Baking For Business Podcast
The BFB podcast is a no fluff, no BS podcast dedicated to helping bakers, treat makers and cottage food entrepreneurs build and grow in business, life and everything in between. Chef Schonberg is devoted to sharing tips, resources and conversations tailored to those in the baking industry. With her tough love perspective and passion for marketing Chef Schonberg makes it her mission to uplift and educate those in the baking profession.
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Baking For Business Podcast
#Ep 90: From Baking Blogger to Author: 1 on 1 With Sarah Fennel Of Broma Bakery
Ever wondered how a simple hobby can turn into a flourishing career? Discover the incredible journey of Sarah Fennel, the brilliant mind behind Broma Bakery, as she shares her transformation from passionate food blogger to successful cookbook author.
Sarah’s transition from blogger to cookbook author was not without its hurdles. She spent two years meticulously transforming her beloved online content and creating new recipes into a tangible book for her audience. With 100 recipes, including new creations and fan favorites, Sarah put her skills in branding, writing, and photography to work. Her commitment to understanding her audience's needs has been pivotal, guiding her choices in both her blog and book creation. This episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at the process of creating her first book, filled with memorable moments and the excitement of seeing a creative endeavor come to life.
In our conversation, Sarah also reflects on her experiences with course creation and the bittersweet decision to close her successful food photography school. She shares insights into how these experiences shaped her approach to launching her cookbook, "Sweet Tooth," and discusses influential cookbook authors who have inspired her journey. As Sarah embarks on her book tour, she invites listeners to explore her exciting new recipes. This episode is packed with inspiration and creativity, encouraging listeners to pursue their passions and embrace the delightful complexity of the baking industry.
You can pre-order the book and get information on her book tour by clicking here.
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Hey, sweet friends, my name is Chef Schaumburg. I started my baking business with a bottle of DeSerono and one Bundt cake pan. Fast forward to today, from news to magazines, speaking on national stages and more. I can truly say that baking has changed my life. So now, as a bakery business coach, I get to help others have the same success. I've helped hundreds of my students across the world in my global membership program create six-figure businesses, mainly from home.
Speaker 1:The Baking for Business podcast is an extension of that, from actionable tips to valuable tools and resources that can impact you as a business owner. I truly believe y'all. We would never have been given a gift if we couldn't profit and prosper from it. So come on, darling. What are you waiting for? Hey, what's going on? Baking friends, and welcome back to the Baking for Business podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today for another episode. Today we have an amazing guest in the house who has been a blogger for a while and now she is a cookbook author. She is Sarah Fennell, the founder and the beautiful woman behind Roma Bakery I'm sure you're all familiar with the brand on Instagram and here to tell us all about her new book, which features so many yummy things, as well as just her journey within this sweet, delicious industry, is Sarah herself. So, sarah, welcome to the Baking for Business podcast.
Speaker 2:Hi Amanda, hi everybody. I'm so excited. Literally baking and business are my two favorite things to talk about, so I'm very excited about this.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That's what we're all about, and so, for those who are unfamiliar with you, I want to go ahead and ask I know you originally started blogging, but what inspired you to start your blog and how did you get your start in the desserts arena?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I, like many people who are in the food industry, um, grew up loving food, and so I had a mom who was very much a home baker, like she loved and always had cookies or brownies or cakes on the counter, but also like she was not technical at all, like sometimes her cookies would come out so flat, Sometimes they'd be too puffy and overcooked. The biggest thing, though, was like we just had baked goods around because she had a huge sweet tooth. I then, like, got a huge sweet tooth from her, so we really just did it because we love dessert. And at the same time, when I was growing up, I was really into photography, and so, when I went to college, I went to college liberal arts school I went for anthropology, and I, when I went to college, I went to college liberal arts school, I went for anthropology, and I really missed having a creative outlet, and so I decided to basically merge my two passions and take photos of baked goods that I made, and I decided to put it on a blog I crawled it, excuse me, I called it Broma Bakery, and it really was completely a hobby, like I had no intention from the beginning of turning it into a business. It was very much a creative outlet.
Speaker 2:So I did that all throughout college and then I was in the restaurant industry throughout college and then, after and long story short I got burnt out in the restaurant industry.
Speaker 2:It's like, as I'm sure so many of your listeners know, it's so unforgiving, it's so taxing, like on the body and the mind. It's just like I have so much respect for people who work in restaurants. So I decided to quit my job, cold turkey, and I basically like went home and I Googled how to make money on a blog. I had no idea what I was doing, um, but I was really fortunate. I had saved up literally $8,500. Um, that's like how much money I had to my name.
