Cake Therapy
From Flour to Flourish: Maddie Gartmann's Baking Journey
When Maddie Gartman whisks together flour, sugar, and butter, she's not just baking cookies; she's mixing up a batch of joy and healing. Our cherished guest from Garty Goodies steps into the studio to share her story, revealing how her kitchen became a sanctuary where she whips up not only some of Minnesota's most delectable treats but also a sense of balance in the throes of entrepreneurship and motherhood. Her candid confessions about the bittersweet challenges of turning a pastime into a thriving business offer a recipe for resilience that's sure to inspire.
Woven into the heart of our conversation, Maddie sprinkles wisdom on nurturing a community spirit in an industry often glazed with competition. From her beloved sugar cookies to the flexible art of cake decorating, she illustrates how authenticity and the freedom to make mistakes are the secret ingredients to a fulfilling creative process. The warmth of her teaching philosophy shines through as she recounts the shift from high school teacher to beloved baking instructor, fostering a space where students can rise to their own sweet success.
She shares invaluable advice for 'cooky' beginners, stressing the significance of ditching perfection for practice. Maddie's aspirations to pen a book and leave a legacy of positivity for her children are the icing on the cake, reminding us all that authenticity is the true flavor of success, whether you're creaming butter or crafting a personal brand. Join us for this heartwarming episode that's just as much about feeding the soul as it is about decorating cookies.
Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Share the episodes and let's chat in the comments.
Support the Cake Therapy Foundation:
1. Cake Therapy - Cake Therapy (thecaketherapyfoundation.org)
2 Buy Me A Coffee : The Cake Therapy Foundation (buymeacoffee.com)
3. Buy The Book: Cake Therapy: How Baking Changed My Life https://a.co/d/76dZ5T0
Follow Sugarspoon Desserts on all social media platforms @sugarspoondesserts
When Maddie Gartman whisks together flour, sugar, and butter, she's not just baking cookies; she's mixing up a batch of joy and healing. Our cherished guest from Garty Goodies steps into the studio to share her story, revealing how her kitchen became a sanctuary where she whips up not only some of Minnesota's most delectable treats but also a sense of balance in the throes of entrepreneurship and motherhood. Her candid confessions about the bittersweet challenges of turning a pastime into a thriving business offer a recipe for resilience that's sure to inspire.
Woven into the heart of our conversation, Maddie sprinkles wisdom on nurturing a community spirit in an industry often glazed with competition. From her beloved sugar cookies to the flexible art of cake decorating, she illustrates how authenticity and the freedom to make mistakes are the secret ingredients to a fulfilling creative process. The warmth of her teaching philosophy shines through as she recounts the shift from high school teacher to beloved baking instructor, fostering a space where students can rise to their own sweet success.
She shares invaluable advice for 'cooky' beginners, stressing the significance of ditching perfection for practice. Maddie's aspirations to pen a book and leave a legacy of positivity for her children are the icing on the cake, reminding us all that authenticity is the true flavor of success, whether you're creaming butter or crafting a personal brand. Join us for this heartwarming episode that's just as much about feeding the soul as it is about decorating cookies.
Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Share the episodes and let's chat in the comments.
Support the Cake Therapy Foundation:
1. Cake Therapy - Cake Therapy (thecaketherapyfoundation.org)
2 Buy Me A Coffee : The Cake Therapy Foundation (buymeacoffee.com)
3. Buy The Book: Cake Therapy: How Baking Changed My Life https://a.co/d/76dZ5T0
Follow Sugarspoon Desserts on all social media platforms @sugarspoondesserts
Welcome to the Cake Therapy podcast a slice of joy and healing, with your host, Dr Altricia Foster. This is a heartwarming and uplifting space that celebrates the transformative power of baking therapy. The conversations will be a delightful blend of inspirational stories, expert insights and practical baking tips. Each episode will take listeners on a journey of self-discovery, emotional healing and connection through the therapeutic art of baking. There's something here for everyone, so lock in and let's get into it.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone, welcome back to the Cake Therapy podcast, your slice of joy and healing, with me, your host, altricia Foster. So today we have a very exciting guest. Yes, she is exciting, she is from my neighborhood and she's a cook here. So we want to welcome Maddie Gartman from Gartie Goodies. She makes the best cookies in Minnesota. She's one of the best cookiers I've seen in a long time and I'm excited to have her join us today. So welcome, maddie.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited to be here. Yeah, so if you haven't followed Maddie yet, so Gartie Goodies makes like these intensive cookies. Okay, she's intense. Her cookies look good. They're so detailed, they're packed with goodness and I can tell that you bake your cookies from a real place of excitement and joy and I look forward to seeing your posts. You know, and I like how you flip your cookie cutters. What do you call that series, maddie?
