Woman-powered bakery in The Great Plains

Goldenrod started in 2013 when Angela Garbacz launched Goldenrod Pastries as a blog.

The blog was intended to chronicle the story of her journey through dairy-free baking. As a classic French-trained pastry chef, learning how to make pastries without butter and cream was going to be a challenge. The blog gave her a way to have this journey and, tell the stories from it, share recipes, and possibly help others. By the summer of 2014, Goldenrod Pastries, the blog, was taking on a life of its own, with people placing orders through social media and the website. Turns out, Angela wasn’t the only one who needed, or wanted, to eat a little differently. Requests were rolling in for dairy-free, gluten-free, and vegan treats – and so, never wanting to deny people the chance to have a birthday cake, or treat their friend to her favorite dessert, Angela kept taking orders.

By the end of the summer, she was working full-time at her job in international marketing for a biotechnology company, and baking another forty hours a week on top of that. From there, Goldenrod Pastries really took off.

In January 2015, Goldenrod finally had a home in the picturesque College View neighborhood in Lincoln, Nebraska. In this small, 850 square-foot space, all of Goldenrod™’s dreams would be realized. With the help of family and friends, the shop was completely rebuilt from the ground up in just a few months. By the beginning of May 2015, Goldenrod was, as Goldenrod Mom says, a vision of stainless steel. There was a line around the block for hours on opening night.

Since then, Goldenrod has grown to a dozen employees, earned national praise in publications like Martha Stewart Living, Food & Wine, Cherry Bombe, and Forbes. And of course made about 2,000 pies, 5,000 birthday cakes, 100,000 cookies, and folded countless pink boxes in between.

We love it here.