Mary Andino
There are family-run businesses, and then there are businesses where family is the foundation. The latter is the case with Baked by Lauren & Kristen, a cottage bakery run by two sisters, Kristen Crady and Lauren Miller.
Lauren Miller and Kristen Crady.
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Crady and Miller grew up baking for their family, learning the craft from their grandmother. Miller soon took up cake decorating classes; she received her first wedding cake commission as an eigth grader. “Both of us were always kind of known as the bakers. Our brothers would have people over and we’d be baking for them,” Crady says. “It’d be like 2 o’clock in the morning: ‘You guys want brownies? I’ll make some.’” They started their business in 2016, and it steadily grew via word of mouth and social media.
Photo courtesy Baked by Lauren & Kristen
If you take a look at the bakery’s Instagram page, you’ll instantly be drawn in by the gorgeous aesthetics of the sisters’ intricately decorated sugar cookies that look like they could be in a patisserie window. They’ve made cookies in themes from strawberries and flowers in spring to dinosaurs for kids’ birthday parties. Custom cookie and cake orders were their bread and butter for years, but recently, they’ve transitioned to markets and events.
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Photo courtesy Baked by Lauren & Kristen
The duo regularly appears at the Webster Groves and Lake St. Louis farmers’ markets, offering an array of sweet treats. Items include muffins, cookies, macarons and scones. Their cake in a jar – small cakes layered with frosting in single-serve, portable containers – have proved quite popular. “We make an Italian meringue buttercream,” Miller says. “It’s not your traditional American buttercream. It’s more buttery and smooth as opposed to that super sweet flavor.” The sisters pride themselves on using quality ingredients and making everything from scratch. A brownie might look ordinary, but when you bite into it, you’ll taste the quality of the chocolate and cocoa powder.
Photo courtesy Baked by Lauren & Kristen
Crady and Miller’s next major goal is transitioning to a commercial kitchen bakery so they have more room to dream and cook up bakes. They plan to continue to sell at markets, potentially adding more in the future – but owning a brick-and-mortar shop someday would be a dream come true.
“We’d love to have some kind of retail space where people can come in and get that cookie or macaron any day of the week,” Crady says. They’re not currently accepting custom orders, but that may change in the future. “We just find a lot of joy in bringing details to life.”
For updates and more information, follow Baked by Lauren & Kristen on Instagram at @bakedbylk.
Baked by Lauren & Kristen, bakedbylk.com
Dining and Cooking