Speaker 3:Oh, I call it Mystery Cookie Monday, but cookie flips yep, that's another story.
Speaker 2:And I love that and I want to know from you how you're doing like, how you know I know that you have, like all of these followers what's the pressure like to just keep maintaining and flipping cookies? You know, every Monday?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great question. How am I doing?
Speaker 2:Well, busy all the time.
Speaker 3:But um, yeah, it is. It's definitely a lot of pressure, especially because I'm maintaining a social media job. Essentially it's become my job as well as an actual baking job where I sell cookies to people as well as being a stay at home mom. So it's juggling three different things and it's easy for one of those to get put on the back burner. What I try to do so that the social media component doesn't take over, because it really can, because the internet can just being on your phone, can just get into your everyday life.
Speaker 3:If you don't have some control over it is is to batch, batch, create, and so I'll take Sunday and I'll make all five videos for the whole week on Sunday, yeah, and that really helps, and then I can just some of them like Instagram has scheduling tools so I can just schedule them all out right away, get them in my drafts, and that that really really helps keep things from being overly taking over my life, because I still do have to sell cookies to people, you know, and they're not people that come from TikTok and Instagram, they're people in my neighborhood, yeah, and I still need to be a mom full time, you know.
Speaker 2:So I'm sure a lot of women can relate to that juggling a career and motherhood, yeah, so, outside of your, your almost one million TikTok followers who you know, who gets to interact with you on some level, you know, via that platform, tell us who you are like, who are you? You know what influenced your childhood like, yeah, what makes Maddie Maddie.
Speaker 3:Well, I can't say that I have had a lifelong love of baking, but I've had a lifelong love of the arts and creating. So there's always some sort of a creating medium, whether it was scrapbooking, crocheting, sewing. You know, I did it all, everything that you could do. And then I, as I got older, I wanted to get into cupcakes, which is like a slippery slope. You start with cupcakes and then you're suddenly taking that Wilton cake decorating class at Michael's and then and then I was just determined to figure out how to make those cookies. And this was before anyone really offered classes and it was just going to be another one of my creative outlets. Because that's something that I have learned in my life to maintain my mental health is that I need a creative outlet, and whether it's baking, whether it's painting, I have to do something creative. It's almost I, compared to working out. I need to work out too, but for me, that is my, it is my mental health thing that I need to do to maintain just you know keeping my bucket full every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you do that, tell me, like you said, that it's your creative outlet and you'll have to keep your own. You know your bucket full. Expand on the mental health aspect of it. Like, what does it do for Maddie when Maddie creates? How does Maddie feel? What does Maddie get from creating?
Speaker 3:When I'm, when I am fully into it, I can get completely lost in it. You know, either I put music on or headphones on, and I can escape everything else. When I'm creating for content purposes and I'm, I can't get lost in it. That's when I find it's not fun for me anymore, and and so I have to maintain that, okay, I'm going to do yes, I'll do a couple things for content purposes, but I have to do things that I just enjoy doing. At the end of the day, like I have to make sure I am integrating things that just bring me joy, because otherwise it's just it's it's not fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so besides the, you said that the content creation does not bring you as much joy, as other things. Describe the joy that you're actually seeking.
Speaker 3:You know the one that you can bring me joy, it's. It's when I'm forcing it, you know, when I'm like, oh, I feel like I have to post and I have to keep the people happy. That's when it doesn't bring joy. And so the joy that I'm seeking is just getting completely lost in mixing the icing colors, coming up with, like, a beautiful palette that like really speaks to my style. Or even if I'm taking an order and I just love the theme that the person has given me, just being able to completely get lost in it, be able to use my own creativity, you know, not trying to copy, because it can be. Just go on and see what someone else has done, and that can be fun and that that can be a learning experience in itself. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you're not trying to take credit for anything. But when I get to use, put my own creative flair on it, it's when I just feel the most fulfilled.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's when I'm the most proud and yeah, so what is your style? You didn't mention, like you know, if you're creating and you get to make a cookie that's in your style, how would you define your cookie style?
