Those of you who follow our blog know that we were absolutely delighted when Baked by Yael’s cake pop was named Best of Washington. Successes like that are not only thrilling, they also remind of us that a passion can be built into a thriving business.  This video, which also appears on our website, reminds us of how we started out.  For those unable to view the video, the transcript is below.  Do you know of any other small, local businesses that started out similarly?  Comment to let us know.  We love hearing and sharing these stories.

Video Transcript:

I was really stressed in law school and especially when I was studying for the bar exam, I had to be at home all day studying and so I started baking kind of as a stress reliever.
One thing led to another and I took the bar exam, came back to work after I took the bar exam, and I continued baking.  I started a tradition at my office called Monday Treat, so every Monday morning I would bring in a different baked good.  It wasn’t always the most amazing baked good, but it was always a baked good and it was always made from scratch.

At first, my customers were my friends and by word of mouth it got to the point where a lot of people in the neighborhood were my customers.  Now I ship throughout the United States for pretty much anybody who loves sweets or bagels.  The main things are my bagels, of course, and also my cake pops, but my personal favorite is my black and white cookie.  I love it.  It’s exactly as I want it.  And then I also have other things like my rugelach.  Some of my recipes come from my family in Israel and so there are cross-Atlantic discussions on how to perfect the recipe going back and forth.

I don’t come up with a new product every week.  My goal is just to take a basic product and make it really well.

Cake pops are like the new cupcake, the new “it” thing in baked goods.  They’re little balls of cake and frosting on the inside, so it’s like if you took part of a cupcake and mixed it together and rolled it into a ball.  Then it’s dipped in a candy coating and it can either come on a lollipop stick or it can just come so it looks like a truffle.

I take it very seriously and I want my customers to be 100% satisfied.  I’ll go the extra step and I’ll do their cake pops in custom colors to make their whole event perfect.

It’s exciting it’s also kind of scary, you know?  Especially then to leave a really good day job to follow my passion.