OP_120816

opprairie.com Life & Arts
the orland park prairie | December 8, 2016 | 21
OP native competes in ‘Cookie Challenge’
Joe Dela Pena talks
Warm Belly Bakery
opening, more
Jon DePaolis
Freelance Reporter
Orland Park native Joe
Dela Pena has had a lifelong
passion for sweets.
And with the holidays coming
up, the former Lincoln-
Way Community High School
District 210 teacher and Consolidated
High School District
230 alumnus has a distinct
childhood memory of roasting
marshmallows — not
chestnuts on an open fire —
indoors, all by himself.
That may have gotten him
in trouble with his parents
years ago, but it served as
inspiration recently, when
Dela Pena — now the owner
of Warm Belly Bakery, located
at 1148 W. Monroe St.
in Chicago — competed in
the Food Network’s “Christmas
Cookie Challenge.”
A passion for baking
Dela Pena’s interest in
food began at a young age,
with his parents introducing
him to all different types of
cuisine.
“It’s always been a big
part of my life,” he said.
But baking? That love affair
was more recent.
“It must have been six or
seven years ago now, I was
telling my sister and brotherin-law
that I didn’t have any
appliances in my place,” he
said. “I was saying how I
was going to buy a KitchenAid,
and my brother-in-law
gave me his old one.”
Upon receiving it, Dela
Pena started thinking of all
the things he could make
with it, like sausages. But
that seemed “hard and
gross,” he thought, so he
settled on pastries.
“I started fooling around,
trying to develop my own
recipes,” Dela Pena said, as
he got his family and friends
to taste test every new concoction.
But Dela Pena’s culinary
interests were not kept in his
kitchen. Not long after he
developed his new hobby,
Dela Pena did a fundraiser
for the American Cancer Society.
His father is a cancer
survivor, so the cause was
important to Dela Pena’s
family.
“I thought I’d raise a
couple hundred bucks selling
some cookies,” Dela
Pena said. “I ended up raising
a few thousand dollars in
two weeks. I was baking all
these cookies [at home], and
home ovens are not meant to
have to bust out thousands of
cookies in a couple weeks.”
It was at that point that
Dela Pena first began to
think he might have a business
venture in his future. He
kept sharp by catering some
events for his friends, but
did not revisit the idea for
a store until he appeared on
“Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”
in 2013. On the show,
he realized that if he won the
grand prize, he wanted to
open his own bakery.
“I didn’t win the million
bucks, but I did become
friends with a guy who
turned out to be a venture
capitalist,” Dela Pena said.
“[Opening the bakery] was
actually his idea. He said,
‘Why don’t you change careers,
and let’s open a bakery
together.’ He talked me into
it, and I’m pretty happy I
made that decision.”
From the classroom to the
kitchen
Dela Pena earned a master’s
degree in education. He
was a student teacher at Lincoln-Way
East in Frankfort,
before working as a substitute
teacher (and, eventually,
an English teacher) at
the D210 school. He also
coached boys and girls tennis
at Lincoln-Way Central
in New Lenox from 2008-
2012.
“I’m a D230 guy, so it
was a little weird coming
from Sandburg [to Lincoln-
Way],” Dela Pena said. “At
Sandburg, you’re taught to
hate all things Lincoln-Way.
Jumping in headfirst to being
a Knight [was weird], but I
had some great kids there,
and it was awesome.”
But around the time of the
taping for the game show,
Dela Pena started thinking
he might want to try something
new.
“There’s no secret that
Lincoln-Way was going
through some pretty [big]
economic things,” Dela Pena
said. “It was a tough time to
be a new teacher, because
the state budget wasn’t the
greatest.
“I loved teaching, but I
think it was more of a passion
[for baking]. I was single
and didn’t have any kids.
I was still relatively young,
so if I wanted to take this giant
risk, now was the really
opportune time.”
In late 2014, Dela Pena
fully committed to the idea
of opening up his own bakery
with the help of his
friend — the venture capitalist
who pitched the idea to
him a year prior. But getting
the store open took a long
time. Warm Belly Bakery
did not open until February
of this year.
“My business partner and
I thought we could open up
in a few months, but little
did we know that there was
a lot more that goes into it,”
he said with a laugh. “It took
about a year to talk to architects
and design teams to
Orland Park native Joe Dela Pena appears on Food Network’s “Christmas Cookie
Challenge.” Photo courtesy of Food Network
create a space that we liked.”
They also scoured the city
to try to find the right space
in the right neighborhood
that would match their goal,
as well as their budget.
“We ended up looking in
the West Loop and falling in
love with it,” Dela Pena said.
“The West Loop is the food
destination in Chicago now,
so we thought it would be
really neat to open up a new
bakery concept there.”
Bakery begins with a lot of
buzz
Since opening, the bakery’s
success has been trending
upward at a frenetic pace
— as has Dela Pena’s notoriety.
“We won the Chicago
Dessert Fest in the summer
of 2015, ramping up to
our opening,” he said. “So
we had a good buzz. I was
asked to take part in it, and
I was kind of worried, because
I never went to culinary
school and I wasn’t
formally trained. I just kind
of do things on my own and
taught myself. I was going to
be competing against pastry
chefs from amazing places
all around the city.
“My main goal was just
not to embarrass myself.”
For the event, he made
an espresso chocolate chip
cookie, with a raspberry
gelée — which he described
as a viscous sauce, with a
little bit of booze in it.
“We also had hazelnut
quenelle, so it was a chocolate-
and hazelnut-flavored
mousse that we formed into
the shape of a quenelle,” he
said. “We topped it with an
espresso toffee.”
At the Cuisine for Cancer
fundraiser in 2015, Dela
Pena made a Mexican hot
chocolate cookie with cinnamon,
nutmeg and cayenne.
He paired it with an Argentinian
chocolate torte and a
rum-infused mango sauce.
“This is my favorite part
— we topped it with churro
chicharones, so it was cinnamon,
sugar and a fried pigskin,”
he said. “It’s probably
one of my favorite things
I’ve ever made. We converted
a vegetarian, which was
pretty neat.”
He also made a dessert
for the opening of the James
Beard Awards.
Dela Pena said the creative
process of pairing different
items is one of his favorite
parts of the job.
“I can think of flavors and
know in my head what they
are going to taste like together
before I actually make it,”
he said. “I think that’s true for
anyone who works in food.”
Going to TV
Dela Pena said he was
contacted by a producer
from the Food Network’s
“Christmas Cookie Challenge”
in May, asking if he
was interested in being on
the show.
“At the James Beard
Awards, I met so many people
and I crossed paths with
a lot of Food Network people,”
Dela Pena said.
He interviewed with the
producers on Skype, and he
was selected to compete on
the show in Los Angeles.
Dela Pena said the experience
was intense.
“I’ve done TV before,
Please see Pena, 25