Speaker 3:Colorful. I love color. Neutral color palettes are always hard for me because I just love color. I love colorful, whimsical, I love more simple. You said that mine are very intricate, which is so funny because I think of my style as more simple but I could see, like from the outside perspective how it would seem seem very intricate and I always have always leaned towards vintage and retro elements. I like to incorporate those where I can, where it makes sense, so that always kind of it sparks my creativity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so do you you like color vintage? Are you your? Is your your style overall a vintage style? Yeah, like home and dress and how about color?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes, I love translating into your daily life. That's me. I love I mean my husband and I watch antiques rojo for fun on a Friday night. So I love thrifting and I love. I love looking at old, retro advertisements and I've always been that way. I get a lot of influence. My mom has always been like that and she's you know, she's really the one who kind of passed the creativity bug down to me, because we were always doing crafts together and she's always been. You know, she's an amazingly talented sewer and now she owns a photography business and so I think I get a lot of that, that vintage antique thing, from her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, my mom sows as well, so I think I did get that creative gene from her. My grandmother, in fact, does a lot of craft work working as well, so I know it's coming down from the, the matriarchal of the maternal line, for me as well, so that that's pretty exciting. So, as we were looking at your you know your website and I've gotten to know you, like you know, by social media. I know that you were a teacher. Yeah, tell me about, like, how did you get into teaching?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So growing up I was always a writer. I always really love to read and write, and it kind of made sense to become an English teacher because I knew I could continue to share that, or to you know, to be involved in reading and writing and then get to share it with other people. So right out of college I went and got my teaching degree and got a job right away teaching middle school which was crazy and fun and then taught high school English for about seven years before I left my job when I got pregnant with my son. Well, after I had my son and we needed to find a way to make it work for me to stay at home, and so then that's where the cookie business really evolved to yeah.
Speaker 2:So tell me, like during the time or the periods when you were actually teaching, tell me, how did you maintain the creative artistic side for you? Maybe is that? Yeah, tell me did you maintain that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, not very well. Teaching is so all consuming and you know I was also coaching dance at the time so I guess you could say that was somewhat of the creative creative side. So any of my creative outlets had to come from things I did in my classroom and I think I really missed being creative during that time in my life. But there's so much prepping and planning and grading papers and reading chapters that it's really all consuming and that was a big part of why we decided to make it work. For me to stay at home was because I knew my mental health wouldn't be balanced to be teaching and have a kid and then, you know, attempt any sort of other outlet in my life. That was part of it too, but yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So my journey also began after the birth, you know, over second my second child. I just couldn't maintain or manage my own personal mental health at the time and it made sense to kind of step back and figure out what was happening to me. So I realized that in these conversations a lot of these big cur or baking stories always begin around life events per se, right, so yeah. So kudos to you for making that decision to know that the balance was needed and you could not possibly maintain. You know taking care of your son and you know working in the classroom. So tell me once you decide you decided to stay home. You know how did you get your cookie. You know how did your cookie journey begin?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:There.
Speaker 3:So we were planning on having my son be in daycare and then my daycare provider decided to move out of state and so we kind of had to scramble, because it's so hard to find an infant spot at a place, a good place, and I just, yeah, my mental health, postpartum hormones you know postpartum, I don't want to say depression, but you know just, it hit me really, really hard. And I and my husband he, his love language is is taking action and fixing problems. And he saw how sad I was at the thought of putting my kid in a daycare. That I wasn't fully happy with. And he said give me some time. I'm going to see if we can make it work for you to stay at home, because you know a teaching salary and his salary it wasn't like we were rolling in the riches. We had to find a way to make it work.
Speaker 3:And he stayed up one night and he crunched all the numbers and he was like you know what? I think if we sell our house, we can make a really good profit, because we had in our early married years we had flipped a house that was a foreclosure. So he's like we can make a great profit. We can move into a smaller house that's on the bus line and I'll sell my car and take the bus into work, because he worked at downtown St Paul at the time and that's what we did and it was really scary. And he was like you know, I can make almost all the bills work, but if you can just pay your car payment, if you can figure out a way because at the time I really didn't think that that cookies could be a lucrative and it's hard to make it lucrative I didn't think they were a viable option as an actual career.
Speaker 3:I kind of just thought it was a hobby and but I thought, okay, I can sell enough to make a car payment, you know, and I need that outlet from my baby. As much as I love being a mom, I need that space away from them. So it was kind of a welcome challenge and we moved in on November 1st of 2018 and a week later I posted my first cookie sale in the neighborhood Facebook page for Elf cookies and it was terrifying yeah, because you know how those neighborhood Facebook pages can be you know I was terrified, but it ended up being amazing.
Speaker 3:You know, I got my first sales and everything just rolled into action from there and I was realizing okay, this could actually work, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when did you actually start baking? Did you bake your first set of cookies? Were the Elf cookies.
Speaker 3:No, no, I had been baking, you know, just as an outlet when I was teaching and I had a lot of teacher friends with young kids, so they started ordering before I was officially a business, I think that's how a lot of people stumble into it.
Speaker 3:They're doing it for fun and someone says you know, a cake for my son's birthday, and so I started. I kind of got a little practice with the business world and it wasn't until I needed to make the money that I started taking it seriously as a business and started kind of putting my CEO hat on of. Okay, this is more than just a creative outlet, so I need to treat it differently now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when you transition from just Harbier to an entrepreneur, tell me about that transition. Was it hard for you? Did you lose your passion?
