…was not a story I ever intended to create, even looking at the above picture I cannot believe I get to live this life, yet I know this is exactly where I belong.

“bringing cookie lovers together”

My story begins in 2019, when I decided to go gluten-free and vegan after realizing I was highly sensitive to gluten and dairy. For the most part it was an easy task but out of all the foods, the only food, I kept missing was of course, cookies.

Cookies have always been my thing, I was the child with an easy bake oven and as a teenager Netflix was always on a baking show.

My craving for cookies didn’t end, it actually sparked the challenge of finding the yummiest gluten-free and vegan cookies. I went to all my nearby markets and quickly realized the cookies were either too hard or too bland.

This is where my life took a gigantic turn,

because this would be the beginning of a beautiful curiosity that would change my life completely.

I always tell people that my cookies changed my life. Before creating my cookies, I was a lost soul but not like the super sad kind, just the ones that lived an okay average life. And let me just say, I was a happy 9-5er. I was so happy that I was at my job for 8 years before I decided to quit. Just for a little fun background history, I was a Team Supervisor for a Field Based Crisis Stabilization Program. My days were filled with solving other people’s lives while baking cookies was just a form of self-care and only for the weekends.

Learning how to bake was not easy and I’d never made cookies from scratch. Did you know there was actual science behind baking? I didn’t. However, I was on a mission and I wanted to make good tasting gluten-free and vegan cookies. I was baking so many cookies that I had to take cookies to friend gatherings, my neighbors, work, and give them out as gifts because I was baking all the time.

That quickly came to an end when the pandemic hit us around March 2020. And just like most, the pandemic was a difficult time for me. My feelings of “there must be something else out there for me” got stronger and I knew my job was not my path. In hopes of staying connected with friends, I did what I was doing and began gifting cookies to uplift everyone’s mood.

People began asking me if I sold cookies and if I had a menu….like what?

This is how BakeShell became a small business.

I had no idea what to do.

I was actually taken back that people were asking me about my cookies,

I mean they were just cookies… or at least I thought so.

I continued baking and expanding my baking skills and put together a cookie menu on a random day at 2 am. The demand grew and I began delivering throughout Los Angeles County.

But it didn’t end there, in 2021, I established loyal customers and I expanded by adding Gluten-Free and Vegan Cakes/Cupcakes to the menu. And once again, taught myself how to bake and decorate cakes/cupcakes through YouTube University!

Deciding to quit my job wasn’t easy, but the feeling I felt when I saw people taste my cookies and actually love them was a feeling I didn’t want to miss out on.

Bringing people together to share cookies and celebrate a special moment is exactly what I was meant to do, my path is BakeShell. After many back and forths with many excited yet fearful thoughts my love for cookies took over.

This is the moment I realized I could do something bigger than I ever envisioned.

This is the moment I decided to give my full heart to BakeShell.

— xoxo, The Cookie Queen