We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lindsey Cook. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lindsey below.

Lindsey, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you have a hero? What have you learned from them?

My mom owned a catering business for many years and was riddled with terrible arthritis. One night I came home from work to find her sitting on a stool in the kitchen with a piece of pizza half in her mouth. She was asleep. She had a huge catering job that day and had likely worked for 16 hours. I shook her shoulder and gently tried to take her pizza, “Mom, wake up, let me get you in bed.” To which she replied, “Give me my pizza, I want my pizza”. It was hysterical.

Mumble, mumble “pizza”…snore…mumble, mumble “pizza”…snore…and repeat.

Eventually a few bites of pizza where adequately chewed and swallowed and she was tucked into bed.

My hero is my mom. She was amazing. I learned to carry on, keep moving forward, it doesn’t matter how slow you go, just keep moving forward. Nobody worked harder than my mom at all the things to take care of her family.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I have always cooked. I grew up at my mother’s elbow helping with dinner or breakfast. My brother and I did our homework in the kitchen while mom did her mom things. There was a an alphabet wallpaper border in the breakfast nook of our split-level, that’s where we practiced our letters. I learned a bit of math and fractions adjusting recipes. I don’t remember learning to use the “good” knives I was so little. Cooking just was always a thing that was always around, like laundry.

My mom was a pretty special lady. Just one of the very special things about Mom was her prowess in the kitchen. There are moms the world over with a similar gift. Everything tastes good, a facility and efficiency in the process, and knack for adjustments, problem solving, an intuition. And, typical of those moms, she fed all the people at some point. Riding your bike and feeling peckish, go find Lindsey’s mom, she’ll feed ya. She once iced my best friend’s little sister with royal icing, because Little Sister wanted to know what it felt like to be cake.

Mom was a heck of good cook, I learned well, way better than I learned to do laundry. Spending lots of time in the kitchen certainly did not stop when I started my own family. My kids learned to use the “good” knives young and measuring cups and spoons are still great ways to learn fractions. No wallpaper border though.

So, when life presented the opportunity to scratch a restless itch I looked to what I know. I was seeing how family life had changed since I was wee, and while the kitchen may often remain the heart of the home, the details of what was happening in that room were different than in my own. In no methodical nor scientific way, mostly just through simple curiosity, I tried to figure out how what I had to offer could fit in to these new dynamics.

A chance encounter while helping a colleague sell her gluten-free baking mix sparked an idea. At that point I had never used a baking mix for its intended purpose. A question from a customer lead me to read the instructions on the mix. In reading those instructions I realized that the chocolate chip cookie recipe I had spent a summer perfecting for swim meet bake sales lent itself perfectly to becoming a baking mix.

With a bit of trial and fair amount of error I started making Sweet Ace Cakes Baking Mixes. I tried dozens of competitors to get a grasp of what was out there and how they worked, to compare the ease of use and finished product with my own. I adjusted other well-honed recipes to those same ease of use standards. The self-identified worst cooks in my friend group were recruited to product test. Those notes were eye-opening and hilarious.

Sweet Ace Cakes Baking Mixes are much easier to use than typical baking mixes (I haven’t tried them all, of course). They are hand mixed from the same ingredients and with the same recipe I use for baking for my family.

I refer to the baking mixes “as tag team baking”, I have done the measuring and figuring and the mix is passed along to another for 20 minutes of time together with family, mixing and stirring, sneaking chips and dipping fingers in dough. The next day a sweet treat in a lunch box and big smile thinking of each other.

Later Schweet Ace Schmallows were added to the product line up. There aren’t any local marshmallow makers around these parts, and well, marshmallows are a lot of fun to play with new flavors. There is a Schlurpy Hot Chocolate Mix to complement the Schmallows, ’cause why not. It’s thick-ish and super rich, makes a satisfying sssccchlurp when sipped.

Schweet Ace Schmallows and Schlupry Hot Chocolate, say it out loud, it sounds like a Sean Connery impression.

I tried a bunch of gourmet marshmallows as well, some from as far away as Australia, Schweet Ace are the best I have had so far.

The mixes and the schmallows are really top-notch.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

That lovely mama who puttered around the kitchen with me for all those years passed away. She didn’t have much materially to pass along. I took the bit of cash left to me and the wealth of knowledge, grit, and gumption she mostly had to start this little endeavor of mine.

I recently was awarded a grant from the Kroger Company through the Incubator Kitchen Collective which will cover my kitchen costs through 2023. This is a stupendous opportunity to be flexible with resources to really focus on building the brand and local presence.

How did you build your audience on social media?

This is a work in progress for sure. Social media is my most challenging area to tackle. I am just old enough that the digital world still feels foreign and a bit uncomfortable. For as big and brash as my personality can be in person, social media feels like the kind of attention I shrink away from. It’s like having to finish the “good-for-you” part of dinner when you’re a toddler to work on my social media presence.

However, I am working my way through the myriad tools out there and trying to have fun with it. To stay true to the voice and brand culture I am developing for Sweet Ace.

It will be like brussels sprouts, I will find a way to prepare and love them. Totally. It will happen. Stay positive.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sweetacecakes.com
• Instagram: @sweetacecakes
• Facebook: @SweetAceCakesLtdCo

Image Credits
Tasha Pinelo (all photos but final of hot chocolate, Lindsey Cook on that last one)