Baking For Business Podcast
The Baking For Business podcast is dedicated to helping you start and grow your home bakery business and scale and expand with digital products. We believe bakers and treat makers can earn money in multiple ways by sharing their gifts and talents.
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Baking For Business Podcast
#Ep 97: Celebrating Molly Yeh's New Book, Sweet Farm
In this special episode, I sit with the incredible Molly Yeh—Food Network star, New York Times bestselling author, bakery owner, and all-around creative force. Molly’s latest book, Sweet Farm, is a delicious celebration of life on the farm, sweet treats, and building a business rooted in joy.
We chat about her journey from city life to farmland, what inspires her in and out of the kitchen, and the heart behind Sweet Farm. Whether you're a baker, a dreamer, or love a good success story, this episode will leave you feeling inspired—and ready to step in the kitchen and bake.
✨ Grab your favorite drink and tune in for a cozy, behind-the-scenes look at Molly’s sweet world.
📚 Want your own copy of Sweet Farm? Click here to order from Molly’s website.
Two ways I help my students earn $2-10k monthly👇?
1.) Grow your home bakery business inside The Entrepreneur Community by clicking here
2.) Learn to sell digital products inside Digital Product Community by clicking here
Hey, sweet friends, my name is Chef Schaumburg. I started my baking business with a bottle of DeSorono 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, you guys? And welcome to the Baking for Business podcast.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited to be here with you guys today, because today we have a special guest. Molly Yeh is here, and I'm pretty sure you guys are all familiar with her. Not only is she a New York Times bestselling author, but she's also a blogger as well. You guys are all familiar with her. Not only is she a New York Times best selling author, but she's also a blogger as well, as you're probably familiar with her work on Food Network, but more than anything, today she's here to talk all about her new book, sweet Farm. Y'all, isn't this the cutest little cover ever? And so we're going to dive deep and talk to Molly all about the book and the recipes, because obviously you do need cookies with salad, right? And so you're going to find all about the uniqueness about this book today. And so, molly, thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me, amanda, and yes, you're so right, you obviously need cookies with salad.
Speaker 1:Yes, I know I definitely do. And for those who are unfamiliar with just how you got started, Molly, how did your total journey begin?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I grew up outside of Chicago in a family that loved food. My mom is big in the kitchen. She loves cooking, she loves baking. Every night it was dinners made from scratch, and every weekend I would wake up on Sunday mornings to a fresh coffee cake that she had just pulled out of the oven, or cinnamon rolls or just things like that. I thought it was normal to grow up with fresh baked goods every Sunday morning. And my dad loves food. His favorite food is leftovers, which is funny. I was just listening to your interview with Tiffany Thiessen and hearing about how her husband hates leftovers, I was like, oh, he's the complete opposite of my dad, tangent, anyway.
Speaker 2:So I also grew up in a very musical family. My dad is a professional musician, and when I was in high school, I was really into music. I played classical percussion and decided to go to college to study percussion, and so I got into Juilliard, which is where my dad went, and it was my dream of going there, and I dreamt of moving to New York City, so I moved there to study music, and what I really fell in love with, though, was the food scene in New York, and so that is when I started my blog. It's when I got my first apartment and I was cooking food for myself for the first time, because, growing up, you know, I would cook with my mom and we would do baking projects, and I was always around it, but when I lived in New York, that was the first time where I was, you know, really at the helm, you know doing my own cooking, and I fell in love with it, and so I'd started my blog when I was in New York, sort of as a way of keeping in touch with friends and family back home, and it was just meant to be like a life diary of you know what's going on in college in New York do, when I got home from school, was write about food and cook food and go and try restaurants in the city and just completely immerse myself in this world of food.
