Renowned pastry chef Sherry Yard's early education at New York City Technical College and The Culinary Institute of America led her to a career in New York City's top restaurants, including the celebrated Rainbow Room, Montrachet, and Tribeca Grill. She then moved to the West Coast to command the pastry kitchen at San Francisco's critically acclaimed Campton Place Restaurant and then to Jan Birnbaum's restaurant Catahoula.

In 1994, Yard joined Spago as pastry chef and quickly made her mark on the LA restaurant scene. Currently executive pastry chef for Wolfgang Puck's empire, including Spago, Cut, and Chinois, Yard is responsible for desserts that play a leading role at the annual Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, and Emmy Awards.

Bon Appétit magazine and the Southern California Restaurant Writers Association both named Yard “Pastry Chef of the Year” in 2000. Yard was named “Outstanding Pastry Chef” by the James Beard Foundation in 2002. She won a James Beard Award for “Best Baking Cookbook” for her first volume, The Secrets of Baking: Simple Techniques for Sophisticated Desserts (Houghton Mifflin, 2003). And in 2004, the Women Chefs and Restaurateurs presented her with a Golden Bowl Award.

In her latest book, Desserts by the Yard: From Brooklyn to Beverly Hills, Recipes from the Sweetest Life Ever (Houghton Mifflin, 2007), Yard pairs each recipe with humorous and often touching anecdotes, exploring the relationship between her legendary desserts and how they were influenced by her personal history.