Savannah Heins grew up baking with her mother, and has always found joy in helping her mother mix ingredients and decorate pastries, but never imagined she could make a career from it. That is until she and her mom started their home baking business.
Heins, a stay-at-home mom in Norman, and her mother, Kerri Logsdon, started MAD Baking roughly a year and a half ago and began advertising their baked goods on Facebook in September 2022 via the Norman Community Page.
“It’s a real family business,” Logsdon said. “When Savannah started advertising us as a mother and daughter baking business, I went, ‘Mother and daughter. MAD. MAD baking,’ and that just made sense to both of us.”
Logsdon said she’s been baking since high school and has obtained and perfected her recipes over the years. Heins said she grew up baking with her mother and grandmother and has continued the tradition with her own children.
“Baking’s always been something that we’ve loved, but it’s like painting: If you don’t really know someone who wants to buy your paintings, how do you put yourself out there?” Heins said. “It just hit me to at least try and put ourselves out there.”
Originally, she said it was slow getting started because they didn’t know many people in the area, despite living in Norman and its surrounding towns for most of their lives. However, Logdson said she credits her daughter for their new success.
“MAD Baking didn’t really explode until Savannah started doing a lot of advertising online,” Logsdon said. “Savannah is responsible for our growth. I would always post things I baked on my personal Facebook page, but we didn’t have a business page until (October).”
Heins said that although advertising on Facebook has helped spread their business, word-of-mouth has been invaluable in gaining new customers, including Rebecca Bean, owner of STASH in downtown Norman.
“Rebecca Bean’s been a client of mine for like a year and a half, and I got business from her,” Logsdon said. “She would have parties and people would taste the stuff I baked. So, I’ve gotten clients that way. … We’ve just kind of slowly grown over the last few months, and now it’s really busy and we love it.”
Sherryl Sweeney, a returning customer of Logsdon’s, said it’s obvious to her that the mother and daughter work well together, despite meeting the latter only once. Having bought from Logsdon before, Sweeney said Logsdon was great to work with because she was flexible and willing to have a thorough discussion on what could be done.
“She’ll let you know whether she can make it or not, but I’m sure she could make mostly anything somebody came up with,” Sweeney said. “She’s one of those people who would know that extra little pinch and is the kind of person you want to cook beside as a mentor.”
Sweeney said she’s mostly bought from Logsdon for family gatherings, because making a positive impression with what food she brings is important to her, as she’s heard snide comments when someone has done the opposite.
She said people stick their necks out when they volunteer to bring something and, therefore, those comments can get very personal, which is why she takes it so seriously.
“You’ve got to trust the person who says to you, ‘No problem, I can make that. That’s one of my specialties,’” Sweeney said. “I think Kerri’s trustworthy. She’s experienced, and she’s not going to try to sell you on something that you don’t want, either. If you got your heart set on something, she’d tell you straight if she could make it or not.”
Sweeney said she’s had nothing but positive experiences with Logsdon and fully believes in her and her daughter’s ability to continue to grow their business.
“Pretty soon, you’ll have to plan way ahead to order items for yourself,” Sweeney said. “I think all it’s going to take is for people to experience what they’re making and then their business will grow naturally.”
Logsdon said many of their customers are repeats, which she’s proud of. She said this means they were happy with what they purchased, and customer satisfaction is her and her daughter’s top priority. Logsdon said she’s more than willing to let customers into her kitchen to inspect if it would make them feel safer.
“We want people to come back and ask for more, so we make sure they like everything and thank them for buying,” Logsdon said. “We’ve never had anybody say they weren't happy with anything, but if anybody ever were, we would replace it.”
Heins said she believes her and her mother’s baked goods are tasty enough for customers to come back for more. She and her mother said that if people would try their food, they’ll buy it.
However, Logsdon said the reason they’re doing this isn’t for money; it’s because they love to bake and spend time together.
“We’re not raking in the dough, but we enjoy it. We’re having fun and we get to do it together,” Logsdon said. “We love baking, sweets, desserts. We love all of this. We couldn’t ask for more.”