Speaker 2:And a lot of that came from the fact that when you're a classical percussionist, you spend a lot of time in the back of an orchestra waiting for your big moment. Like it might be a couple of bass drum notes, it might be one simple crash, it might be a few triangle notes, and in those moments when I was waiting for my moment to play, I was dreaming about where I was going to eat or what I was going to cook after rehearsal, and so I found that I was getting a creative satisfaction out of food that I wasn't really getting as much as I wanted to with music. I still love music, I still have pieces of music that I want to play, and I had amazing opportunities when I was at Juilliard to play different pieces of chamber music and to play with great conductors. But at the end of the day, what was giving me more creative satisfaction was working in food and blogging about food, and so I took that as just, I guess, a sign that I think that I should, you know, lean a little bit more into this and explore what my opportunities would be. So when I graduated school, I decided to stay in New York and take opportunities any opportunities that came my way, whether they had to do with food or music. And since I had the degree in music, I was paying my rent with music gigs, but with food things it was more like I had an internship and I was doing little teeny tiny writing assignments, nothing that was really paying the rent, but I was getting the experience.
Speaker 2:And then, when I started dating my now husband, we made the decision to move back to where we live now, which is in northern Minnesota, right on the North Dakota border, to his family's farm, and there's no freelance music scene here. So when we moved here, I had just I devoted myself completely to food. I worked at the one town bakery that we had. I grew my blog. That was when I had the time and the energy and the focus to grow the readership of my blog, to be able to create a job out of it.
Speaker 2:And then that led to my now literary agent contacting me to see if writing a book was something that I would want to do, and so I wrote my first cookbook. This was back in 2016. And then, when that came out, I had my first meeting with Food Network. And then, about a year after my book, came out, that's when Girl Meets Farm started, and now we're on our 15th season of Girl Meets Farm, and then Sweet Farm is technically my fourth book. I wrote a little short stack I don't know if you remember those short stack books A little short stack on yogurt, right after Molly on the Range, and then Home is when the Eggs Are. And now Sweet Farm has just come out.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, Wow, that is. That is so awesome, and I just love the, the evolution of your entire brand. And so is it safe to say, when it comes to inspiration, do you think it would be your mom, or do you think it would just be New York, cause you mentioned just food as an outlet, creative a lot. Which one do you think is your biggest?
Speaker 2:inspiration, I think that my mom and my dad so. So my mom was, you know, always in the kitchen and then my dad was really into going out to restaurants and trying new restaurants and and whenever he travels a lot and trying foods whenever he travels. So both of them travels a lot and trying foods whenever he travels. So both of them, like their love of food, set the stage for this evolution to happen.
Speaker 2:But I was also very picky growing up. So even though I was around a lot of food, I didn't want to eat a lot of it. Like I was very much mac and cheese, lot of it. Like I was very much mac and cheese. Grilled cheese, scrambled eggs, potstickers, steamed buns lots of. I was all the carbs and new foods didn't really appeal to me that much, but I think it was because I saw new foods around me all the time and I saw people getting excited about new food and, with my mom, cooking and baking was always seen as this joyous thing to do. It's how you show somebody that you love them. You cook them a meal or you bring them a batch of brownies and so like cooking. When I moved to New York it felt like I had already had this foundation, like I had the what's the word that I'm looking for? Like you're going to have to cut this part out? No, you're fine.
Speaker 1:It seems like you already have the love of it in you, but New York just maybe brought it out.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I had the possibility, like there was that possibility there, that I could fall in love with food. And then when I moved to New York it was like, oh yeah, I do love food. I just haven't truly discovered it yet. And now New York is kind of that, you know, last straw on the camel to make me truly fall for it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and so you've definitely fallen. Like you've stated, there's a blog and 15th season on your Food Network show. That is amazing. And now we are on book. Didn't know about the yogurt one, but book four. So tell us, with Sleep Farm, what was the inspiration that sparked you to write this book?
Speaker 2:So I've always felt like I was a baker first. Baking always came naturally to me. I'm such a math-minded person and I think that there's such a connection there with the baking and it's what I feel strongest with in the kitchen and it's also at the very beginning of my blog. It's what came at that center point between what resonated with my audience the most and what I wanted to be doing the most, and so for a while my blog was mostly a baking blog. Occasionally I would throw in a salad recipe or a soup recipe, but for the most part the recipes that I get most excited about are baking recipes.
