After teaching elementary school for 6 years, I decided to quit and stay at home with our first, soon to be born, son. Kaden was born in August of 2001. School was already back in session, and I began to look around for a hobby to take up. I began a business called Icing on the Cake, where I baked cookies, breads, pies, and other sweets. I custom decorated cakes including wedding cakes. It was very stressful, it began taking up all my free time, and my kitchen was constantly covered in greasy icing!!

In the meantime, my mom, Judy Baker, and I had been making “homemade” gifts for all of our friends. We mixed up some of our favorite family recipes, packaged them in Ziploc bags, typed up the directions, and sent them out for Christmas, wedding, and baby gifts. We had a great response from everyone who tasted them, and then we started experimenting with other recipes. My mom and I have both always loved to be in the kitchen, baking, cooking, and experimenting. So, we really had fun with this!! We started to give away other mixes, and the popularity of it all began.

We decided to spruce up our packaging a little and see if we could sell our mixes using the name Icing on the Cake. Our first craft show, in the summer of 2002, we only had about 20 different mixes, and we only made about 10 of each one. We were so scared that we wouldn’t sell them. Boy, were we wrong!! We knew immediately that we had a good thing going, and there could definitely be a future in this!

Now, we operate out of a specially designed building that serves as our kitchen, warehouse, and our showroom. It was built by husband, Shannon, and is located adjacent to our home. Its convenient location still allows me to stay at home with Kaden and our new baby, Kale, born in December of 2003.

We also changed our name to The Gourmet Cupboard, which seemed more fitting, and I have given up the cake business all together!! We still experiment all the time, sometimes finding exciting new mixes to put together and sometimes throwing out our concoctions, but that is the fun of it all!!

We hope you enjoy our mixes as much as we do. Let us know what you think!

Thanks!

Melissa Holmes and Judy Baker Owners