“Blossomed into something beautiful.” Brooke’s Bread Basket celebrating 1 year
It’s been a year since the owner of a home cottage bakery located in Newton Falls left a stressful job to pursue baking as a hobby, which has bloomed into a business.
“I never expected it to take off like it did,” Brooke Smith said.
Now community members can’t get enough of the homemade baked goods available through Brooke’s Bread Basket, like her cookie butter cinnamon rolls, peanut butter bagels and biscoff-stuffed banana muffins.
“I started baking as a side thing,” she said. “It was just supposed to be a stepping stone, until I figured out what I wanted to do next. Then it blossomed into something beautiful. I have a lot of bakers in my family. Once I started doing it and I realized how happy it made people, it really kind of motivated me to continue to do it.”
Each month, Smith brainstorms and develops a new take on a bakery item for Brooke’s Bread Basket from her home kitchen.
“I started out with banana bread cinnamon rolls, and those 100% were my bestsellers, until I started making cookie butter, cinnamon rolls. Then everybody kind of went crazy over those,” Smith said. “I love to get in the kitchen and experiment. I’ve gotten to a point where I can take a recipe and tweak it, and I don’t actually have to follow the recipe which makes me really excited.”
Smith also creates fresh baked pastries and bread for special occasions; call (330) 992-4736 or message Brooke’s Bread Basket on Facebook to place an order.
“I have a lot of friends and family who help me, who let me bounce ideas off of them, and they are happy to be taste testers. My brother went to college for graphic design years ago, and he created my logo, plus all of my labels for my items. He has been super helpful,” Smith said. “When my husband said that he wanted to give me the opportunity to kind of explore this, I was really thankful for him... I still get to help in some type of way with my baking, and my mental health is not suffering anymore.”
Customers can find Brooke’s Bread Basket at upcoming vendor markets like the Newton Falls Methodist Church’s spring craft show on May 2 and at Rustic Roots on May 30.
“There’s a lot of quality and love that gets put into home baking and small businesses,” Smith said. “I quit my full-time job almost a year ago, but I still work full-time because I’m constantly doing marketing materials, looking up new recipes and trying to get my name out there.”