Speaker 2:I always knew I wanted to write a baking book. I also married a sugar farmer my husband farms sugar beets and so that felt like a natural fit. At the same time, this concept was so special to me that I felt strongly about a sweets book not being my first book, because I wanted to have experience writing a cookbook before I wrote this book. And so you know, with Molly on the Range and the yogurt book and Home is when the Eggs Are, the sweets chapters in those books they filled up the fastest and I was most excited about those recipes. Those chapters could have taken over the whole book if I didn't hold them back. And then, after Home is when the Eggs Are, I felt like, okay, I feel confident in this process, I feel great about the team that I'm working with, I think it's time, and so I started developing the recipes. I mean, it's been years that I've been working on this book and I can truly say that it was some of the most creative, creatively satisfying moments I've ever had working.
Speaker 1:I love that. And so how is Sweet Farm? You touched on it a little bit, but how is Sweet Farm different from your previous book? So would you say this one is 90% baking with some food, or what's the differentiation? I?
Speaker 2:mean it's all sweets, so it's, and it mean it's all sweets and it's mostly baking. There are a couple, there's a no-bake chapter, there's a drinks chapter, and so I've been careful not to call it strictly a baking book, but it is mostly baking and I think it just represents truly just what I was born to make and what I was born to share with the world and how I can most express myself and share my story and heritage and truly, like, create newness. I mean a lot of these, most of these recipes are inspired by the past and by my heritage and by the history of the farm, but I was really excited to be able to create recipes that couldn't have created or that couldn't have been created even one generation ago, like, for example, there's this recipe for ube fluff. Is this recipe for ube fluff, which combines a flavor that I adore, that I grew up with enjoying, you know, in Chinatown with my family ube.
Speaker 2:And then this type of dessert called a fluff, that is super duper unique to the upper Midwest and it's essentially a very fluffy pudding or, if you can imagine, a non-frozen ice cream, it's sort of like that, and it typically has fruit in it. You make it by folding jello like kind of like whipping up jello with whipped cream, and then people add different things in it. And a distant family member of my husband's she makes it with tapioca pearl or tapioca pudding, and I saw the tapioca and I was instantly brought back to having bubble tea with my sister and my dad in Chinatown on the weekends, and I associated that with taro and ube and all of the Asian dessert flavors that I love, and so I combined the format of fluff with ube and it worked. I just thought like this is really fun, because a generation ago, how would you have gotten ube extract or ube helaya on the farm? You couldn't just order those things from amazon like I did.
Speaker 1:So, um, so it's it's recipes like those that I am really proud about in the book I love that and you actually touched a little bit on my next question, but just in case you have any more, were there any recipes that surprised you while developing them? Now you hold your thought because I want to share mine Rosemary potato loaf cake, this is, and I have a rosemary and it's always taken over, so you really gave me another idea. What were some of the ones that surprised you inside the book?
Speaker 2:I will say that one was a big one. That surprised me. It started off as an experiment. You know we've all made pumpkin bread things, like you know. We've all added, like you know, those hearty fall winter vegetables. Mash them up and put them into cake and it works. You know, sweet potato is so delicious in desserts and I have a squash cake in the book too.
Speaker 2:But I really love white potatoes and using white potatoes in sweets is something that is it's not uncommon around here. Adding potato to breads and to like enriched doughs for cinnamon rolls and stuff is pretty common around here and I just I love that. And then also there's a Norwegian flatbread Lefse that uses russet, or, yeah, flatbread lefse that uses russet, or, yeah, just any sort of white potato that you rice and you make it looks like a tortilla with it but it's very tender and you roll it up with butter and sugar and cinnamon and it's so delightful. But I had never seen a potato in just a classic loaf cake. So I tried it one day. I think I invited. It might've even started with like a leftover potato that I had that I just wanted to heat up in the microwave and then, um, I love anytime, I don't need to wait for butter to soften to make a cake. I really get a kick out of that. So I used the hot potato to melt the butter and I just mixed in some other stuff and it made just this beautiful tender texture.