Speaker 2:And I decided to give myself two months and figure out if I could turn my blog into a business and into my career. And that was, oh my gosh, that was whoa 10 years ago. So it worked out, but really it very much started as this hobby thing that I did just because I loved it and I had so much passion for what I was doing. But I also think it differs from a lot of other people in this way that I went full time before I had this proof of concept and I think having that kind of forced me to hustle harder than I would have if I had something to fall back on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. That definitely sounds like a beautiful, humble beginning and you said 10 years ago almost a decade of blogging and showing up and building your audience. It's amazing that you took that leap of faith with just a little bit saved up. Did you teach yourself like when you initially started your blog? Were you watching all the YouTube videos, or was there any particular course or anything you invested in to help you start that blogging journey?
Speaker 2:So I went full-time in 2014. So it was very much the beginning of, like the course era. Like courses were not, I feel, like big until you know, 2016, 17, 18. Um, it was. So it was as much free content as I could. It was YouTubing everything, googling everything and really just like bootstrapping it with what I could figure out.
Speaker 2:I really tried at that time to make a lot of connections, too, with other people who I knew were doing it full-time, and I would literally email them and I would like ask for their advice and really just like get the information that I could. And I think that all of that together was so helpful for me. And I also think that, like not letting a lack of information stop me from going and figuring it out on my own was also really helpful. So like I relied on trying to like figure things out, but when I couldn't figure it out, I would still go and try to do it on my own. So trying to figure out, like why when I was photographing something, the light didn't look right, or trying to figure out like how to get my edit to look just like how I knew I wanted it in my head, but like couldn't find from tutorials online and really like a lot of like trial and error to kind of like build up.
Speaker 1:Trial and error is always the greatest teacher, for sure. And so, as you started educating yourself and building and you went for the blog, how did you specifically decide on the baking niche? Was it just because of that love, or did you try other things savory?
Speaker 2:It was really because of a love of baking Like I. I it was never even a question if I was going to have a blog that was savory or sweet like it was sweet, I felt much more comfortable with baking and I think in my teens and early twenties I was just more interested in baking. I am a very technical person. I love when things have like they're very defined parts, and so baking just really appeals to me in that way. It feels very formulaic. It's interesting. I've learned to cook better since then and I really like cooking now, but baking has just always. It feels like I'm sure you feel the same Like it just feels different, like there's something about baking that just like it makes me so much more excited.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You definitely have to do what brings you joy, and so, from blogging to now focusing on a book, can you walk us through the process of turning your blog content into a cookbook? Was that always something that you wanted to go after, or was the opportunity just brought to you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I actually did not want to do a cookbook for the longest time because I had heard from so many people that it was so much work and I was so worried about just becoming overwhelmed and like really wanted to make sure I had enough time to devote towards it without going crazy. So for a long time I didn't want to do a cookbook and I was totally fine with being in the online world. I also think that do a cookbook and I was totally fine with being in the online world. I also think that people create cookbooks for so many different reasons. For myself and in my journey, I knew that I didn't want to create a cookbook until I felt so, so confident in every aspect of my skills that would go into that book. So, feeling really confident in my brand, feeling really confident in the voice and sort of the writing that goes into the book, feeling really confident in my brand, feeling really confident in the voice and sort of the writing that goes into the book, feeling really confident about the recipes themselves, feeling confident about the photography, feeling confident about how well I could market it, and so it really took me a long time to sort of feel like I had mastery in all of those areas to finally be okay with being like okay, now let's put this pen to paper, onto something that will exist for the rest of time and you can't go back and edit it Like. That's so terrifying to me. So, um, so yeah.
Speaker 2:And in terms of how we structured the book with recipes it's a hundred recipes, 76 of them are brand new, never before seen that we developed specifically for the book. And then 24 are from the blog. The ones that we picked from the blog we decided to do for two reasons. One there's some that are just like fan favorites. Everybody knows them, everybody loves them. So, like our brown butter chocolate chip cookies, they're the most popular recipe on our blog. Like I knew I needed to include those in my cookbook. And then others are ones that are really good, base recipes or or creative recipes, but recipes that like are our favorites. We have an oatmeal cream pie cookie recipe in there and that recipe is like, oh my God, it's like one of the best recipes I have ever like eaten, made, think about. And so those recipes too, these ones that are like doing well on the blog, but we really wanted to highlight and bring to a bigger audience. That's what we chose to do too.
