We recently connected with Teri Carter and have shared our conversation below.

Teri, appreciate you joining us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

I knew I wanted something that was meaningful and broad since I don’t just make cake or cookies. I also did not want it similar to other bakery names or have my name in it. A good friend of mine Sarah was sending me different ideas for about an hour. With each name we thought of I would google to see if it existed anywhere in the United States. I knew I wanted it to be different so it would stand out. Sarah finally asked me what color my mixer was. I told her it was ice blue. She texted me back pretty quickly with Blue Mixer Bakery with a quick follow up of no ignore me that is too plain. The best this is I am a simple person that like clean lines and designs and cool toned colors. I told her it was PERFECT. The mixer that started it all, my first baker purchase that I made was my Kitchen Aid tilt head blue mixer. I googled it and did not find anything like it when I was doing my searches. It was the symbol in my kitchen of baking that sat on my counter. It was meaningful to me and different than what most of the names we had been playing with. Every time someone asks me the name of my business it still makes me burst with pride and happiness.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My journey in this business started when I was young, I would bake for friends and family for all of our special occasions, always using them as my taste testers as I tried new recipes or designs. I knew they loved me because they ate everything I made with no complaints, but would also tell me what was and was not working. In high school I was working at a coffee shop in Wimberley, TX called Jitters. They were all about coffee but also sold lunch, pastries and custom cakes. It changed ownership 3 times while I was working there and each owner taught me more about baking and decorating cakes. My cousin by choice Beth was a big catalyst (and still someone I call to this day for advice and ideas) in me really learning and falling in love with baking. I started baking more seriously after graduating from Texas State University with my Master of Education in 2013! In 2016 a friend of mine wanted to make the cute decorated sugar cookies for Christmas and I figured we could just figure out. I tried a couple of recipes and finally tweaked them into my own recipe that I liked. Those first cookies decorated showed potential, but were rough. It takes time and patience and a lot of studying to get better and to the level I am at today. I am still constantly doing professional development and learning from everyone in the baking community I can.

​ After teaching in public school for a year and a half I came back to Texas State to teach for the program I graduated from. I became a lecturer in the department of Health and Human Performance for Texas State. I took a pretty drastic pay cut from public school to a university. I loved my new job but was not making a livable wage so I was encouraged by family and friends to start charging for the baking I was doing to makeup the difference. It was great I was doing two things I have a strong passion for, teaching and baking. I finally decided to dive in and make it more of a business in 2017, that is when Blue Mixer Bakery was born! Everything for the most part has been word of mouth and sharing my name. I try to keep up on social media but it is constantly changing and you can get overwhelmed pretty easily. I am still learning on the daily on how to run this business and teach full time. It has been so challenging but even more rewarding. I have so many amazing customers who continue to choose me for their big occasions. Something they have been great about is trusting me to design there desserts how I want to based on their themes and invitations. That has been so important to me. It is so easy to burnout on creative passions when you are only doing exactly what someone wants. I never wanted to copy others work and was worried how customers would feel when I ask for inspirations, but state I will never redo what they send me exactly. Keeping the creative control has been a huge help in keeping the burnout from creeping in.

I specialize in custom cookies, macarons, cakes, cupcakes, and more in the San Marcos and surrounding communities. I add in new flavors based on the seasons and trying out new recipes and desserts is always fun. I try to keep the main menu pretty small to keep costs down, but am known to tryout other items and flavors.

The jury is still out if I will every go full out bakery and get a storefront. I feel very blessed that I can do both passions at the same time. It has come with some really stressful and difficult times when they both get busy. I have had the “what am I thinking moments” quite often. I just am not ready to stop teaching and if I can do both then why not?

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I quickly had to learn how to be in control of my own business. It is so easy to cater to the audience and just push yourself based on trends or customer requests. I thought customer service was doing everything for every customer no matter how it effected me and my business.

I was part of this great cookie community run by a teacher turned full-time baker – Jill Childre. She started a monthly coaching session for cookiers called A Bigger Bite and she did this right when I was starting out and trying to figure out what to do. I was trying to keep up with trends and saying yes to any order because I thought that was how you built a business. What I realized I was doing was burning myself out and stifling my own creativity by doing what everyone else was doing and what they wanted me to do. Working with Jill and becoming close with two other cookie business owners Kia and Susan really helped me see that this business was mine and I get to decide how I want that to look. The clients will still come, they will just be clients that I want to work with and that encourage and support me. That is exactly what happened and it makes all the difference in your business.

The customer is always the most important, but I realized every business is not for every customer. Some want things I do not offer. It does not hurt my feelings when I do not get that order because I want to be happy in my business and I want that customer to be happy with their product. Sometimes that means I am not the one to fulfill their order.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I had decided in 2020 that I wanted to join with a friend and become partners. Our partnership was formed quickly and she is the best to work with. I learned a few months later that while we both had the same dream our timeline was not the same. I knew how much I could take on and how quickly I wanted it to grow and it did not match where she was in life. Ending that partnership 6 months later was so sad and difficult because we worked so well together. Running the business solo was more difficult for a while. Paperwork and emails are not my strength and going back to being in charge of every aspect was a rough transition. Business had really boomed for us both and going solo again even after a short time was an adjustment. As difficult as it was, it was the best decision for me and my business. I learned more about what I was capable of and future direction for Blue Mixer was even clearer.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bluemixerbakery.com
• Instagram: bluemixerbakery.com
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/bluemixerbakery
• Twitter: bluemixerbakery

Image Credits
Photo of Teri – by Laura Cobb with Laura Lee Photography