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August 12, 2024
FOND DU LAC – People start their own businesses for all kinds of reasons.
For Tasia Henning, it was a love of baking.
After witnessing the success of a friend who started her own cookie-making business in Appleton – Henning said she was intrigued.
Following a discussion with that same friend, Henning said she was dedicated to giving it a try herself.
With that, Mimi’s Bake Shoppe was born.
That was in approximately 2018, and Henning said it’s been quite the whirlwind ever since.
She said she originally thought it might be a couple dozen cookies here and there for family and friends, and maybe a few referrals – but word of her cookies spread like wildfire.
Last year alone, Henning said she estimates she made about 8,400 cookies.
At one time she said she was making 25 dozen cookies a week.
“But I was way too busy and was getting burned out,” she said. “That’s why the last couple of years I’ve cut it back to 10-12 dozen a week, on average. Though, recently I did 15 dozen, and that was a lot.”
Besides making cookies, Henning said she works three days a week as a hairstylist, so 10-12 dozen or so a week is all she can handle – especially since she does everything herself.
Time management absolutely necessary
To juggle working part-time outside the home, baking cookies from home as a cottage baker and having time for her husband and playing golf – another passion of hers – Henning said she has developed superb time management and multi-tasking skills.
Sunday or Monday nights, she said, are set aside for her to make dough.
Henning said she bakes on Tuesday nights and decorates cookies on Wednesday nights.
She said she can decorate about 10 dozen cookies in one day.
Thursdays, Henning said, are reserved for packaging the cookies.
“I try not to do any cookies on Friday or Saturday unless I have to,” she said. “When it comes to holidays, I have to do cookies on the weekends, most of the time. Last Christmas, I made 1,200 cookies, not counting all the corporate orders that I had. It usually takes me 10-12 days straight to do all my holiday orders.”
Other busy times during the year, Henning said, are graduation and other holidays.
During those times, she said she knows she’s going to be busy, and prepares for those occasions.
Henning said some customers even look ahead, booking out a year in advance, especially for graduations.
“I get so busy around graduation time,” she said. “The longer (lead time), the better. It all depends on the date. Certain dates are busy. I just had someone message me the other day asking if I could make a bunch of cookies for Oct. 25 and because that’s around Halloween, they asked if I could make them ahead of time and then freeze them until that date. That’s perfect. I can do that. I book out so far in advance and still, I turn people away every single day.”
Henning said one design takes approximately an hour or so, including drawing time, to complete.
“But in that hour I can do six of them, one after another, almost like they’re on a conveyor belt or assembly line,” she said. “One dozen takes approximately two hours… My ingredients don’t cost that much, but it’s my time in doing the cookies that I have to charge for. The designs have fine detail in them, like eyelashes on a face, or drawing or airbrushing something on the cookie.”
What’s in a recipe?
Mimi’s Bake Shoppe sells sugar cookies only, but Henning said they don’t taste like a traditional sugar cookie – likening them to a biscuit.
In the beginning, she said there was a lot of experimentation to get the right recipe.
“I’ve always enjoyed baking, so I just started doing it,” she said. “There was a lot of practice involved to get the recipes just right. It probably took me about three months to come up with my recipe. I started by making cookies for friends and family for birthday parties and things like that.”
Henning said the texture of Mimi’s Bake Shoppe cookies is different as well.
The ingredients, she said, are pretty straightforward – flour, powdered sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla/almond extract, baking powder, meringue powder, corn syrup and salt.
Henning said part of the recipe’s success is in how they’re made.
“When it comes to taste and texture, it can’t be hard, and it has to last for a long time in a package,” she said. “If someone picks up cookies on a Wednesday for the weekend, they still have to be fresh until then. But the key is to not have them spread. In other words, they have to hold their shape. So, if I’m making a Mario cookie, I need the cookie to stay that shape so I can make his face correctly.”
Freshness, Henning said, is also key.
She said she had family and friends test the freshness of the cookies in a variety of different ways – fresh, sealed and eaten days later and after being frozen.
