Home Baked For The Holidays, And Everyday - A New Option in Mill Valley

Mill Valley moms turned entrepreneurs have launched their healthy home baking hobby into a business that locals are quickly catching onto.

Friends and now co-owners of Carrot Top Treats, Karen Olson and Kristin Silmore, love baking. For years they have taken joy in supplying their two red-headed-sons’ school and sporting events with deceptively delicious, healthy treats. After teaming up unofficially, it didn’t take long for other parents to begin asking to commission them to do the same when it was their turn for snack.

The duo realized a baking business was their calling after a fundraiser for the school garden had them baking up dozens of desserts for a bake sale, selling out of tarts, granola, whole-grain cookies and more.

“The fundraiser really launched us into considering a baking business,” explained Karen Olson as she showed off her kitchen, “We enjoy picking up farmer’s market finds to create yummy goodies. We have found there is a demand for health kid-friendly stuff, and like sneaking in things such as flaxseed and whole wheat.”

Carrot Top Treats focuses on offering completely customized menus to meet the needs of individuals for party favors, class treats, and lunch snacks. “Our customers know what we are putting in their food,” explained  Silmore, “We take pride in providing quality whole foods.”

Olsen and Silmore are among the few Marin County small business owners taking advantage of the newly passed Cottage Kitchen legislation that began allowing home kitchens to be certified for legal sale of goods. The bill, passed in January of this year, now allows home-baked and packaged goodies from nut mixes and dried fruits to jams, pastries and cakes, to be made and sold from the home, just as they could from a commercial kitchen.

Find Carrot Top Treats on Facebook for frequent specials, and order directly from their website www.carrottoptreats.com.