Angela Malpedo is set to open Frosted Bakery at 518 Long St. in Bethlehem on Nov. 14, with a grand opening scheduled for 8 a.m. that day. The shop marks her return to the business that first made her name in the Lehigh Valley more than a decade ago, this time built around grief, community and the memory of her late father.
According to WFMZ.com, Malpedo plans to run the bakery from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, and 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, or until the day's baked goods sell out. The space sits in what was originally home to Granola Factory, a 20-year-old bakery that has continued operating at another Bethlehem location, and it's where Malpedo herself started professional baking nearly two decades ago.
The new shop's name carries echoes of her earlier venture. Malpedo is also described as the owner of Frosted Chaos bakery at the same Long Street address, per a separate WFMZ.com report, though the exact relationship between that name and the new Frosted Bakery branding isn't detailed in available reporting.
A Menu Rooted in Her Earlier Shops
The rotating menu will include cupcakes, cookies, crumb cakes and muffins made on-site, the station's report notes, alongside bookies, cinnamon rolls, and chocolate peanut butter fudge brownies built on a peanut butter cookie crust. A bookie, per the same account, is a brownie sandwiched between two chocolate chip cookies and layered with peanut butter or vanilla icing. Cupcakes will rotate through two to three flavors each week.
That lineup builds on decades of baked-goods experience. Malpedo established Sugar Babe Cupcakes as an online business in 2010 before opening her first brick-and-mortar shop at 14 W. Broad St. in 2012, moving operations to 308 W. Broad St. in 2015. She operated those storefronts on Broad Street in Bethlehem from 2012 to 2017, according to The Morning Call, before relocating to the Bethlehem Dairy Store on Linden Street that same year. That 2017 partnership with the ice cream shop at 1430 Linden St. initially aimed for sales on Thursdays and Fridays plus alternating weekends, with muffins, cookies, bookies and at least four cupcake varieties forming the regular lineup, the paper reported at the time. Before any of those storefronts existed, Malpedo had started online and worked out of a rental kitchen, according to lehighvalleylive.com.
Coffee, Housewares and a Tribute to Two Fathers
Frosted Bakery will also sell fresh drip and iced coffee, along with bagged coffee from Homestead Coffee Roasters, a roaster based in Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania. Alongside the baked goods, the shop will carry curated housewares including seasonal decor, aprons, kitchen towels, candles, candle holders, glassware, pitchers, serving plates and celebration items, with that retail selection curated by Brianna Lasko, who owns and operates Lovely by Brianna, a home goods store on Main Street in Bethlehem.
The bakery will feature a framed photo of Malpedo and Lasko together with photos of their late fathers, a detail that ties the shop's retail partnership directly to personal loss. Veterans, current military members and first responders will receive 10% off purchases. High-top chairs at a window counter will give on-site guests a place to sit, and Keaton Yoo helped Malpedo overhaul the Long Street space with new counters and retail displays.
From Firefighter's Daughter to Grief Counselor
Malpedo's path back to baking runs through her father, Lou Malpedo, a retired Bethlehem firefighter who was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in March 2017. She closed her shop that year to help care for him, according to Lehigh Valley Public Media. Lou Malpedo died in February 2020 after a three-year health battle.
In the years since, Malpedo appeared on Bakers vs. Fakers in 2018 and Chopped Sweets in 2020, worked as an after-care specialist at Connell Funeral Home, and took a role as a family business consultant at Compass Point. Beginning in March 2020, she donated cookies to local first responders and health care workers, saying she baked for those on the front lines during the pandemic to honor her father. She has since become a certified grief counselor and said she ran grief support groups.
That background shapes what she plans to offer at the new shop: hands-on baking workshops that incorporate grief support, held at the bakery itself. Malpedo said customers would be welcomed into the space, and that she plans to add more treats and develop the menu over the coming weeks. She announced plans for the new bakery in an Instagram post over the summer, writing on her account, described there as a mover, shaker and cupcake baker at Frosted Chaos. She has said she's returning to what she has always loved after loss and career changes.
Evening Hours and a Mystery Menu on the Horizon
Starting in December, Frosted Bakery plans to offer evening hours on one Saturday per month. Malpedo said a mystery menu would likely be offered from 4 to 7 p.m. during those evening sessions, though further details on that offering have not yet been announced.