Speaker 2:And I love rosemary so much. Rosemary was my mom's mom's name and now it's my daughter's middle name. It was in my wedding bouquet. It's just one of those comfort herbs and with the potato and the butter something in my mind just said rosemary to me. So add a little bit of that and then dark chocolate on top with a little bit of flaky salt kind of just seals the deal.
Speaker 2:So that was something that when I was thinking about it I thought this could be really complicated because normally when I add potato to enriched doughs it just adds a whole other step. That is kind of annoying. But with the cake it actually made the process a little bit easier because it can all come together in one bowl and and and again it. It melts the butter. So it kind of just it helps the batter come together really easily. There's there's a little bit less gluten in the in the batter, so you can kind of you can really mix it and it's a very user-friendly cake. It's very forgiving and and it's, and it's unique. It's like it's a it's a little uniqueness. That is going to be, you know, familiar in some senses, but also you know who? Who has seen a mashed russet potato in a cake before? I don't think that many people have. So it's like I love combining these familiar flavors together to create something new.
Speaker 1:I love combining these familiar flavors together to create something new. You're so right, Because when I saw it and I saw cake, I was like I don't think I've ever seen that. Now I'll normally see it in donuts some donuts oh, I love potato donuts, yeah, yes. So I know that's probably definitely going to be a really, really amazing treat. And aside from the ube in this one, what's one recipe?
Speaker 2:from the book that really feels the most personal to you, and why the black sesame babka?
Speaker 2:It's Asian and it's Jewish just like me, and it combines probably my all-time favorite flavor, black sesame. And it combines probably my all-time favorite flavor, black sesame, which is also another one of these flavors that is so nostalgic to me that I grew up eating with my family in Chinatown on the weekends and with babka, which is just one of my favorite formats for any dessert. It looks pretty, it's satisfying to make the flavors in it. I think just they come together so nicely. There's a lot going on in it because I feel like in order to make black sesame truly sing, you've got to have a little bit of citrus zest.
Speaker 2:The dough for the babka has it has potato flour, so there is that softness from the potato. I add a little bit of coconut oil into my enriched dough which is your insurance policy against having a dry dough and that hint of coconut flavor with the bitter sesame and the bright citrus. It's beautiful. And there's a little bit of chocolate in there from some crushed Oreos that help the structure, that help everything kind of stick together. So I think it's a project but it's well worth it.
Speaker 1:I love that and see it's nice to hear you say that, as obviously the author On the opposite side. When I look at that question, it actually made me think about the sprinkle cake, which is actually in here too, because from a viewer side, or a fan, like many of us are, I just always think it's so cool when you see something in a new book that's in the older book. It's like, yeah, she brought this one back. You know like you feel like, oh, I remember this ride.
Speaker 2:Like I've seen this before. So, oh, thank you. Yeah, that was it. I think it speaks to my habit of just never being able to like settle for anything. And I lost so much sleep over that cake because it was like, yeah, I, you're right, I put it on. I put the recipe on the blog. I put a refined recipe of it in Molly on the Range recipe on the blog. I put a refined recipe of it in Molly on the Range. And then this I had a teacher in college who told me if it ain't broke, fix it anyway. Yes. So I thought you know what this could be improved? And I'm going to do it. And I'm going to lose sleep over it because I just this is what I do, I obsess over cake, and so I did. I tweaked a couple of things since Molly on the Range that are all explained in like the pages long head note to that 2.0 cake. Do you have it? You have it right there.
Speaker 1:There it is. Yeah, I was going to say and this is the beautiful picture, you guys, I'm going to have to let you all read it and you decide, because, again, I don't know how you can tweak perfection. But when I saw that I was like yay.
Speaker 2:This is why I can't eat sprinkle cake anymore, because it's too triggering. I'm like, oh no, too much, I'm going to have too many emotions with this.
Speaker 1:I love it, and so the book beautifully mixes not only the recipes but also the storytelling of it, obviously the farm and entrepreneurship and all the things. How do you balance handling a mix of entrepreneurship and then also just life?
