Good Neighbor Podcast: Auburn and Opelika

Ep.#96: Sweet Virginia Mae’s Cottage Bakery Story

• Susannah Hodges at Village Centre Press

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A home kitchen, a grandmother’s legacy, and a balanced buttercream power a local cottage bakery into a community favorite. We share how Sweet Virginia Maze began, what makes the cookies stand out, and how to order for your next celebration.

• the meaning of a cottage food bakery and license
• signature soft sugar cookies with vanilla buttercream
• recipe testing and the decision to avoid overly sweet icing
• cookie cakes and cookie pies with Hornsby Farms jam
• naming the business after Virginia May and honoring legacy
• balancing home operations with clear labeling and pickups
• family, yoga, and choir as creative fuel
• how to order via Instagram, Facebook, website, and email

https://www.facebook.com/sweetvirginiamaes/

https://www.mycustombakes.com/sweetvirginiamaes


SPEAKER_00:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Susanna Hodges.

SPEAKER_02:

Welcome. And with me is Stephanie Jack, and she is the owner of Sweet Virginia Maze. Welcome, Stephanie. Thanks so much for having me. Well, tell me a little bit about Sweet Virginia Maze. I had a chance to take a look at your website, and it looks awesome. Your cookies look really good.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, thank you. Um, yeah, so we started, we're a cottage food bakery. We started back in February of 2022. Um, we make, as you probably saw on the website, all kinds of different cookies, um, chocolate chips, snickerdoodles, um, kind of your standard cookies, as well as uh cookie cakes that can be custom decorated, and cookie pies, which are these delicious little two uh two sugar cookies with some hornsby farms jam in the middle and covered with uh little glaze. Those are delicious. Um, but our signature cookies are our custom decorated sugar cookies. Um, we decorate them with a vanilla buttercream. Um, they're delicious and pretty, hopefully.

SPEAKER_02:

And they are, I can tell online, they're gorgeous. Yeah, you almost don't want to eat them. They're too pretty. Oh, thank you. So yeah, that's that's a little snapshot of who we are. Yeah. So you said you you you said a term there. I'm not sure what it is. What is you said a cottage bakery? Is that what you said? What is that?

SPEAKER_01:

A cottage food bakery. So basically that means we don't have a storefront. Oh we are we operate in a home. Um, so my my home. Yeah. Um, so all of the uh all of the baking is done in my home. People come to me to pick up their orders. Um and cottage food bakeries have to have a cottage food license. You have to have the serve safe certificate, which means you've done all the food training, food prep training, safety stuff. Um, but you don't have to have the health department come inspect your, in fact, they don't come and inspect your kitchen. Um, and so those are things that go on our label with each of our orders so that people know that we're not inspected by the health department because we're a cottage food license. Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

But you do have a license, which means that that uh you've been trained. So that's good. Excellent.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, tell me about your journey into entrepreneurship. What uh what brought you into this uh cottage cookie cooking business here? Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, so I've always loved baking, um, especially cookies, but really anything. Um, and I think I get that from my grandmother who um also loved to bake. I'll talk about her a little bit more in a little bit. But um I got into sugar cookies several years back, um, and just I thought they were gorgeous. All the ones I was seeing other people sell. Um, and so I was like, well, I want to try. Like, I wonder if I could do that. Let's step up my game a little bit with my baking. Um, so I tried some different recipes, some different techniques. Um, and I landed on this what we now have as our sugar cookie with the vanilla buttercream. And it was my favorite by far, soft cookie, um, delicious buttercream. Um, and I started making those for people just for fun, um, for events or for holidays or just to like share with a friend on their birthday or something. Um, and people kept asking me over and over again for a few years, are you you should sell these? Why don't you sell these? Yeah. I'm like, well, because that feels daunting.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, you're starting a business. Yes, it always does feel that way.

SPEAKER_01:

That feels like I don't know what to do with that. I've never done that before. Um, but I started thinking more and more about it, and I thought about my grandmother, Mima, um, and she loved to bake. She baked and sold cakes um on the side. She had a full-time job, um, but she would do that, especially around the holidays. She always had a cake in her freezer when we would come to visit in southern Georgia. Um, and she, yeah, she would sell them to family and friends. And I was like, well, I mean, if Mima could do it, why not? Maybe I maybe I could do it. Um, and you know what? If it doesn't work out, it's okay. Like it's it's all right. This was kind of my side, my side hustle. So um, so if if it's if it doesn't work out, if people are like, we don't care about your cookies, um, then it's fine. It'll be sad, but it's fine. Um, so I decided to try and see what happened. Um, and that's basically how I started. My name, sweet Virginia Mays, is actually my grandmother, Mima, her name was Virginia May. And so I named it after her.

SPEAKER_02:

That's nice. So you've got a legacy. Yeah. Absolutely. That's really, really a great story. So you've been how many years have you been doing this?

SPEAKER_01:

So since 22. So it's been almost four years now.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, excellent. Well, tell me a little bit about you. What do you do for fun when you're not in the kitchen cooking cookies?

unknown:

Sure.

SPEAKER_02:

Or baking cookies.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, yes. Um, so I love being with my family and friends. Um, I have a daughter at Auburn High, and I have a son at Auburn University. Um, and my husband and I, we've been here for um it was 10 years in the summer. Um, so I love hanging out with them. They're just really fun. We all really get along. Um, I love going out with my friends, um, hanging out with them. I also love yoga, so yeah, I do yoga um for fun. Yeah, I know it's exercise, but if you're fun, yes. Yes. Um, and I love singing. So I've grown up singing and playing piano. I um I also write my own music. I haven't really performed since COVID. Um, but I do yes, I do love singing, especially in a choir. So I just recently um joined the Montgomery Corral, um which we lived in Montgomery before we moved here. And so I was in the corral then. Um, and now I have a little bit more time with my kids being older um and not shuffling them around to all of their mini activities um to take that time every week to go to rehearse with the corral, and it's really fun.

SPEAKER_02:

I love it. I like that too. It's always good to have something you enjoy doing for fun, and and for you, it's a talent, so that's even more special. Well, tell me, what is one thing that you wish people knew about sweet Virginia maize that they may not realize? Sure.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, so I guess this is yeah, overstated, but um, that the cookies are delicious. Yeah, um, they because they have that buttercream on top, um, I mean, most people love buttercream, and it's not especially sweet buttercream, so it's not just overly sugary in your mouth.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh bombarded with sweetness, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, but that's my goal is to make cookies that are delicious and that bring people joy. Um, if they happen to be pretty, awesome. Um but but my goal is yeah, that they just someone bites into that cookie and they're like, oh my gosh, that's so delicious.

SPEAKER_02:

And it just makes them happy. Absolutely. Well, how can people find more about you and order some cookies?

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. So I'm on Instagram and Facebook. Um, my handle is at SweetVirginia Maze for both of those. Um, and they also have a link to my website um to order cookies and to just see more of the cookies um that I have made before. They can also contact me at sweet virginia's at gmail.com. Um, that's my email. Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. All right. Well, I have really enjoyed talking with you, Stephanie, and learning more about you and your business, sweet Virginia Mays. Thank you so much for being with me. Absolutely. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Auburn. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPAuburn.com. That's GNPAuburn.com. Or call three three four four two nine seven four zero.