Elizabeth Katz grew up in Westchester County, N.Y., where she helped her mother in the family's gourmet food shop and catering company. Katz remembers how she and her brother couldn't wait to get home and tear open the box of pastries that their Grandpa Harry brought from the city, and how she helped her grandmother Clara bake yeast-raised babkas and mandel bread.

Food memories such as those were what inspired Katz to tackle the pastry program at the Culinary Institute of America after high school and to become a professional pastry chef. At 24, she was the sous pastry chef at the four-star Daniel in New York. Today, at 26, she is the head pastry chef at Fiamma, a sleek, multi-level Italian restaurant in SoHo, where, Katz prepares mostly modern Italian desserts