Sara’s Heavenly Sweets

This summer our mom Sara started her own bakery business. Last summer we helped our poppa Brian on his boat catching crabs and fish and wrote about our experiences with BTM Seafood (remember BTM for Brian, Troy and Marshall). We called Mr. Gary and let him know that we wanted to write something this summer about Sara’s Heavenly Sweets.

The two of us met Mr. Gary at his house with our dad, Jonathan, and mom. Mr. Gary asked us a bunch of questions and took notes. Here is what we learned.

Mom learned how to bake from our grandmother Patricia and started baking on her own as a teenager. Homemade bread using four ingredients is one of her favorites. So are cinnamon rolls.

When our grandmother died a couple of years ago, Mom decided she would start on a fitness journey to get healthy. She cut out carbs, alcoholic drinks and goes on five-mile walks. She lost a lot of weight. Then during one of the storms last fall, our house was flooded, causing a lot of damage. Mom needed a side hustle to make more money outside her regular job and that is how Sara’s Heavenly Sweets got started.

She uses old-fashioned recipes, cast iron cookware, and organic ingredients in her baking. For instance, the eggs come from Poppa’s chickens who roam around the property and eat, among other things, fresh seafood from BTM Seafood.

Here is how Mom’s week looks. On Monday, she takes inventory and buys enough butter, sugar, flour, and other ingredients for the week. Tuesday is for making frosting and banana bread. Wednesday, she prepares the cookie dough and freezes it. Thursday is cinnamon rolls. On Friday, she bakes the frozen cookie dough, giving her perfect cookies. It takes an hour for the dough to rise. She bakes 15 cookies on each baking sheet and then pipes on the designs. The cookies need to be cooled before packaging with the label, date, time, and weight.

All Sara’s baking is done under Florida’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Cottage Food Law. That law allows you to make and sell low-risk, shelf-stable homemade foods from your primary residence without a state license, permit, or inspection. Certain foods are allowed and others are not. Allowed foods include loaf breads, biscuits, cookies, pastries, and cakes without cream, custard, or meat fillings; jams and jellies from high-acid fruits; honey, candies, dried fruit, granola, dry mixes, popcorn, and nut butters.

Prohibited foods include perishable items requiring time or temperature control for safety such as meat, fish, poultry, dairy, fresh custards, cheesecakes, garlic-in-oil mixtures and canned low-acid vegetables or pickles.

We open on Saturday and Sunday mornings starting at 7:00 AM until the food is sold. We have two locations at 112 Andrea Lane, Naples, FL 34114 and 4842 30th Place SW, Naples, FL 34116. Hope you’ll visit us for some honest-to-goodness treats.