Speaker 3:You know, tell me how that was for you. Yeah, I mean, it was definitely learning about boundaries in a whole new way. I think we all take on too many orders in our first couple of months, or we take on orders that are red flags of maybe orders you shouldn't have taken because the customer doesn't quite understand how it works, or whatever it is, and so so much of that was a learning curve and was really hard and it's, and for a lot of people. I think it's enough for them to decide okay, this isn't for me, you know I don't like this. Yeah, so you have to toughen your skin and and set almost like set aside your hobby part and your business part and and learn how to create boundaries and rules that you're going to stick by for your business or else you're going to burn out. So, so quick. I mean some of those things are like around the holidays, not taking any custom orders, not making exceptions for that, not giving you know discounts to family members, distant family members or whatever.
Speaker 3:It is just like little things like that that can add up and start start to burn you out if you don't put your foot down not taking orders that aren't in your style, or you know when people dictate I want this exact cookie and you're becoming a robot. It's just all about those boundaries of what you can make work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, did you find like? Well, I found in my experience, once I started charging for my cakes and started setting those boundaries, my relationships with people change. How did you find that? Did that happen to you? And?
Speaker 3:totally get that, yeah, yeah. I mean I think I wouldn't say relationships changed, because I say most of my friends were pretty understanding when I had to do a price range, but they weren't ordering from me anymore, you know. And that was fine and and they would always be like, oh, you know how much do you charge? And I tell them they are like, oh, good for you.
Speaker 3:Good for you know like always very encouraging, but also like, okay, I'm not going to be, you know, buying from you anymore and that's perfectly fine, because that's probably not my ideal customer. Yeah, at the end of the day. And and it's always scary, especially as we've had to raise our prices with the economy and raise my prices just with my skill level to yeah, Just maintaining that customer base of people that are like, yep, you, you are worth that much and I'm going to continue to purchase from you at that price level. But yeah, it's definitely changed my customer base. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:So you know, when I, when I look at your Instagram page, I see passion, I see I see an artist. You really are a true artist and I can see why you're doing this and you, you once said that sugar cookies are your love language and your passion. Tell me a little bit more about that, like expand on that for listeners.
Speaker 3:Oh, that makes me so happy to hear you say that honestly, because you know I get that imposter syndrome all the time of like, oh am I just, you know, copying whatever what else is doing? I so want to be seen as as an artist and and want to feel that way. So I really love you saying that you absolutely, are an artist Truly.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you, I would say my love. I love, at the end of the day, when I don't have to make money and when I can just share my. That's why I love teaching cookie classes so much, because I love seeing how excited people get when they get to create these tiny little pieces of artwork and just sharing that passion with people. That, to me, is it's just, it fills my bucket and I love gifting people my cookies and every everyone always says, oh, these are too pretty to eat. You know like that's the classic response. But I just love the way that cookies they touch every single, and cakes to they touch every single demographic. I mean, who doesn't get happy when they see a beautiful piece of dessert? And that's just so fun to get to be the one that creates that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm happy that you did say cakes to, because I was curious. You know as to why. Why did maddie choose cookies to be her main focus? Why cookies? And you know I'm not cakes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because it started out as cakes. I started with making cakes and I think because at the end of the day, my passion is more the art and not the baking and cakes are. You know, you have different flavors and different combinations and fillings and I could never figure out a lemon curd to save my life and and at the end then I look in my kitchen was just like exploded with sugar and frosting and and I think it was stressful because what can go wrong with a cake is a lot harder to fix sometimes than with cookies. I mean, you're probably good now because you have such amazing, beautiful cakes you probably know how to fix everything. But when you're just starting out and I just remember I made this Trolls cake like the movie Trolls, and took white chocolate melts to make her hair and it was like a 90 degree day and by the time I gave them the cake it was just complete. Poppy was just like a melted mess and luckily it was for a good friend and she did not care, but I was just devastated over it.
Speaker 3:And I think with cookies it's sugar cookie, royal icing. It never changes, it's just a matter of what colors I mix up and what design I create. So, especially because I had a baby too. So I had my son, and when my business was in its early days he was about five, six months old and he might wake up from his nap. And if I'm in the middle of a cake, how do you just walk away from that and hold a baby or feed a baby?
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm sure many women have accomplished it and they're amazing but, I couldn't do it, and so it was nice, because cookies, it was like okay, he's up, I step away and I'll come back to these later.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, you still have that love for cake. It's just that it's easy to manage.
Speaker 3:I still love making my kids' birthday cakes and whenever I get the chance, and it's more fun that way because there's no pressure and that's you're talking about finding that passion of what makes you happy. I'm kind of glad I don't sell cakes anymore because then it makes it so much more special when I make my kids' cake, because I'm truly just enjoying making this little piece of artwork for their birthdays.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, Because for me I don't know how to fix everything.
