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

Pamela, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Alright, so we’d love to hear about how you got your first client or customer. What’s the story?

Our first customer was Brewing Market in Boulder Co. I went to the coffee shop with my 2 year old daughter we walked in with gluten free coffee cake on a paper plate from Costco wrapped in Saran Wrap. I asked to speak to the manager and a wonderful woman named Pat came out to talk to me. I offered her the cake to try and sell it , fortunately for me she was Celiac herself and she was super excited to try something like this! She took the cake wrapped up the precut slices and sold them all! She called me the next day to start to officially order our Cinnamon Coffee Cake! That was an excited day!

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.

Outrageous Baking was born from a search for good gluten- and dairy-free treats for my daughter, who had food allergies when she was an infant. After experimenting in the kitchen I came up with a take on a old family recipe, Aunt Kay’s Cinnamon Coffee Cake, which has turned into an all-time customer favorite. That sweet smell of cinnamon and the swirl of yummy goodness within the bread played a big part in Outrageous Baking’s booming start.

We’ve grown from a small, home-based business to a full commercial production, but the same wholesome ingredients and handmade products haven’t changed a bit.

People always ask us, “How can your breads be so moist and delicious without gluten and dairy?” Our answer, we only use top-quality ingredients with no preservatives, and every single loaf is made with a whole lot of love.

We solve the problem of finding “safe” certified gluten free delicious treats for our customers. We also now have plant based . Vegan gluten free sweet breads as well and that helps not only those that are choosing not to eat animal products but for those who are gluten free too!

I am most proud of our Vegan and Gluten free sweet breads as it is quite difficult to bake without eggs and gluten!
Also we always do our best to source the highest quality ingredients with no GMO’s and no preservatives. We have kept the home made like grandma use to do feeling within our products for now over 16 years and we will continue to do so.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

Yes, we do all of our manufacturing in house. We got started in the back of a bagel shop (i know not gluten free at all! It was a learn as you go kind of experience from the beginning. We honestly learned so much from making mistakes. Once our only baker forgot to separate the eggs ( egg white from yolk) and the breads turned out great! From there on out we had one less step we had to do in our baking process.
What I learned most is to try to find a place where you can keep the rent down as much as possible, I know in todays industry that can be difficult but there are lots of kitchens around that can be used, like church’s, possibly schools when first starting out.
Also, we never bought what we could not afford. When we made some money we put it right back into buy more ingredients, paying rent etc.
In the beginning it is best to do it yourself to know all the facets of the business is important, especially when it comes to making your product.
Reach out to those who have done it before , ask lots of questions and always try and find the source of where the ingredients come from if you can and buy direct.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

After 17 years of being in business and being through a pandemic the word resilience almost speaks for itself. We have had our ups and downs and there have been times as a business owner that I have felt bored, tired, lonely, overwhelmed and wondering what I will do next?
I believe is it always trying to be creative and think of solutions to whatever challenges come ones way.
During the pandemic when sales were dropping and there was a lot of fear in the air I reached out to a now famous instagram and Tik Tok personalty Tabitha Brown to review our products as she choose a few to do on Fridays with her daughter for FREE.
I did not know if she was going to review them or not, however one evening I was finishing cleaning up dinner when I took a glance at my computer and I was seeing orders coming in one after another I couldn’t believe my eyes!
I thought it was some kind of computer error, then from upstairs my teenage daughter told me Tabitha Brown just did a review of our products!
Wow this was a happy surprise we got over 300 orders and it saved our month from really low sales. I am forever grateful and I hope one day I can do the same for someone else.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.outrageousbaking.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/outrageousbaking/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OutrageousBakingCompany

Image Credits
Grace Long