Speaker 1:I love that because too often people are always, especially as business owners, always in the create, create, create type space when it comes to content. But I love the fact that you repurpose, not in a sense of just I'm going to add this too, but more so I want to add to the user experience and really just bring out the things that people love already.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I think that that's one thing that I really strive for in my business in general is really making sure I'm centering my content around the user and really keeping like who I'm doing it for front and center, because the more that I can have that picture of who it's for, the better I'm able to figure out like would that type of person be interested in this content? Does that type of person even care about you know this? Would this fit into their lives? And it's like for me, it's a really helpful way to sort of figure out just generally what content I should be producing, because there's so many amazing recipes out there, there's so many ways that you can do things, and it can almost become overwhelming when you're just thinking oh, just generally, this seems good, this seems good, this seems good, and so, yeah, I think like centering the user in that is just so, so important.
Speaker 1:What are some of your favorite memories that you've had in creating the book and, overall around, how long did it take you to go from start to bringing it to fruition?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's been a little over a two-year process. I started writing the proposal for the book in June of 2022, and the book comes out in October of 2024. So it's a long process and that's pretty standard. Two years for a cookbook is very standard. Favorite memories, I would say, from the process.
Speaker 2:There's the less discreet memories, I would say, of just like being in the writing stage and writing a head note that I'm just like yes, oh, that's so good, or like that's such a fun way of getting someone excited about this and just getting in those grooves. It just felt so good. And then I feel like I mean, turning in the manuscript was just like it felt like such, a, such an accomplishment and something I was so happy about. I mean, I think it's like 80,000 words or something, or maybe it's, maybe it's closer to 90, but like it's, it's a lot. It's a lot of words, Um, and obviously, never having written a book before, that just felt so cool to be able to like have this big body of work to turn in.
Speaker 2:And then I have had so much fun with the more like salesy part of it, like introducing the book to my audience, seeing how they're responding, responding, creating content to push pre-orders and things like that. It's been so fun because I feel like it's called back on like my course days. So I actually had a school that was like for food photography and we had a bunch of different courses in it. Hold on, oh, let's talk Carson.
Speaker 1:I know that you're you're going. You took my next question from me.
Speaker 2:So it was really cool to like have this sales aspect of that and like be able to do that in this new way.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and speaking of sales, one thing that people may not know about you, besides the blog and besides the cookbook, is that you actually took a great chunk of your time to step in as a course creator and help other bloggers with food photography and courses and things like that. So did you tap into any of that experience and bring it over?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. It was so interesting to me because when you're creating courses, you're you're somewhat following this like pattern, the sales pattern, and the biggest thing I learned from that, I mean we probably did. We probably did between 30 and 40 launches of all of our courses over the lifetime of photography school, which was like six years. Basically, I shut it down because I wanted to spend more time growing my career. Like it got to the point where, like I needed to prioritize myself and like give myself time for the book and things like that.
Speaker 2:But anyway, so we did so many launches and there was so much invaluable information that I learned from doing those launches and like understanding how to connect with a consumer base on a bunch of different levels and understanding that you need so many touch points and so many like sort of points to hit a sale. Like just there's so many fascinating parts about courses that like I really geek out on and I directly translated that to the cookbook in terms of our entire sales sequence. So that's been so fun and it's something that I never would have thought was so useful in my own career, but it's made such a difference.
Speaker 1:How have you handled? Because too often I meet people that want to do something different and I'm always advocating and telling people. You know, baking is just a skill. There are many different ways, like course creation. I know you also had a membership blogging. So when you did decide to do the teaching portion and then you stated you recently closed it, how was it to pivot? And how do you view your pivots? Because I just look at them as tests. I know some people will say well, oh, it didn't do well, or it failed, and I'm like no, nothing fails, they're just tests that help me bring the vision to life more. So was it hard to close that chapter?
Speaker 2:I really dragged out the clothes as long as I could. I tried to keep it open as long as I could because I didn't want to close it down. It just felt like I mean, not only did I feel like it was impactful for the people we were doing it for, but I also had a team. I loved being part of a team. I was the employer for all of these people. That was so important and special for me.
Speaker 2:But I think ultimately, the the reason why I chose to pivot was because I was finding that my own personal brand was often taking a backseat to all of the things I had to do for photography school and to show up for other people.