Speaker 3:So you just try it there, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes I see my cake going out on my. Oh my God. I did not fix that at all, but for me it's like right now I'm choosing to bake with a purpose, because I found myself like losing my passion for baking and the artistry because I was just doing just some random cakes, things that weren't actually feeding my soul, and what is it all worth if you're not feeding your soul with your own art? So I do get what you're saying around here.
Speaker 3:So right, yeah, we've all been there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely have to feed your soul, and I do notice that your cookies are really feeding your soul, especially like I hear it in your narrations. I really live for your voice over.
Speaker 3:So glad you hear that.
Speaker 2:I really live for those voices because sometimes you're a lyricist and I'm like here I go. But then I love how you show both sides of this cookie. You know this cookie world where you tell people that you can do this and you're going to make mistakes, but here is how you can scrape it right off and start over. Is this? How does this translate to your teaching overall? Is this how you are in classes and stuff? Are you telling them to do those and encouraging them that they can? Always start over yeah.
Speaker 3:I just think it's so important, especially with social media being such a big part in kids' lives today to be authentic. Yeah, and I have never loved that before videos. Sometimes we were just seeing these pictures and it looks like everything was so perfect.
Speaker 3:And I just, I've always felt it was important to be authentic and say I screwed up this cookie, or I don't know what design I'm going to do today, or you know, like I didn't really enjoy making this design. I just want people to know that it's okay to be human. We're not little robots creating cookies. And yeah, that has to apply in so many other ways of life, same with teaching, writing. Just it's okay to screw up. We're going to learn from that or we're going to fix it this way, and to act like we're all able to get it right the first time is so ridiculous.
Speaker 3:You know so unrealistic and so. I think, that's always just like being genuine and being authentic and being myself, and making sure that that comes first in my art is just so important. Yeah, and that's how I want my kids to be. Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2:So it's like when I, when I, when I watch your, your, like, your mini tutorials online, I think when she's, she's a great teacher, right? And a lot of people often think that we all have, you know, we all have to be great in, you know, these official modalities that we've chosen. Like you are teacher me a vaccine scientist, but then here we are being self taught artists. You are a self-taught cook here, you know. Tell me, how do you use the University of YouTube as well?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and tell me where do you get your inspirations. You know who helps to guide you. Who inspires Maddie to be this good?
Speaker 3:Well, when I first started, there was a couple people Sweet Ams I don't know if you know her, but she was kind of the big cookie artist that posted on YouTube and Shell Sweets she's another one.
Speaker 3:So those are my first two that taught me a lot just from watching and learning them.
Speaker 3:Now I get so inspired by my friends that are in this industry, seeing what they're doing, and not necessarily inspired artistic, wise, but just inspired to keep going and to just be like, oh wow, they made that really cool thing.
Speaker 3:You know, like I should try that, you know, and it's because we're supportive of each other and we, you know, talk to each other every day and it's not a competition between women. Instead of using that to be, oh, I'm going to try to be better at her, better than her at this, it's more like, oh, my gosh, that's so great that you did that, I want to try to, and it's like this really cool community. So I think I'm really, really inspired by the women that are in this community with me, that are lifting each other up, and I think that is another key to the burnout, you know, to keeping staying in this and continuing to look at it as an artistic passion, having other people that are in it with you and can inspire you that way, yeah, so Minnesota is really lucky, or I say blessed enough to have, like other great cookies right we have cake, smith bacon mini cookies.
Speaker 2:Tell me about the importance of that fellowship with other cookies you mentioned, the you know collect, you know having a collective and conversations with them and cheering each other on. But tell me, what does it do for Maddie, the individual? And you know the cookie business, the guardie goodies?
Speaker 3:I think this is a naturally isolating business. I think it's common that it's women who are stay-at-home moms or, you know, have left a first career and they're just at home doing this. You know, very few of us actually are in a commercial kitchen of some sort, around people or by ourselves, and then you're making the cookies by yourself, you're making the videos and posting or whatever, by yourself. It can be incredibly isolating and you can get that tunnel vision if you don't have other people, and you know we all learned that during COVID right, and so it applies everywhere.
Speaker 3:If you try to go into this and just be me, myself and I, it's probably not going to last that long for you, because you need that connection with other people. You know I need days where I can say to Maddie's cookies and cake Smith like, oh my gosh, I'm so, you know, uninspired. This customer gave me this theme and I have no idea. And then she'll say, oh, why don't you do this? And then another will say, oh, you do this. And then all of a sudden we have all these ideas and it's like I wouldn't have been able to do that without them.
