Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Jimenea.
Hi Jessica, 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 backstories with our readers?
I have been baking for as long as I can remember, I always loved baking anything I could for friends and family. I starting working in the food industry when I was in high school. I worked at pizza shops, restaurants, and hotels. My culinary education also started in high school when I attended Eastland Career Center for Culinary Arts. After high school, I later went onto Columbus State Community College where I got an associate’s degrees in Hotel, Tourism, and Event Management and a certificate in Baking and Pastry Arts. For the last 6 years, I have been working at a hotel where I have gotten experience in the restaurant, baking, and banquet kitchens.
During the pandemic, I had lost hours at my job and decided to really take on baking at home. I received my home bakery license and got to baking. I started with a small Etsy shop, where I could ship to anyone in the states and on Facebook and Instagram taking on any custom orders that came my way. I got into farmers’ markets pretty quickly, Olde Pickerington Farmers Market was the first market that I attended.
Today I do a mix of custom orders, online orders, preorders for holidays and am looking for the next farmers market season.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I take everything as a learning experience. There are many different points, in baking and testing recipes to get the perfect flavors, sometimes things do go exactly according to plan and you have to start over. In decorating, sometimes I’ll see a new technique I want to learn and think it will be easy and realize that it wasn’t as simple as I’d thought.
When it comes to preorders and farmers’ markets, sometimes I get really excited about something I’ve made and think it’s going to sell out and people will love it and that turns out not to be the case. Or I can make too many of an item that didn’t sell or even not enough. In the last year, I was learning what is the best things to make.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Lucky Bunny Bakery is a licensed home-based bakery in Columbus, Ohio. I love to make all kinds of desserts and pastries. If you see me at the farmers market, I am usually known for my packs of chocolate chip cookies, although you can’t go wrong with one of my flavored brownies or pound cakes. I make everything from scratch and use the best ingredients I can find. I love doing custom orders and making desserts for events. I enjoy learning now techniques and trying out new things when it comes to baking. I offer a list of items on my website luckybunnybakery.com where locals can place orders for pickup on the weekends. I also do farmers’ markets during the summer seasons. I do pre-sales for most holidays like Valentines, Easter, and Christmas. I take custom orders for birthdays or other special events; I can be contacted for those through my website for email luckybunnybakery@gmail.com
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
The most important lesson is to not to overwhelm myself. I usually have a million ideas running through my head of what I want to bake next for markets or pre-sales. I have learned to only do what I can and save the rest for next time. I am only one person and can get very busy during the market seasons, so I have learned to stay in my limits and know when to take a break.
Contact Info:
- Email: luckybunnybakery@gmail.com
- Website: luckybunnybakery.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luckybunnybakery
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LuckyBunnyBakery/
