Hello! Welcome to
The Gourmet Cupboard! Our
history is rather interesting, and we would like to share our story with
you.
After teaching elementary school for 6 years, I decided to quit and
stay at home with our first, soon to be born, son. Kaden
was born in
August of 2001. School was already back in session, and I began to look
around for a hobby to take up.
I began a business called Icing on the
Cake, where I baked cookies, breads, pies, and other sweets. I custom
decorated
cakes including wedding cakes. It was very stressful, it began
taking up all my free time, and my kitchen was constantly covered in
greasy icing!!
In the meantime,
my mom, Judy Baker, and I had been making “homemade” gifts for all of
our friends. We mixed up some of our
favorite family recipes, packaged
them in Ziploc bags, typed up the directions, and sent them out for
Christmas, wedding, and baby
gifts. We had a great response from
everyone who tasted them, and then we started experimenting with other
recipes. My mom
and I have both always loved to be in the kitchen,
baking, cooking, and experimenting. So, we really had fun with this!! We
started
to give away other mixes, and the popularity of it all began.
We decided to
spruce up our packaging a little and see if we could sell our mixes
using the name Icing on the Cake. Our first craft
show, in the summer of
2002, we only had about 20 different mixes, and we only made about 10 of
each one. We were so scared
that we wouldn’t sell them. Boy, were we
wrong!! We knew immediately that we had a good thing going, and there
could definitely
be a future in this!
Now, we operate
out of a specially designed building that serves as our kitchen,
warehouse, and our showroom. It was built by
husband, Shannon, and is
located adjacent to our home. Its convenient location still allows me to
stay at home with Kaden and our
new baby, Kale, born in December of
2003.
We also changed
our name to The Gourmet Cupboard,
which seemed more fitting, and I have given up the cake business all
together!! We still experiment all the time, sometimes finding exciting
new mixes to put together and sometimes throwing out our
concoctions,
but that is the fun of it all!! We hope you enjoy our mixes as
much as we do. Let us know what you think!
Thanks!
Melissa Holmes and Judy Baker
bravenet.com