Speaker 2:So it's just so important to have other people in the same industry as you, lifting you up you know, yeah, Community and having a community overall is really good for people and it's always important to find your own community, Find a community that supports them and lifts you up. I want to kind of talk about how you go from inspiration to execution. I love that you. It's a good segue anyway, because you just talked about like having a mind block. You know for a certain theme and you can touch your community, talk to your community and they help to get you out of this space. Tell me how. What is your process from going from inspiration to execution of your cookies?
Speaker 3:Oh man, I wish it was more streamlined. It's probably a little more chaotic than you, is it? I think you know so many times I'll just have a color palette and I'll just start with oh, I really want to use these colors in my next set. I'll sketch out designs a lot of times. I usually pick out the cookie cutter shapes and then sketch them out old school style on a sheet of paper, usually while my daughter is painting or coloring or something. And it's funny, it's like these.
Speaker 3:Sometimes ideas will pop into my head throughout the day and I'll have to quick, you know, sketch out like, oh, I could do this.
Speaker 3:Or even when I'm like shopping at TJ Maxx and I see a really cute greeting card and I'm like, oh, that would be such a perfect cookie and I have to put it in my phone, and so it starts kind of that way, of just kind of this conglomeration of all of these little ideas and then sketching them out, and then at some point I just have to stop coming up with ideas and just start, and that can be hard too, because you're like, oh, I don't know, maybe I need another one, and at some point I just have to start creating the cookies.
Speaker 3:I don't love to send my customers sketches ahead of time only because it can kill the creative process for me. When it's a bigger order, like a wedding or something, where you know they really want to know what the cookies are going to look like, I totally will. But when it's something smaller, you know, so often I'll think, oh, I was going to make this yellow circle cookie, but then when I'm actually decorating I realize, oh, it would look so much better if it was orange, you know, and so I like to have that flexibility to be able to change. Or, oh, you know, actually I'm going to add a bunch of flowers on this cookie, and so that's why I typically don't love sending designs, because I'd say most of my creativity comes in the actual process and not ahead of time.
Speaker 2:So how do you explain to the customer? Then you know the concept. So, do you give them a concept of what?
Speaker 3:you're going to do Okay typically my customers will say you know, we're going to have a retro, hippie themed first birthday and I'll ask usually for a color palette. Some, you know, some have one. I'll ask for their invitation and then I'll ask if they have any designs that inspire them. You know I don't love. I always tell people I won't copy a design that another cookie artist made. It's going to have my own spin on it. But I still encourage people to send them because I want them to get what they want, you know.
Speaker 3:I don't want it to be all about me. Because I'm running a business, I have to make sure the customer is pleased with their product. I think a lot of my customers at this point know that the more creative freedom and flexibility they give me, the better the product is, as long as I'm staying in those color palettes and invitation. So yeah, they'll give me that and then I will send them my ideas. In their invoice I'll say you know, there'll be star cookies and flowers and and sometimes I'll add one that wasn't on the invoice and I always ask them what are they must have.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just to make sure I don't miss that. You know they really want a name plaque in there or if they don't want to have their game on there, I always make sure that I ask them that just so that they're not totally caught off guard or surprised or upset by their order, which hasn't happened. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So For you, how is it? You know, I know that you do cookie classes as well, right? How seamless is it actually to move from your love of teaching in high school to actually teaching these cookie classes? How?
Speaker 3:do you do that Really seamless? I feel I've overprepared and sometimes I think I do too much for my cookie classes. You know people are getting handouts and they're getting links and they're getting worksheets and probably more than they need to get.
Speaker 3:But it's so it's just ingrained in me to do that. And oh, I'm not only going to teach them but I'm going to make sure they have a visual aid and that they can work at their own pace if they're a fast worker or slow. You know, so much of that training that I've had of diversifying my classroom and diversifying my instruction has just gone right into my cookie classes. Yeah, so that that it's been really seamless. But, like I said, sometimes I think maybe I do too much.
Speaker 2:Well, in the classroom is this how you teach generally, giving them an abundance of information as well. So you find like it's translated into the classroom.
Speaker 3:I always, I always tell people at the beginning this isn't the type of class where you're just doing it for, like this one off event, you know, at a brewery, where you make something and you go home and you never think about it again. I always tell them I want you to be able to leave my class and do this at home and at Christmas time, impress all your friends and at your birthday. You know, my goal is that you're not just getting the class, but you are getting an experience that you can take into other areas of your life. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you know I as a teacher, well, I, you know I've taught in. When I was in college, right, and I was in graduate school, I had to teach. I got this sense of I feel this sense of pride and purpose when I see my students doing well. Talk to me about, after you know, having taught a class and then watching one of your students do well in this space.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, it's really cool to see people open their own cookie businesses that have taken one of my classes. It's funny because I'll always get people that say you know, are you scared you're going to lose business if you start these classes. And I'm like no, I love seeing other. There's not enough cookies, cookies to fulfill all of the requests. You know I can't tell you how many times I have to tell someone I can't take their order because I'm booked. So to have somebody else in the industry that learned what they know from me is pretty awesome to say. But I can confidently recommend this other person. Yeah, that's really fun.
