurant,” she says.
Coyote Cafe’s dessert tamale.
At modern American Santacafé, her signature dish is the opera cake, which has deep, dark chocolate and coffee flavors. At Coyote, the city’s seminal Southwestern spot, she’s designed a dessert tamale to look like an ear of corn. Served in a corn husk, it’s filled with pan de elote covered in single-origin white chocolate mousse and topped with honey-whipped mascarpone, caramel corn, and candied orange peel. “The restaurant is vibrant—there’s a huge Chihuly ristra chandelier, the lead bartender sets cocktails on fire,” she says. “I try to match that vibe.”
Her ethos marries what she calls “highbrow and lowbrow,” like a vanilla-bean cheesecake accompanied by black-currant-fig sorbet, cassis gelée, Mission figs, and a crust of dehydrated chocolate mousse. “It tastes like Oreo cheesecake,” she says. “But I serve it bruléed.”
Relative stillness descends upon the kitchen as Freeman slices a tray of it into precise rectangles, wiping off a cleaver and then heating it with a blowtorch between each cut.
She experiments with new flavor combinations at private wine dinners, “which are my absolute favorite because I can be a little bit weird with them.” At one Santacafé event, executive chef Dale Kester paired a 2005 Opus One with a roasted rack of lamb, rutabaga puree, and a macerated cherry salad, which flowed into Freeman’s unique pairing of a creamy chocolate Namelaka with mint sorbet and an herbaceous Fernet-Branca fluid gelée.
Rebecca Freeman prepares blue corn cream puffs at Santacafé.
Her favorite flavor to play with is fig leaf, with its coconut and floral notes. She recently featured it in a tres leches cake with raspberry coulis and coconut sorbet. “Some people might call that experimental.”
Shortly before lunch service begins, she warms homemade graham-cracker crumbs with butter and presses them into sheet pans to make crusts for the key lime tarts. After sliding them into the oven to set, she fits in frosting a small, custom-order birthday cake in buttercream before mixing key lime juice, egg yolks, and sweetened condensed milk for the tart filling. Holding the round layer cake in the air with one hand and coating it in coconut flakes with the other, she reveals her formula for high-altitude baking in the mountain desert.
“I do less fat, less sugar, more flour, less leavening, and more liquid, which could be more eggs or more milk,” she says. “I lower the temperature and extend the time in the oven, so the edges don’t burn and leave the center soggy.”
Key lime tart with graham cracker crust.
The difference between a good dessert and a great dessert, she says, is attention to detail—treating every ingredient with care and seasoning every step, the same way you would an entree. To experiment with flavors, you add to or replace the familiar with something more exotic, like when she tried switching out the coffee in a tiramisu with burnt corn husk. (“It was sort of bitter like coffee, but too much like popcorn.”) A tamarind version made it onto the menu at Coyote Cafe.
Her first lunch ticket of the day arrives as Freeman prepares to pour the key lime filling into the crust. She stops to warm a slice of toffee date cake and scoop the horchata ice cream made from a puree of rice steeped overnight in milk. Next, the toffee sauce, and then the pumpkin tuile.
Her desserts are exquisite—but they’re meant to be devoured. Freeman knows the real magic happens in that instant when technique gives way to delight. “Eat it the way I designed it for you,” she says. “Get that crunch, and the liquidy ice cream, and the softness of the cake all in one go.”
Jennifer Levin has deeply held convictions about the proper consistency of flan.
“Chocolate chip cookies are my favorite thing on the planet,” Rebecca Freeman says, especially when paired with her second favorite thing on the planet: figs. She explains that figs have a nuanced flavor, with dark notes similar to oregano, which pairs well with chocolate. “I have a tattoo of a branch from a fig tree. I made the choice to go full force into being a pastry chef, and my branch is blooming.” Tip: For chewier, denser cookies, refrigerate the dough overnight.
- 4 cups flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1½ teaspoons kosher salt
- 1¼ cups butter
- 3 tablespoons fig leaf tea
- 1¼ cups dark brown sugar
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- 1 pound bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped, plus melted chocolate (optional)
Makes 3 dozen
1. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
2. Combine butter and fig leaf tea in a small saucepan and heat until simmering and fragrant.
3. Take pan off heat and let steep 30 minutes, then strain out tea leaves and discard. Preheat the oven to 350°.
4. In a large mixing bowl, combine infused butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and vanilla.
5. Add the eggs one at a time to the butter-sugar mixture.
6. Use a spatula to gradually fold in the flour mixture, then fold in the chocolate.
7. Form dough into 36 equal portions onto parchment-lined cookie sheets and bake for 15 minutes. Optional: Brush bottoms of cooled cookies with melted chocolate and allow to set completely.
“Corn is definitely having a moment right now in desserts,” Rebecca Freeman says. “Everywhere I look, there’s a corn cookie or corn ice cream.” Her blue corn cream puffs were inspired by the corn husk meringue dish at Cosme, in New York City, where the meringue is filled with a sweet corn mousse. “I liked the idea of pairing two corn items together to make a composed dish with opposing yet complementary flavors—the earthy blue corn and the salty-sweet pastry cream.”
CREAM PUFFS
- 1 cup water
- ½ cup unsalted butter
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour
- 4 tablespoons blue cornmeal
- 4 eggs
PASTRY CREAM
- 1 ear sweet corn, shucked
- 2 cups milk
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 4 egg yolks
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- Jam or fresh fruit, optional
Makes 24
CREAM PUFFS
- Preheat oven to 400°.
- Combine water, butter, salt, and sugar in a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer.
- Once simmering, reduce heat to low and add the flour and cornmeal all at once. Stir until the flour is completely incorporated. It should look like mashed potatoes.
- Remove from heat and transfer to the bowl of a stand mixer with paddle attachment (or mix by hand). Allow to cool for a few minutes and then slowly add one egg at a time, scraping the mixture from the sides of the bowl between each addition.
- Transfer the dough to a piping bag with a round piping tip, and pipe 24 two-inch dollops onto parchment-lined baking trays.
- Bake cream puffs for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350° and bake for an additional 15 minutes.
- Allow to cool completely before filling.
PASTRY CREAM
- Grill or roast corn until slightly charred and golden. Allow it to cool, then cut off corn kernels and rough chop. Reserve in a large bowl.
- In a medium saucepan, heat milk to a simmer.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together cornstarch, sugar, and yolks until the mixture is pale and fluffy.
- Slowly pour the milk into yolk mixture, whisking constantly, until combined. Then pour mixture back in the saucepan and return to medium heat, whisking continuously until thick.
- Remove from heat and whisk in salt, cinnamon, vanilla, and butter until combined, then pass the cream through a fine mesh strainer into a medium bowl. Fold in corn.
- Place a sheet of plastic wrap directly on the pastry cream and cool bowl over an ice bath for at least 20 minutes.
ASSEMBLY
- When ready to serve, cut cream puffs in half like hamburger buns.
- Place pastry cream in a piping bag.
- Fill each cream puff with 2–3 table-spoons of pastry cream. Add dollop of jam or fresh fruit, if desired.