Speaker 2:where I just sit down and I schedule out my next week minute by minute, almost it's borderline obsessive, but I love just having a plan and knowing where I'm supposed to be, because it can be hard when you're your own boss and you're in charge of your own schedule, you know.
Speaker 2:Before kids, it was like, yeah, I'll work until the sun goes down, I'll work until 10 pm, eat whatever leftovers are in my fridge for dinner, and then watch Game of Thrones and go to sleep. And now, with kids, it's so different. And so I have to be done at 5 in order to make dinner for the kids. Like, I have to be done at a certain time, you know, and I have to have my, my weekends free and all of that. So so just being, you know, really focused about a schedule is something that I enjoy doing and and that gives me peace of mind when I am trying to strike that balance. But at the same time, it's like it's always changing and it's always going to be a challenge to find that balance. And so I just, you know, I try to keep telling myself okay, this is a process, the only constant is change, and whatever happens, we just have to try our best to take it with grace.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I love that approach because too often so many people they beat themselves up, especially entrepreneurs, and I'm always telling that to my students. I'm like, did you write your schedule Like that is the best, that's the best part, scheduling the mom time, scheduling the me time, because sometimes it can get hectic. So I love your response and I know overall farm life has played such a huge role in just your brand as well as your recipes. So what has living on a farm taught you about running a business?
Speaker 2:Farmers are some of the hardest working people.
Speaker 2:I've ever met, the hardest working people I've ever met, and they have to wear many hats. I mean, it's, it's planting the seeds and it's growing the seeds and it's and it's harvesting the crops, but it's also being a mechanic for your tractors and combines and whatnot. It's, um, it's managing a crew during harvest. We have we have people here who help drive the trucks during sugar beet harvest, so it's like it's managing a team of a dozen people. For my husband there's a lot of paperwork, there's a lot of continuing education during the winter, there's a lot of workshops to learn about new technology and things like that.
Speaker 2:And welding my husband is really into welding, I guess welding metal pieces that's a really important skill to have on the farm, and so seeing how they balance all of those many, many different jobs and then also, at the end of the day, they're still at the mercy of mother nature is extremely inspiring. And it has taught me that when you can work, work really hard and put your all into it and be focused, because tomorrow a storm could roll through and you might not be able to work, and if you didn't get all of the seeds planted by tomorrow, when there's a storm in the forecast, you know that that could be really bad for business. Um, so just seeing seeing that sort of work ethic of just like when you can work, go hard and then, uh, also know that some things are out of your control and you just have to be nimble and and and work with that absolutely for anyone who is listening, who's like molly.
Speaker 1:I want a career like yours, I want to be a blogger, or I want to write a cookbook, or I want to build a brand from my baking. What advice would you have to any entrepreneur who's looking to get started?
Speaker 2:So something that I love to see when I am looking at whose books to read or who to follow online or whose shows to watch is I love to see unique stories and I think that so many times, you know, when we're living our day-to-day lives, we think that the breakfast that we're having oh, that's normal, or that's boring. Or the work that we're doing, like oh, normal or that's boring. Or the work that we're doing like, oh, that's just normal. But like I want to see your normal life, like I want to see what makes you unique. I want to know about your heritage, your story. I want to see that broadened to what you're baking.
Speaker 2:I want to see new flavors. I want to see new flavor combinations. I want to see you know like something whether it's a way that you've decorated a cake that's unique to you and that is is something that you feel is your superpower Like I would rather see that than somebody replicating you know a cookie that is everywhere, in a million places on the internet. So, like this whole, this whole trend of of people creating videos oh, my gosh, what are you going to say? I?
Speaker 1:feel like you're about to say the same thing that I've been saying to people. I cannot stand to see a copycat version of I'm. Like you were created to be your own person, like literally the word you is in unique. Why do we always do here's a copycat crumble.
Speaker 2:I don't want a copycat crumble.