Speaker 3:And it's really fun just to see the hobby baker you know that did it one time with their mom as a fun little outing and then it send me a picture of like look what we did for Christmas. Like you said, it's such a sense of pride. And it's really it's a different sense of pride, because I never really get to see that with my students when I was a high school teacher, because you teach them and then they leave and you don't really hear from them again. You don't know what they've got on to do. In this way it's a very concrete way of being like wow, I showed them how to do that and that's really cool.
Speaker 2:Mm, hmm, so you did mention briefly that you know you are busy and you know you take such pride in handing off or recommending someone that you've actually taught is Maddie. Actually, what's keeping her the most busy? The orders? Or we know that you're a content creator right with almost a million followers. Like which keeps you the most busy?
Speaker 3:That's such a great question. Oh man, it's such a balance between the two. I'd say content creation does when, when I want it to, if that makes sense. When I say, you know, I really want to get some good engagement this month, I'm going to post every day. I usually set goals for myself. I'm going to post every day because I also work with brands and get some big partnerships that that can really help pay the bills, yeah then that is my number one priority and that is what keeps me the busiest. But that can be really straining on mental health. And then I'll just go away for a week or two and not post at all and don't care what happens with the numbers, because I need to just be, you know, focusing on being a mom or focusing on my cookie orders or whatever it is. But I'd say for the most part, it is the content creation that keeps me the most busy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what is it like? Tell me I'm not a an influencer, brand ambassador, anything. I just want to know. What is it like being a content creator, influencer in this space? What is it like for you?
Speaker 3:It's wild, it's a. It's a wild. It's like the wild wild west in a way that they're there aren't these rules that we're used to? You never know what the brand is going to want you to do or what they're going to be willing to pay you or what you should be, you know, and charging, and so much of it is like a learning as you go and then creating a community of other influencers so I can talk to them and be like because it's like I need my whole other community for that. Right, you know, what should I do here? So it's really wild, but it's super fun. I mean it's just, it's a blast. And I keep telling, everyone keeps asking me you know, like, what are you going to do in the future? And I'm like I just I'm going to keep writing this wave until it dies down because we don't know what what social media is going to look like in a year. It's already changed so much the influence, their world. So I just take them as they come.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so you know, like I mentioned before, I have cake therapy, which is the cake therapy foundation for girls. It is a space that I want to use to inspire, like women and girls who've been impacted by systems on a whole right, to tell them that they too can become, you know, regardless of traumas or whatever it is that they've experienced in their lifetime, and I'm trying to promote not just talk therapy that there are other forms of therapy that can, that an individual can use to really ground them and center them. My question to you is what would you say to a young boy or girl or gender non conforming youth or individual? What would you say to that individual who is listening to Maddie right now, who wants to become a cook here? What's your advice to them? Also, what would be your advice to them if they also want to become an influencer?
Speaker 3:So to become a cookier, I would say to just start creating. There are so many resources that are free, like you said the University of YouTube. Start learning as much as you can. You know what's nice is like. For the most part, the art supplies are pretty affordable. So, as much as you can, bake and practice and start creating and let go of it needing to look perfect, understanding that there's going to be a learning curve, and to keep doing it. You know, give cookies away to your friends, bring the cookies to the next birthday party, or the cake, because that's when people are really going to start to show you how much they admire what you do, and that's that's that can be a. It's just such a proud moment and it can be so empowering to know that you can do that on your own, and so I really encourage and to have faith that what you're learning is still. You know as you grow, even if you're not at that. You know food network level. What you're doing is more than a lot of other people can do. So many people are going to have value in that, and whether that's cakes or art or writing, you know. Whatever that passion is, you just you've got to practice it and let go of any of the restraints.
Speaker 3:And then, as far as getting into social media influencing you know, I know that's where everybody, everybody wants to tap into I'd say, to go at it from an authentic place. If you're getting into it because you want to make a bunch of money from Dior and Chanel or whatever, but you don't really have a personal brand, it's probably not going to work out for you. So start with just what. Start with being authentic, start with being yourself and not not looking at what anybody else is doing. You know, that was really key for me in posting my cookie videos is when I started posting them, I added the voiceover and at the time no one was really doing that, it was just a nice pleasant music, but I wanted to talk, you know, I wanted to explain things to people and and I think that's what's helped me be successful, as I'm just being honest, just being myself. So I think that's where, really, where you have to start and then and then grow from there.
