Sweet, Sassy & Slightly Unhinged
I’m the person behind the bakery. I like to bake, get a little creative, and make damn good desserts. I enjoy trying new things, putting my own spin on the classics, and creating treats that are as fun to look at as they are to eat.
Where it all started
My love for baking began long before I ever stepped into a professional kitchen.
As a young kid, I loved watching Great Chefs of the World. I was fascinated by everything happening in the kitchen, but I was especially captivated by the pastry chef who appeared at the end of the show. There was something about the creativity, precision, and artistry of pastry that stayed with me.
I remember telling my grandpa, “I want to be a pastry chef.”
My grandpa took that dream seriously. Whenever I wasn't at his house in Portland, Oregon, he would spend hours recording the pastry portions of the show for me so I could watch them when I came back. It was a small thing to him, perhaps, but to me it meant the world. He encouraged a dream before I even knew where it might take me.
When I was a junior in high school, my grandpa would point out Western Culinary Institute in downtown Portland every time we drove through the city. He would tell me, “One day, you're going to go there if this is really what you want to do.”
I graduated high school in 2000, but I didn't have much direction. I worked odd jobs and tried to figure out what I wanted my life to look like. Then, in 2002, my grandpa passed away.
Losing him changed everything.
Where I took it from there
I couldn't let that dream — or him — down. So I finally took the leap. In January 2003, I enrolled at Western Culinary Institute. In 2004, I graduated with an Associate of Occupational Studies, specializing in Patisserie and Baking.
I went on to spend many years working in commercial kitchens, gaining experience and learning the realities of the culinary world. Along the way, though, I somehow found myself pulled away from the passion that had started it all: baking.
Now life has taken an unexpected turn, and a sudden career change gave me something I hadn't had in a long time — time to stop and think about what I really wanted.
I kept coming back to that little kid who watched pastry chefs on television. The kid who told her grandpa, without hesitation, “I want to be a pastry chef.”
And I realized it was time to come back to that dream.
So, I'm starting this bakery — not simply as a business, but as a return to where my story began. It's a chance to reconnect with the craft I fell in love with as a child, to create something of my own, and to carry forward a dream that my grandpa believed in long before I believed I could make it happen.
This bakery is for the kid who dreamed about pastry, the grandpa who never stopped encouraging that dream, and everyone who believes it's never too late to find their way back to what they love.
~ Jessica
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