Chris has been baking from his family heritage recipes for over 50 years!! The Mancuso family is from Calabria, Italy and during the holidays they often exchanged baked gifts made with love rather than presents. They owned a restaurant winery and cheese factory until very recently, and his grandfather Mancuso was known for his Italian Lemon Ice.
His father was also a talented baker who incorporated his Japanese and German heritage. Additionally, paternal grandparents had a store in Rochester, NY for many years that sold roasted peanuts, tea and freshly ground coffee.
Chris has followed the family baking traditions with recipes that have been handed down for generations and his specialties include Italian cookies and biscotti among other baked goods that he invents with new, creative flavorings - and lots of love!
While always baking on the side, Chris enjoyed a 40 year career as a hair dresser until he decided to pursue his love of baking full time - and Casa Dolci was born!!
Stan grew up in Northern New York near the Canadian border and has been cooking since he was 5 years old making pancakes and waffles for the family every Sunday by memory. He grew up spending time with his mom making glazed and jelly doughnuts, cookies, pies, canning peaches and cherries, crab apple jelly and grandparents baking pies, candy, doughnuts, divinity, fudge, caramels, popcorn balls, jelly, bread and butter pickles and his expertise in canning techniques comes from both his mother and grandmother. His grandfather baked bread every week and Stan still uses his recipes today. Stan is a 5th generation maple syrup producer and has made maple cream, sugar and fudge for over 50 years. He made pure maple syrup with his grandfather, his uncle, and taught his son how to make maple syrup and maple products also. Stan is creative and with Chris's flavoring talent they have many fudge, caramel, toffee, candy, flavored popcorn recipes. He has many unique jam and jelly recipes also. His raspberry habenero, and Mango Habenero jam is excellent over a block of cream cheese with crackers. Some of his friends use his jam over their baked chicken the last 5 minutes of baking and it puts a sweet glaze over the chicken.
