Today we’d like to introduce you to Elisabeth Johnson.
Hi Elisabeth, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I was working in my hometown of Albuquerque, NM as a line cook when I met my husband, Andrew, who is a MN native. He had recently been hired at IBM and I figured I could cook anywhere so I moved to Rochester to be close to him. I wanted to shift to bakery work and ended up getting a job at Great Harvest. I happened to have a conversation with one of my coworkers about MN cottage food law and decided to leave Great Harvest to open a home bakery. Rosemary & Lavender Bakery began in May 2019 at the Rochester Farmers Market. I was so anxious getting everything ready that I forgot to call the market manager to secure my place for the next day’s market. It was late at night when I realized and I looked at all the dough I had prepped and sank. Andrew encouraged me to carry on and said that the market manager would be up early and I could text her in the morning and would probably have no problem securing a spot. (He was right.) Every market was exhilarating and chaotic to prepare for. I would stay up late prepping, and then sleep for an hour or two before getting up to bake everything just in time to roll into market. I remember a few days when my husband manned the booth while I raced home to get a few more things baked. We were in a small apartment at the time and everything was covered in sheet pans–counters, tables, couches–everything. I would stash dirty dishes in corners on the floor to deal with later. Often I would wake my husband at 4 or 5 to help me when I was drowning. It took time to settle into a pattern with my menu, but I eventually landed on doing some kind of scone, some kind of cookie, some kind of bread, and some kind of tart each week. I would rotate the variety of item from week to week, phasing flavors in and out with the season. With time, I started to get orders that people picked up at my house. I said yes to pretty much every inquiry I got. With orders, too, it took time to find my niche. In 2020, I had my son. After a few months off, I returned to market and filling orders. My husband and son would come to market with me each Saturday. When I was pregnant with my daughter, I would get migraines and had to take a break from market, which ended up being a permanent departure. I transitioned to only taking direct orders. I miss the energy of being a vendor there, but this is the right thing for our family right now. Most of what I make is cakes, because that is such a common celebration dessert, but I love when I get orders for different things. Pies, scones, bread, tarts. When people ask me what my favorite thing to bake is I usually say the thing I haven’t made yet. I love to find new recipes and experiment with recipes I’ve made many times to see if I can do it better. I am a better baker than I was when I started six years ago, and I hope to be a better baker in six years than I am now.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Early on I didn’t really have a “brand.” I tried to cater to everyone. I tried to have gluten-free and vegan options. I love food and I love feeding people, and for me part of that is figuring out how to make things that people with dietary restrictions can eat and enjoy. I learned over time, though, that that kind of experimentation is difficult as a business owner. The research and testing that is needed to make things that both met my personal standards for baked goods and accommodated a client’s dietary restrictions was hard. So I eventually started turning down a lot of inquiries for specialty bakes, not because I am not interested in them, but because they aren’t sustainable for me from a business perspective.
I have baked so many things for orders and for market that never made it to customers. Early on cake orders were very stressful for me because I hadn’t pinned down my recipes and I kept having issues with my cakes collapsing after I took them out of the oven. For a while it seems like I made every cake order twice because the first cake failed. Once I was doing a large order of individual gift boxes of cardamom buns for a department at Mayo and the buns didn’t rise! I had drained my tub of Baker’s Field Flour so I raced to HyVee to buy flour and got to work making them all over again. Fortunately, the gifts wouldn’t be handed out until the next day so I made arrangements with the pickup person to deliver them to her early in the morning. I wish I could say that this is a thing of the past, but just last month I had to call a customer because the pies she ordered didn’t turn out and I needed to make them again. I find huge comfort when I learn of baking fails like this in professional bakeries. It is part of the business, but the baking disasters are much less frequent and each one teaches me something to do differently so I can be more consistent. The stress is tough, but I do like the outcome of honing my skills.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Rosemary & Lavender Bakery?
I bake out of my home and seek to align with a slow food ethic, focusing on clean food made from local ingredients. I know the name of the farmer who grows the grain for my flour and I know the names of the people who mill it for me.
I make wedding and celebration cakes, bread, pies, tarts, scones, and cookies.
What matters most to you? Why?
My family. They are my end and my beginning. One of the things that this business has provided me is the opportunity to spend the day with my children while also developing my skills and pursing a long-time dream.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://rosemaryandlavenderbakery.com
- Instagram: @rosemaryandlavenderbakery
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/rosemaryandlavenderbakery