“My cookies come individually wrapped and heat-sealed, so they stay fresh for two, maybe three weeks,” she said.
Freezing them, Henning said, can extend that even longer.
There is, however, a process for unfreezing them.
“My cookies are all individually packaged, so to freeze them I put them in a locked tote and put it in the freezer,” she said. “To thaw them out, you just pull out the tote and let sit on your counter for about a full day. You don’t even open the lid – just set it on the counter and slowly they’ll come to room temperature. Otherwise, condensation gets inside the packaging and they’re ruined. Personally, I feel that they taste better after they’ve been frozen. It seems like the flavors come out more. “
Design evolution
Henning said over the years, she has perfected the way her designs look and has even become more intricate with them.
She said the first design she ever did was dinosaurs for a kid’s birthday party.
“My friend’s son was turning two or three, and I did dinosaurs for his party,” she said. “From that first dinosaur to the dinosaurs I do now, it’s different. They’re so much more detailed now.”
Henning said she gets design ideas from a variety of sources.
“Usually people just say ‘here is the theme and here are the colors, come up with whatever,’” she said. “There are other cookiers around the world, and we all inspire each other and get ideas off of each other.”
Henning said she makes a lot of cookies based on whatever is trending at the time – such as Barbie last year and a lot of Bluey right now.
Most cookies, Henning said, are done by the dozen.
But for holidays, she said she’ll often offer special single-baked cookies that are personalized, perhaps with someone’s name.
“Minis are probably my biggest seller during the holidays,” she said. “I make a four-pack of mini cookies.”
Not a ‘cookie cutter’ operation
When she started, Henning said she was surprised by the cost of cookie cutters.
The ones used in Mimi’s Bake Shoppe, she said, are 3-D printed cookie cutters that she buys from small businesses throughout the U.S.
“I have favorite ones that I use, but sometimes other ones have different designs that I like better,” she said. “It takes 45 minutes to print one cookie cutter – it’s insane. But that’s probably why they’re so expensive.”
Henning said she currently has 1,500-1,700 cookie cutters.
If she doesn’t have or can’t locate a specific cookie cutter – such as a business’s logo or something along those lines – Henning said she can do the design or shape on a plaque and hand-pipe it that way.
“Or I can have a handmade, silkscreen stencil done that I can then put icing over,” she said.
Business comes from everywhere
Though people find her from all over the place, Henning said most of her business comes strictly from word-of-mouth and referrals – as well as social media.
“My husband has an office in Appleton, so a lot of Appleton area people pick up their cookies at his office,” she said. “A few months ago, I had some people from Milwaukee drive up and pick up some cookies.”
Henning said she also offers shipping to customers in the Badger State.
“Under Wisconsin’s Cottage Food law, I cannot ship outside of Wisconsin (if charging money for the cookies), but I can ship within the State of Wisconsin. But I always tell people that I cannot guarantee that they’re not going to break, even though I package them as good as I can.”
COVID-19 spurred a new product line
Since starting her business, Henning said she hasn’t encountered any real challenges, other than supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“During COVID it was hard to get certain products and ingredients, so I had to go with more expensive ones,” she said.
Henning said she continued baking cookies during COVID, but customers had to pick up from her doorstep.
During those early days of the pandemic, she said she created DIY cookie-decorating kits – something fun for the kids to do while stuck inside.
“I would do kits of six naked cookies, three bags of icing and some sprinkles,” she said. “Kids would do all the decorating themselves. I sold so many DIY kits during that eight-week or so shutdown, it was crazy.”
Henning said she still sells DIY kits, but only during certain holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and Mother’s Day.
Despite the past and future growth, Henning said she plans to continue baking at home, instead of opening a storefront somewhere.
She said she also plans to remain a one-woman show – which saves on overhead expenses and gives her total control over her product – from start to finish.
“My husband will often stamp my packages for me, but otherwise, it’s just all me,” she said. “I bake every cookie, I decorate every cookie and I inspect every cookie before they go inside the package, then I heat seal every package and prepare them for delivery.”
Check out Mimi’s Bake Shoppe’s Facebook or Instagram pages for more.
