When she turned 40, she treated herself to a culinary class making pastries. Michelle Jaffee had always loved baking but three kids had kept her from her passion. She remembers how her love of baking developed, “My mom helped me bake my first cake when I was six – a carrot cake! – in a wood burning stove. Before my mom was a baker, my grandma was a baker. It seemed like she was always making a cake with her white Kitchenaid mixer to bring to someone’s house. At Christmas, she sent her very, very crisp, thin cookies layered between waxed paper in a box wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine.”
Using some of her grandmother’s recipe, Michelle developing an assortment of tasty cookies. In 2009, she began to get requests for batches from friends and family. Michelle thought, why not make this a real business venture, and at first looked into selling baked goods at the local farmer’s market. She then realized to do that she’d need a license for her home kitchen, then she’d need a commercial kitchen to grow, then she’d need helpers….she thought, “If you give a mouse a cookie….” literally.
“It happened organically.” Her first outside sale came when a friend who owned a car wash, asked for an assortment of cookies for the counter. A customer whose husband owns a specialty food store came to get her car washed, loved the product, told her husband and Michelle got her first wholesale order. Other orders came from that exposure and she soon realized that she wanted to be “all in.” Her baking business became wholesale before she ever made it to the farmer’s market. That’s how good her cookies, bars and pastries are.
And what to name her new business. Michelle kept coming back to how she describes her baked goods, sweet and simple. So Sweet & Simple is her name like the daisy in her logo.
The next step was a store front. Michelle had explored several locations but none worked out until one day she found the perfect place in February of this year in Fairfield. “Running a neighborhood bakery has always been a dream of mine.” Signing the lease she knew there was no looking back and she says, “I didn’t want to look back and say I never tried.”
It’s a huge commitment, sometimes she works 17 hour days. “Once I get my processes in order, it will get easier, but it’s been an adjustment for the family.” Michelle’s kids are 9, 11 and 12. What makes her baked goods so good? One taste of her iced shortbread cookie and you know. She makes brownies, Danish and muffins, too, and her cakes are a favorite for celebrations but order early. She may offer coffee in the bakery soon too.
“It’s been a hurdle but I’m doing this for me. And the neighborhood has been so supportive, especially the women.” Michelle now has three baker’s helpers and high school kids working in the afternoons. With plans to add more to her on line array of goodies, she may also write a cookbook. “Many of the recipes I use are from my grandmother and my mom says she’s probably smiling down on me from heaven, so proud that I brought my dream to life.”
Contact: [email protected]
VentureMom Tip
Sometimes you have to go “all in.”
