Wild Rye Baking Co., a new online baking company, launched today making baking a piece of cake, serving up reimagined cake, frosting and pancake mixes for the discerning home baker to elevate celebrations, no experience required.
Through a variety of gourmet yet easy-to-make mixes, Wild Rye Baking Co. delivers a simple, elevated solution to stay on top of holidays and celebrations with delicious, high-quality homemade treats. Customers can choose from cake flavors like vanilla, pink velvet, olive oil and chocolate in classic, vegan or gluten-free recipes. Wild Rye also offers a collection of frosting mixes featuring mouth-watering flavors like vanilla, peanut butter coffee, coconut matcha and chocolate sea salt, along with a gluten-free almond flour pancake mix that is quickly developing a cult following.
“There is something truly special, almost magical, about baking a cake for someone you love,” said Sarah Chisholm, founder and chief baking officer of Wild Rye. “Too many people fear the process of making a cake from scratch, and the standard store-bought cake mix lacks the flavors and high-quality ingredients that make all the difference. I wanted to create a simple solution that anyone could bake, that would taste amazing and look beautiful utilizing only the best ingredients.”
Wild Rye Baking Co. became that solution. The new company is a dream come true for Chisholm, a former professional ballerina who pivoted her career and dreams after a serious leg fracture at age 23 ended her dancing dreams. Not wasting a moment, Chisholm turned to another passion she had put on the back burner… baking. She jumped at an opportunity to train under a local Phoenix pastry chef Katherine Dwight, and then elevated her training further by spending two months in Europe, working in kitchens and discovering new techniques. It wasn’t long before she was offered a prestigious job as the executive pastry chef of the award-winning St. Francis restaurant and of the Phoenix Public Market Cafe, where she was tasked with overseeing the brands’ new wholesale division growing it to become the largest wholesale bakery in Downtown Phoenix
After spending a few years honing her craft, Chisholm began experimenting with cake and pancake mixes, and quickly found that her friends and family couldn’t get enough. The perfect intersection of simplicity and bakery-quality was clearly finding an audience.
“I love the idea of baking a cake for a family birthday party or a dinner party, but I’m not a skilled baker and more often than not it feels like a daunting task. So, I end up buying a cake at the grocery store that has been sitting for a few days and isn’t great,” said Wild Rye customer Michelle Ganz. “The Wild Rye olive oil cake mix was a game-changer for me. It was easy to make, and it looked and tasted so delicious. My guests were complimenting my baking skills all night and I’m hooked.”
Chisholm plans to continue to innovate new recipes to add more products to her offering as she grows the business. She also is working on cultivating a library of video content so customers who have a desire to elevate their baking game can easily follow along with her as she bakes and decorates.
“I want to remove the misconception that baking is challenging,” said Chisholm. “I recognized that I could help people make, in their homes, the type of goodies we’ve come to expect only from a world-class bakery or restaurant. I could reach my friends who would never call themselves bakers and empower them to experience that magical feeling with their favorite people. And, I could do it while being inclusive and cognizant of all the different ways we choose to eat, live, love and celebrate today.”
Each baking mix is accessible and flexible and comes to life using a few simple ingredient combinations that most people always have in their kitchen. Prices vary by product but start at $10.95 and shipping is free on orders over $50.
