After attending her niece’s birthday party, Jessica Gehring was driven to make sugar cookies. “She had these beautiful sugar cookies, but they didn’t taste fantastic,” the Mentor resident, now the owner of Baked by El, recalled. “Sugar cookies have a reputation of being a little blah tasting, so I thought maybe I could try to make some that actually taste good.” While currently in Mentor, close to the border of Willoughby, Gehring now has clients out to Conneaut and Madison, as well as Cleveland. Additionally, she sends her cookies to family in various states. “Baked by El started very randomly,” Gehring said. “I’ve always liked to bake my whole life. I baked with my mom and my grandma growing up, so I started for fun. At the time, I was working in Cleveland at an insurance company. The pandemic hit and working from home, I had a little more time to bake.” Jessica Gehring started her sugar cookie business, Baked by El, in 2020 and now caters to customers from Cleveland to Conneaut. (Jessica Gehring)Jessica Gehring started her sugar cookie business, Baked by El, in 2020 and now caters to customers from Cleveland to Conneaut. (Jessica Gehring)Jessica Gehring started her sugar cookie business, Baked by El, in 2020 and now caters to customers from Cleveland to Conneaut. (Jessica Gehring)Jessica Gehring started her sugar cookie business, Baked by El, in 2020 and now caters to customers from Cleveland to Conneaut. (Jessica Gehring)Jessica Gehring started her sugar cookie business, Baked by El, in 2020 and now caters to customers from Cleveland to Conneaut. (Jessica Gehring)Show Caption1 of 5Jessica Gehring started her sugar cookie business, Baked by El, in 2020 and now caters to customers from Cleveland to Conneaut. (Jessica Gehring)Expand Before starting Baked by El, Gehring began posting pictures of her cookies. As a result, people started asking when they could purchase them. It was then that Gehring started getting busy taking orders. “My maiden name is Elliott, so growing up, my nickname was El or Elliott,” she said. “My dad was called El and my brother’s nickname was El. My dad had a business in Madison, El’s Beverage, so I kind of did a little nod to that when I was naming my business.” Gehring recalls working until the wee hours of the morning, waking up and then continuing to work her 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. job. “Eventually, it just got so busy my husband convinced me,” she said. “My husband was in the military the first 10 years of our marriage, so we traveled around a lot. After that decade, we moved back home, so being here, it all kind of happened. It was toward the end of the year in 2020 when I officially decided to put in my two weeks at my other job and go all in on this.” Gehring books out months in advance and always strives to squeeze people’s orders in. “I always feel terrible telling people I can’t get them in,” she said. “I try my best. I recommend a couple months, but I always tell people try it anyway. Just message me. If I can, I will squeeze people in. I will do everything I can and I always do special orders. For Christmas coming up, I’ll post pre-orders at the beginning of the month that have a certain amount of people who can sign up to get them.” Working for herself, Gehring expressed she’s fortunate to be able to make her own schedule. “It depends on the week,” she said. “I can kind of decide do I have this week to do eight dozen cookies or 12 dozen cookies. They’re very time-consuming, especially the decorated ones. I do everything by the dozen, so sometimes it’s just one dozen and sometimes it’s 12 dozen.” Birthdays, weddings, showers and holidays are among the things Gehring caters to in addition to her regular customers. “They come to me all the time and they’ll be like, ‘I just want some cookies. Do whatever you want,’ ” she said. “It’s fun. I have a lot of freedom with my regulars.” Over the years, Gehring has made many friends in the cookie community and also attended CookieCon last year for the first time. “It’s something that surprises people,” she said. “People from all different countries come to it. It’s usually once or twice a year. There’s classes and a sugar show completion. I got first place in one of the categories last year and it was really exciting. You get so many ideas from there and from friends.” Gehring has been able to channel her passion to be creative and her passion for drawing into her business. As far as her sugar cookies, Gehring expressed they can take her anywhere from hours to days to complete, but usually a three-day process for any cookie order as they have to dry in between. “The detail can sometimes be very time-consuming,” she said. “When someone reaches out to me, sometimes they’ll just give me a picture of an invitation and say, ‘Do whatever you want.’ I spend a good amount of time designing them. I draw what I’m going to do. My husband has a 3D printer, so he can make me any shape cookie cutter I possibly need, so that’s very helpful.” Gehring has found that her customers are now coming to her with ideas from TikTok and Instagram videos as part of the trends she has observed in the industry. “When I first started, it was all unicorns,” she recalled. “Then we get into mermaids and then monster trucks. There are specific trends and different techniques people like to see.” Gehring encourages those interested in placing orders to reach out to her via her business Facebook or Instagram page as she likes to have everything in writing and have them feel personalized to the customer. “I make sure I have proper spelling and dates,” she said. “We don’t want to mistake a name or wedding date on a cookie.” Seeing people’s reactions, especially children, is still a part of Gehring’s business that she enjoys. “I try to cater to the person themselves, so it’s fun to see people get excited about it,” she said. “On my side, I get to be creative. With moving around a lot, I kind of just found jobs wherever my husband was stationed. I didn’t really have as much freedom. It was great, but now I get to do this for me and be creative every day.” Although it takes practice and patience, Gehring said her business is worth it. She encourages those interested in baking to just try it. “It’s fun,” she said. “I was so nervous. The first set I ever did would scare you. It takes practice, but it is so much fun. I’m doing different stuff every day. I think it’s relaxing personally. It’s almost kind of therapeutic.” Being busy with custom orders, Gehring has limited herself to just attending the Downtown Willoughby Outdoor Farmer’s Market. “I like where I’m at right now,” she said. “I like my freedoms. I’m also kind of a perfectionist, so the fact that I’m the one doing every single cookie makes me feel comfortable.”