It all began with trying to get a quick, healthy breakfast into my children, every mother’s struggle right? I had this recipe for Chocolate Chip muffins that they loved, but it was filled with white flour and white sugar, certainly not a healthy breakfast item that would sustain them until lunch at school. I started experimenting with different recipes trying to come up with something that was gluten-free and nutritious. After many failed attempts and “yuck” faces from my children, we finally came up with a muffin that was a hit – Sweet Potato Cinnamon with chocolate chips.
I would make the batter on Sunday and stick it in the fridge. Then every morning I could scoop and bake 3 or 4 muffins they would grab on their way to the bus. On Friday I would bake up all the rest of the batter and deliver hot muffins to people who needed cheering up or public servants that I wanted to treat. They were a hit and everyone wanted to know the recipe. There were some Sunday’s when I couldn’t get the batter made and this put a wrench in our healthy breakfast during the week. Hmmmm….could I make up a bunch of batter and freeze it? Then when I didn’t have a Sunday to devote to the kitchen we’d still have batter to thaw and bake. It worked! The batter could thaw in the fridge the night before and it baked up exactly like the fresh batter did.
A friend of mine who owned a local café wanted to sell them and allowed us to use her commercial kitchen on Sunday when she was closed to make the batter. She would bake and sell them at her café. My daughter, now partner in the business, had just graduated from college and said she would love to help and Sprout Bake was born in August of 2018.
Since then we have leased our own location in downtown Lake Orion at 20 Front Street called Cookies & Cream by Sprout Bake where we also seasonally sell premium and vegan ice cream, traditional and gluten-free cookies, gluten-free, dairy-free muffins and gluten-free, dairy-free cupcakes along with our frozen batter.