Speaker 2:And I think that if you're listening to this and you create courses or you know are interested in creating courses, you can absolutely do that and have an amazing and fulfilling career, and that can be your main thing. I have always balanced that with my own career and I ultimately just had to make a decision Do I want to have my career be focused on helping other people's careers or do I want to have my career be focused on taking all my knowledge that I do know and leveraging that for my own career and for my personal journey it just made more sense to continue on my path and really be able to put as much energy and effort as I could into my own career. But I don't think that's the right move for everybody at all. It's just what it felt right for me. I felt like I would be doing a disservice to my own career by not giving it all of my energy. You know.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And I mean, who doesn't want to aim for the title of New York Times bestselling author?
Speaker 2:right, yeah, yeah, but like that's, I think, also what's so amazing about like being in the food space online right now? There are so many different ways that you can like reach that top. There's so many different ways that you can explore and like. Just like you're saying, like baking is a skill and it's so interesting you say that because I had this lecture that I did for students at the school of the New York times and it was all about how you can do whatever you want in the food space, but you have to make sure that you're thinking skill first. So, like baking's a skill, photography's a skill, marketing's a skill, and you can take those skills and you can spin them in so many different directions, but it has to be a skill first and foremost.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and it's definitely was still an amazing thing because there are so many different bloggers and bakers who were able to learn from you. The ones who did succeeded, and you can definitely tell when I scroll on someone's page. I remember the early days of I'm like, oh, I know where you took a class at, because that look is just, it's nice, it's very, very nice, absolutely. You yourself. Now that you're an author, do you have any favorite cookbooks or cookbook authors that inspired you?
Speaker 2:I like literally have an entire closet of cookbooks to my left. I'm like I need to peek in. Um, yeah, okay, so I think. So I think. In terms of vibes, I think that Molly Baz's two books Cook this Book and More Is More. I think they have added so much personality to the cookbook space and I think she's done such a good job at really pushing the boundaries of, like, how fun and how creative a cookbook can be. So I think that she's done such a phenomenal job In terms of like books that I love to bake out of and cook out of most.
Speaker 2:I'm absolutely obsessed with Otto Lange's books. I go to them all the time and one thing I love about those books is it really feels like you can create an entire meal or an entire experience with like multiple recipes in the book. I love books where, like, you can mix and match recipes together, so like get a side from this chapter and get a main from this chapter and a dessert over here, but they still all sort of tell a story and work together. So I love that. And then I also I mean I have to like nod to Claire Saffitz.
Speaker 2:I think that what she's done with baking books is phenomenal. She's just shown that there is this really big audience out there that wants a strictly baking book and I I love that. I think that the baking community is a little, that the baking community is a little underserved in terms of cookbooks. There's not a ton of broad baking books out there. There's a lot of sort of like niche down, single subject, baking books. But yeah, I think she really has shown in the last few years that there's such a need for more of those.
Speaker 1:With your book coming out, what would be the first recipe that you would want somebody to dig in and try?
Speaker 2:Oh my God, that is such a tough question. It's like picking a baby. I know it is like picking a baby, okay. Okay. So maybe we'll do like sort of a quick and easy recipe and then a more like fun takes your entire afternoon recipe. Um quick and easy recipe. Okay, I might go with one of the single serve recipes. The single serve double chocolate cookie that's on the front of the book is absolutely incredible. It creates two giant cookies. It is so good I make it probably like once every two weeks whenever I want, just like a little cookie at the end of the night. So that is so, so good and it's just so easy.
Speaker 2:If you're looking for like a full afternoon bake, the Nutella Smith Island cake is insane. It's basically it's nine layers of vanilla cake. Really like this very, very eggy, delicious, like yellow cake batter. And then the layers in the middle are this like Nutella ganache. That is just so good. You know it has a little bit of a salty note, a little bit of like a umami note from the nuts in it. It is like it's absolutely insane. It's such a good cake.
Speaker 1:That sounds so delicious, and I'm seeing so many more people enjoy ganache now, aside from just regular buttercream, so that sounds like a wonderful twist to a classic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it was really hard to get the texture right, because with ganache you're obviously working with two or one thing that's a liquid, like a cream, and one thing that's a solid chocolate, and with this you're kind of working with a liquid and and like a, a spread, and so like with the nutella, and so getting that that consistency right was was really tough, but I think we did good. I you know whoever's listening to this, get back to me, let me know all right and I'm sure it tastes phenomenal.