Speaker 2:I don't want a copycat. Oh, I do not want a copycat crumble. I just had crumble for the first time last week. I don't want the real crumble, but no, it's. Yeah, it's so true. It's like I want to know what flavors are special to you and what flavor you think would go well in a chocolate chip cookie. Like what is something that you grew up with? Or what is something, a flavor that you had on a recent vacation that you just can't stop thinking of, that you think would go well in this cookie?
Speaker 2:And yeah, and this whole trend of yeah, creating like this is me making the viral insert recipe here. Like, no, make something new, don't just create content from other people's content. Like, tell me your story, tell me about your day. Um, something that I used to think about when I was, you know, blogging every week. If I ever felt like I had writer's block, I would think you know what. I'm just writing a letter to a friend. This isn't broadcasting. You know something crazy and big. Like I am writing to an audience and I consider them all friends. I'm writing to an audience and I consider them all friends, and so I would say, like, if you're looking for what is truly unique about you. Think about how you would have a conversation with your best friend and share that and start there and then see where that goes.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That is such a beautiful response, molly, for anyone who gets this book. I'm not sure if you have a choice, but what would be the first thing that you would like to see us bake from this book?
Speaker 2:oh, um, a cookie, the cookies cookies. Yeah, uh, oh, the. Either the pistachio the pistachio sandwich cookies I'm gonna go with that. Or the tahini, the frosted tah sandwich cookies I'm going to go with that, or the tahini the frosted tahini cookies. Both of those cookies are really big chewy rustic cookies you really want to eat.
Speaker 1:Yes, all right, you guys. Well, we have our marching orders, so we know what to bake. You heard it directly from Molly first. Molly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for coming on today and for sharing your story and your journey and all of your wisdom, as well as your new book. But before I let you go, we have to play a game of lightning round.
Speaker 2:Are you ready?
Speaker 1:Yes, awesome. What is your favorite color? Green? What is a kitchen utensil you cannot live without the silicone spoonula. What is a dessert that you cannot live without?
Speaker 2:Chewy peanut butter cookies.
Speaker 1:The next question we're going to skip, as we do for all of our authors, because it is what is a book that you would recommend us read? And we're going to recommend all of our readers to go out and grab Sweet Farm, because this is definitely a must read. And so our very last question who is your celebrity crush?
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, my celebrity crush, tom Cruise, Jason Momoa um my celebrity crush. Um, hmm, tom cruise, jason mamoa um my celebrity crush. This is a really hard one.
Speaker 1:Really think about this normally that's the one people go so well, like everybody knows this.
Speaker 2:Are you supposed to have like a celebrity crush in your head? Yeah, they're like Magic Mike or I don't know. Can I say the dad from Bluey? Oh, wow. Can I say a cartoon? Yeah, no, no, no, you're not satisfied with that answer. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Celebrity crush.
Speaker 1:That was like the equivalent of saying Urkel, urkel.
Speaker 2:Oh, you know who? My first ever celebrity crush was the Red Power Ranger. Okay, there we go. First it was Red Power Ranger, then it was Zach from Saved by the Bell, then it was Heath Ledger RIP. Oh, yes, oh. Zach girl, you have like five to?
Speaker 1:choose from yeah, I'll take Zach. I'll take Zach From the bottom of my heart. Molly, thanks so much for coming on the show and hanging out with us, Thank you so much, Amanda.
Speaker 2:This was so much fun, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So how awesome was Molly? You guys, it's always so much fun when new baking books and new cookbooks hit the shelves and it's even better when we get to talk to the actual author and share everything that went inside of the book with all of you guys, so special thanks. Thanks again to Molly for coming on the baking for business podcast, for sharing her fourth book with us, as well as all the things that go into running a farm, a bakery, being an entrepreneur and just everything else. It was really awesome just to hear her spin on it. And, you guys, this book is filled with 100 recipes from cookies, cakes, salads and other delights from Molly's Kitchen and I hope you guys thoroughly enjoy it as you read it as much as you enjoy today's podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in, guys. Take care and bye for now.