Speaker 2:So Maddie has a family, she has children. I'm completely the sentence for me when, when, when you're speaking to your kid, you say when you grow up you can.
Speaker 3:When you grow up, I mean you can be. You can be what you want to be. Yeah, you know, that's what I always grew up with. You can be anything you want to be.
Speaker 2:Is the message different for the boy than for the girl?
Speaker 3:No, it's definitely the same, absolutely the same. Well, ok, I should say that I want to make sure that my daughter knows that she truly can be anything that she wants to be, you know, and it's different than what it was years ago and what people are going to tell you, and so I'll say, in that way it's different that I want to make sure that I am fostering all the little talents that I start seeing from her and not pushing them aside because they're not traditionally feminine or you know, she needs to be a mom or whatever that is, and so I think that would be the main difference.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm To the girl or the youth that's listening to you. When you grow up, you can be. What's your message to them?
Speaker 3:When you grow up. Well, you don't even have to wait until you grow up Good girl. Yeah, when you grow up, you can be successful. You can Obviously the age-old you know work hard or whatever, but you can be successful and you can find happiness. You have to look at what is the defining of your success you know, Is it having a nice family?
Speaker 3:Is it being able to have a creative outlet? Is it being able to feel fulfilled? You know you can, you can and I want people to know that, especially when you're young and things feel so intense and hard. You can get out of that. You can get out of that time and you can grow from it and you can be successful and happy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Does Maddie have a guiding philosophy? And if she does, what is it?
Speaker 3:I've been. I've already said it, I've probably said it too many times, but it's just being authentic, being true to yourself, being true to yourself. And it sounds so cliche and so cheesy, but if I look at all of the times that I was not true to myself, those were the times that were the hardest for me. Those were the times that I took an order that didn't make sense, or I committed to something that didn't make sense for me, or who I was or wasn't something I believed in, and so, at the end of the day, that's what it comes down to is being true to yourself.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And in 10 years, 15 years, down the line, what are you hoping that your legacy will be?
Speaker 3:Well, I'd love to write a book someday so amazing that you have done that, so I'd love to leave that as a legacy. But honestly, this is going to sound really cheesy, but I want to make sure that my kids saw me as a good mom and that they look back at their childhood and feel like it was a happy childhood. And so, at the end of the day even though I know this is an interview about my cookie business if I'm really thinking about what I want my legacy to be, I want it to be my kids and how I raised them and made them into good humans. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:We owe them that right it's a commitment to them that we take when we bring them into this world. So, absolutely, I want to know what's in the works for you then. What's next for you?
Speaker 3:Well, I'd love to write a book. Maybe we'll chat about that later. Have you started?
Speaker 2:No no.
Speaker 3:I don't know what it's going to be about. I mean, I have wanted to write a book ever since I was a kid, so we know, when I was a kid I wanted to write young adult fiction, and now I would probably be something else. But so I'd love to do that and I've often thought just sharing my journey, like as you have done with yours, might be something that would be worth writing down. So that's always kind of in the back of my head when my daughter is also in school is having the time to possibly pursue that.
Speaker 2:So you are not quite sure what your book's going to be about. What you do have stories to tell and yeah, well, I look forward to reading your stories and continue watching and learning from you, because, girl, my cookies suck oh.
Speaker 3:Oh Well, my cakes are not on your level, so we all have our strengths.
Speaker 2:I look at your feet and I'm like girl, what you over there doing, and when I take a moment to say the pause and do some of this stuff, you are like too good, you guys are too good. I love watching you, kate Smith, baking many cookies and a few others in the cities I share with our listeners. Maddie, like where can they find you?
Speaker 3:So you can find me on Instagram and TikTok at Gardie Goodies, and that's where I try to post, probably three or four times a week. You can see me in my stories, sometimes talking about daily ins and outs of my life. You can come to one of my cookie classes. I partner with Bachmans in Minneapolis to teach there, and I also teach in a lot of different places jewelry shops, and usually in the Twin Cities, the metro area of Minnesota. So, yeah, those are the main, and then you can always order cookies for me from my website at GardieGoodiescom too.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So thank you so much, maddie, for saying yes to the invitation to join me as I'm embarking on this journey to spread not only just love and light and art, just the therapeutic aspect of any art form. So I'm really excited that you decided to come on board. And plus, we're neighbors, so I love that you decided to support your neighborhood girl on this new venture. So thank you so much for being here and I want to thank our listeners for joining us on today's podcast. Your slice of joy and healing was with Maddie Gartman from Gardie Goodies. The Cake Therapy podcast Enjoyed having you today, so thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1:And I'll see you in the next video. Thank you so much for joining us and I hope you enjoyed this video. I hope you enjoyed it and I'll see you in the next video. Bye.