Speaker 1:I've been able to sneak and look at it so I saw the picture of it. It is stunning. And lastly, before I let you go, do you have any plans for the book? Will you do a book tour or any particular fun lives or anything you have scheduled?
Speaker 2:yes, so we're doing a book tour. It's going to be in the month of October, I think. It's nine cities, it might be 10, something around there, but we're doing like a full country book tour. So there's information for that on my website. It's all it's bromanbakerycom slash cookbook. It's all there. I'm so excited for that because something that I have loved about this process is going from being online to like in real life. And there's the online to real life of having a physical book instead of, you know, a blog post and pages. But then there's the real life like meeting all these people who have, like, pretty much given me my career, like to be able to actually meet the people who follow me, bake from my site, like buy the products that I recommend. All that Like. I am just so, so excited to meet people Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And what advice would you give to anyone who's a baker, who maybe wants to get started blogging and and do as you and just start their own blog? What advice or tips would you have?
Speaker 2:Um, oh my God, so many tips Okay.
Speaker 2:So, first of all, we talked about skills-based, so I think like, without a doubt, work on those skills and baking and make sure they're really the best they can be. But but also, on that note, um, if you're talking about going into the online space, visuals are still so, so important. So signing up for a course that involves photography, even if it's just iPhone photography, is going to be so helpful, even if you are planning to mostly do videos, like creating reels and Tik TOKs. I use so much compositional knowledge every single time I go to shoot a video, so I think having that background is going to help to make your bakes, which you're spending so much time on and are, you know, beautiful, I'm sure, in front of you. It's going to make that translate to the screen, because without that, it's like you're just shooting yourself in the foot if it can't look as pretty as it does in front of your eyes.
Speaker 2:And then I would also say that, unfortunately for some, content is like the biggest way to really boost your career right now. So being really really involved on social media and I say unfortunately because it really does mean that you have to be creating content every single day in order to see that growth on social media, and sometimes that can just mean doing stories. Sometimes it doesn't have to be like a full-on post, but showing up on social media every single day is just going to be so, so helpful, not only for boosting your chances of success in the algorithms, but also for giving you those little analytical moments of this didn't work. This did work. Ooh, people really responded to this. Ooh, no, they don't like this, and it's like this teaching moment every single day that you're just gathering data on. So just showing up online even when you don't feel like it.
Speaker 1:I love that. Those are all wonderful tips, sarah. From the bottom of my little Southern heart, thank you so much for coming by today for telling us all about your new book. I'll have all the links to the book, the book tour, sarah's website, in the show notes. And before I let you go, sarah, are you ready for a game of lightning round? I'm so ready. All right, what is a dessert? You cannot live without Chocolate chip cookies. What is your favorite color?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I want to say beige. I love neutrals.
Speaker 1:That's new. I like that one. All right, who is your celebrity crush? Oh, ryan Reynolds. Wonderful choice.
Speaker 2:We meant like real celebrity crush, right, yeah, okay, cool, oh my God, no wait, I mean Ryan Gosling. Ryan Gosling, sorry, not Ryan Reynolds, ryan Gosling. Okay, there we go.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's a good one too. What is your favorite kitchen utensil? A whisk A whisk that sounds awesome. And then the last one, which we will have you skip, which is usually what is one of your favorite books, and, because you're here with us today, we will recommend that all of our users be sure to pre-order or go out and get your new book, sweet Tooth, which is amazing. Sarah, thank you so much for hanging out with us today. It really is a blast just hearing from all your expertise, and I know so many people are dying to get the book, so we really do appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Such a blast to talk to you too.
Speaker 1:How amazing was listening to Sarah's journey within this baking industry. You know her online school was really she's being so humble, but it was really one of the top places that bloggers went in order to elevate their photography and things on their blog, and so to see her pivot to a cookbook and focusing on her. I love to hear that. One of the things I love the most is honestly, when people are just honest about why they change, because you hear me say it on here on social media all the time, like we have multiple gifts, we can do multiple things, and although niching down is great, if you find that something no longer works for you, that it doesn't bring you joy.
Speaker 1:I always think it's amazing to change and to do something else, and so it's not really that big of a change for her, because recipes have always been the center of her business and her brand, but it's nice to see her now step into the realm of being an author. She's actually currently on book tour and I have all that information below, as well as her website and how you can get your hands on a copy of her new book, sweet Tooth. I pray that this episode inspired you, motivated you and encouraged you and please do me a favor, tag me on social media as you listen, I would love to shout you out and share you. Thanks so much for tuning in. Have a great day and bye for now.