We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Madeline Cole a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Madeline, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.

I had been working on a muffin recipe for a while, my first sugar-free one. Since I don’t use erythritol or stevia powder, it was hard for me to get the texture I wanted with maple syrup and/or agave. Coconut sugar was too mild, (and also expensive!!). I had made 4 different batches to test out. I had tried piggybacking off of recipes online, but nothing worked until I just created my own. The last one that I thought for sure was going to make it, so I went ahead and put it on my menu so people could order. Well, I happened to taste one (again) at the last minute, and it was definitely not up to my standards at all! I was super embarrassed. At the last minute, I had the idea to make a chocolate ganache to go on top. In that moment I knew even though the customer was 15 min away from my house at the time, at least I wouldn’t feel bad for selling a product that I wasn’t proud of because it tasted so much better.

Madeline, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Well, I have always gravitated to more domestic activities i.e. cooking, cleaning, designing/decorating a home, etc. Baking was the one hobby I wanted to stick with in the long-term that was fun and fulfilling monetarily. I can get tired of cooking and cleaning, mostly due to the mental load of thinking through what needs to be done, how much time it will take, how much money I need to spend in preparation, etc. Baking has a creativity involved in it that I have always enjoyed and has never been tiring for me. Because once I have everything mixed, I can just throw it in the oven and be done. It is predictable and consistent, especially since all of my baked goods are my own recipes that I have memorized. With cooking, it takes more of standing around, stirring, watching it, and sometimes adding ingredients to taste. I also hate the number of dishes afterward, and usually, baking can be done in one or two bowls LOL.

I think what sets me apart from others is the types of desserts I make, which are very different from other bakeries in my area. While other people seem to be adept at cakes, cookies, brownies, etc., I, for some reason, don’t gravitate there. I tried just about everything, but I kept coming back to my original menu– minus the muffins for now. It started a couple of years ago when I came across scones and was curious because usually, they are considered a British item, not American. I didn’t want that to put people off because they were unfamiliar with it, so I found a recipe that was less like a British scone (more what we would call in the U.S., a biscuit) and much richer with a higher fat to flour ratio, but still low sugar. It was a unique product for sure, and people seemed to enjoy it a lot. At the time of my business, I was on a sugar-free fast for about eight months. I didn’t have any refined sugar and was searching for desserts to make. I ended up coming up with my pumpkin and gingerbread bars, which I thought were both creative and also satisfying for sugar-free and non-sugar-free customers.

The thing I am most proud of is not being afraid to put myself out there. If I see a vendor event or a farmer’s market online, I will usually apply if I’m not busy and the vendor fee is reasonable compared to the amount of traffic and profit I would expect to get out of it. For instance, I was going to apply to this one holiday event closer to where I live, but the vendor fee was too expensive for the small amount of activity in the area. Whereas an event a bit farther away but more into the city, was offering less for a vendor fee and I would also get more money out of it. Another thing I really like is working on photography and filming what I do. Because as much as I do want my products to have a home-baked feel, I’m very picky about aesthetics and I also wouldn’t sell anything that didn’t look delicious as well. I’m very big on visual appeal and I think that’s a huge part of my brand.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

This one is very funny but also makes me realize that you can pretty much start from anywhere if you are resourceful enough. If I remember right, I think I had 100-200 dollars in my bank account– none of which was from a previous job by the way (AKA Christmas money). For some reason, I didn’t want to spend much of that to buy any supplies or groceries, so I took like 5 surveys through my college and won this raffle for a $30 Amazon gift card. With that, I bought ribbon, boxes, tissue paper, and glassine bags for the scones. Then I finally caved and bought 150 white bags to put the boxes in (not even sure why I did this, because hello, that’s what the boxes are for??) So anyway, that cost me $50. Then I was also fortunate enough at the time to have my parents pay for my first few rounds of ingredients (thank you!!). Later down the line, I wanted some business cards and menus to pass out. My aunt was generous enough to make them for me (I designed them beforehand with Canva) which was awesome.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Yes, it has to do with procrastination. I, myself have never really had a problem with it, just because having things linger that I haven’t yet done stresses me out more than doing the task itself. 2 months ago, my dad unexpectedly passed away from a bad accident. I did not have any time to grieve due to legal issues and other arrangements that had to be dealt with for a while, so I had to put MRC Bakery on hold. This was fine, of course, until I was feeling this huge push out of nowhere. There were so many things I wanted to do, projects, events, but mainly, another business. I had put all of those things on hold for fear of getting started and what that would require of me, but also because I thought I had all the time in the world. I am learning now that we really do not have the knowledge or the right to quantify our time on Earth, at all. There is absolutely no way of knowing, and that is why our “now” matters most. I quickly learned to quit hesitating, because it will always seem inconvenient to do something outside of your comfort zone.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrcbakeryyy/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MRCBakeryyy/

Image Credits
Madeline Cole