Kalispell bakery mixes fashion flair with elegant confections
During Kalispell’s holiday stroll, children gather outside of a shop, enchanted by a fairy posing gracefully in the window. Snow falls, and the lady dressed in pink abandons her post to pass out a few macarons to her admirers.
A former street performer turned baker, Aurora Darling is the owner of Ephemera Bakery and Confections in downtown Kalispell, which blends her unique background in fashion design with her baked goods.
Despite her zeal for baking, as a child, Darling remembers being fed a rotation of three meals.
“My mom didn’t like to cook so we ate a lot of processed foods. I didn’t even know spinach was a tender leafy green until I was 17 because I’d only ever had it in a can,” Darling recalled with a laugh.
She attended the Academy of Art University in San Francisco for fashion design, where she experienced the fast-paced, high-stakes environment of a film set. On one project, she was immersed in a sea of stylists, where she was the only employee with sewing skills.
“These were long, intense days,” she said. It felt like we were building the plane as it was flying.”
Around this time, Darling turned her gaze toward fashion performance, and realized she had a peculiar knack for staying still. Tapping into this skill, she became a living statue.
“It was just something I did as a joke once, but then I discovered I was really good at the quiet game. I never thought that could translate into a career,” said Darling. “In my first iteration of the costume, I used my mom’s wedding dress to make myself like a bride. I had this little girl's tutu that I stuck on the head, which was like a halo, and I wore gloves, and I painted all my visible skin white.”
The character evolved over the years, and Darling continued to fuel her artistic endeavors as an artist model for several illustration companies and local painters.
Upon moving back to the Flathead Valley, Darling took a job at a new French bakery in Kalispell spearheaded by Dr. Gina Nelson, who had a vision for the space.
Because of her baking hobby, Darling was interested in creating macarons for the bakery, which is now Bonjour Bakery and Bistro.
A macaron is a meringue cookie with origins that date back to 1533. Also called “priest’s bellybuttons,” the little cookie is originally an Italian treat, not French.
Macarons are still the confections for which Darling is well-known, as she executes exciting and unexpected flavors such as Thanksgiving leftovers, Lucky Charms and animal cookie.
“I do some more savory macarons,” she explained. “The Thanksgiving leftovers is a corn stuffing flavored shell filled with slices of turkey and cranberry. I’ve also done tika masala and mole with cilantro.”
A creative at heart, Darling’s confections give new meaning to “a la mode” with her shimmering macarons, cookies and cakes with secret menu cake flavors including Ukranian honey, guava, tres leches and champagne.
From crafting wedding dresses to now wedding cakes, Darling laughs at the irony of her transition. Just like in fashion, Darling aims to play with the medium and challenge herself with architectural elements such as multi-tiered cakes which she makes for weddings and birthday parties.
“I don't want to fight the material. I want to work with it and make the most of what it is capable of being, so I allow my designs to be defined by focusing on flavor and ingredients first,” said Darling. “I allow the medium to define the design and I think that's very similar to dressmaking or tailoring.”
Ephermera Bakery and Confections is located at 120 Main Street in Kalispell and can be reached by phone 406-890-2146 or email inquiries@ephemeraconfections.com.
Macarons at Ephemera Confection in Kalispell. (Laura Cody-Ferguson photo)
People slice into a cake by Ephermera Confections on Main Street in downtown Kalispell. (Photo provided)