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These under-the-radar bakeries are far from vanilla. This Women’s History Month, we’re spotlighting three woman-owned small businesses baking up big and bold global flavors.
All three of these women had no formal culinary training or prior experience as business owners, and all are forgoing traditional career paths to pursue their passions, incorporating flavors from their home countries or heritage.
From cookies infused with Hong Kong tea to egg-free bundt cakes that taste like mango lassi, here are three bakeries you might not have heard of to satisfy your sweet tooth.
Mixing French mini cakes with flavors from Hong Kong
Cloud & Crumb offers a variety of madeleine flavors, including black sesame and Hong Kong lemon tea. Courtesy Cloud & Crumb. 
Cloud & Crumb, a San Mateo-based home bakery, offers a variety of cookie flavors, including hojicha mochi, campfire s’mores, ube salted egg yolk and triple black sesame. Courtesy Cloud & Crumb.
San Mateo resident Kat Liu has a weird cat.
“(Kumo) is not supposed to eat pastry, but he always steals my pastry,” Liu said. “Even if it is a croissant, he will eat it from the top, like a psychopath.”
She named her home-based bakery, Cloud & Crumb, after him, as Kumo means “cloud” in Japanese, and he leaves crumbs everywhere. Liu launched her madeleine and cookie business last year after completing her Ph.D in cancer genomics from Stanford University. She decided to pursue her lifelong passion full time after the death of her aunt, who was a mother figure to her.
“I know that in order to make her proud, what she wants for me is happiness,” Liu said. “So I decided to take a leap of faith and start my home bakery, because that’s something that I want to do … and I know my aunt would be very proud of me for doing that.”
Liu grew up in Hong Kong until she was 13 years old, and she’s incorporating the flavors of her childhood into her baked goods. She offers madeleines stuffed with fillings in flavors such as black sesame, Hong Kong lemon tea, salted egg yolk and osmanthus mochi ($3.50).
She also crafts cookies with homemade miso toffee and fresh apple chunks or ones infused with hojicha and stuffed with mochi ($3). For ube lovers, Liu uses real ube to make cookies with a gooey salted egg yolk and soft ube center, ube butter mochi and ube canele ($3-$5).
“Cookies and madeleines (are) very versatile, they are portable and they’re meant to be shared,” Liu said. “They’re the kind of treats that you would gather with people for afternoon tea, which is a culture where I’m from, in Hong Kong, to really chat over and to share the joy.”
Liu is a self-taught baker, recalling the first time she baked was in a toaster oven following a Valentine’s Day cookie recipe from a children’s magazine.
“My grandma loved it – I think it’s only because her grandkid made it for her, but that really stuck with me,” she said.
Liu said she’s passionate about flavor development and introduces new flavors regularly. She hopes to eventually move to a commercial kitchen to grow her business.
“I want people to know that small dreams are worth pursuing,” she said. “it’s not a bad thing to follow your heart, to do what you like, just because you’re not following the path that society agrees with.”
To order from Cloud & Crumb, fill out the online order form and pick up in San Mateo. Free delivery is available within 5 miles of the pickup point, with additional charges for delivery up to 20 miles away. Cloud & Crumb will also be popping up April 18 at Little Green A Plant Bar in Redwood City from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Cloud & Crumb, Instagram: @cloud.and.crumb.
Fusing traditional South Asian ingredients with modern bakes
Sunnyvale resident Janki Chauhan describes herself as a “100% introvert” who expresses herself best through baking.
What started as gifting friends and family small boxed items for Diwali and other holidays grew into Orange Elaichi, a small business specializing in eggless baked goods with nostalgic South Asian flavors.
She started the business as Cup, Spoon and Spatula in 2024 before rebranding last summer to Orange Elaichi, with the orange as a nod to California and elaichi (meaning cardamom in Hindi) representing India.
“The goal here was to bring the traditional flavor(s) which I grew up with into these modern bakes, which are more accessible,” Chauhan said.
Chauhan’s rose pistachio bundt cake is one of her most popular offerings ($8). Instead of using rose flavoring, she uses gulkand, a rose petal jam traditionally used in paan, a South Asian post-meal refresher. Other treats include the mango lassi bundt cake and orange pistachio truffles, a twist on brigadeiros ($12 for six truffles).
All products at Orange Elaichi are egg-free, and many of her baked goods are fully vegan and gluten-free, including her chai spice oatmeal cookies and cranberry-orange muffins.
She notes that while vegan baked goods often come with a bad rap, she finds that plant-based baking can be an asset. Instead of just substituting ingredients, she thinks holistically about each ingredient.
“If I’m using a plant-based product, I’m taking advantage of what flavor they bring in,” Chauhan said. “Most of my milk I use is oat milk, and I know that you get that nice, early, slightly sweet flavor out of oat milk, so I’m using that flavor as an advantage.”
Chauhan grew up in Gujarat, India, coming to the United States for her master’s program in 2008. Her first time baking with an oven was during grad school, as she did not have access to an oven while living in India. An avid home baker, Chauhan worked in tech until about five years ago.
“I wanted to make sure that I’m doing something I really want to do, rather than something I’m just doing day to day,” she said. “Cooking and baking has always been my love language. That’s how I express myself.”
Chauhan’s bakes can be found at Cupertino’s De Anza College Farmers Market on Sundays, or ordered online and picked up from her home in Sunnyvale on Fridays and Saturdays. She will soon introduce Orange Elaichi at the College of San Mateo Farmers Market on Saturdays as well.
Orange Elaichi, Instagram: @orangeelaichi.
Crafting Filipino leche flan with a purple punch for the palate
Julianne Zuniga grew up making Filipino leche flan with her mother, “LouLou.” That recipe is now the backbone of her business, LouLou’s Leche Flan.
The Hillsborough resident and former development director didn’t have any prior experience in culinary or owning a business, but at the urging of those who had tried her leche flan before, she started selling flan early last year. Available at farmers markets all along the Peninsula, Zuniga offers just two flavors (original and ube) with the occasional appearance of mango or chocolate varieties ($7 for individual size, $36 for family size).
“I love interacting with customers,” Zuniga said. “I love seeing their reactions to my leche flan, and I love introducing it if people have never had it.”
Flan, a dessert made from baked custard coated in caramel, is a staple in many countries’ cuisines, including Mexico, Cuba and Vietnam. Zuniga said that she finds Filipino-style flan to be more dense and less eggy than Mexican flan.
“When people don’t like flan, I feel like it’s a texture thing,” she said. “And so when they try mine … they end up trying it and liking it.”
She said her leche flan stands out because the ube flavor is pronounced, noting that she’s tried many ube desserts that barely taste like ube.
Zuniga currently bakes everything herself, and she plans to hire employees and hopes to eventually open a brick-and-mortar shop.
Find LouLou’s Leche Flan at Stanford Farmer Market on Tuesdays and Fridays, Brisbane Farmers Market on Thursdays and Foster City Farmers Market on Saturdays. Zuniga donates a portion of all proceeds to Project Pearls, a nonprofit combating poverty in the Philippines.
LouLou’s Leche Flan, 707-334-2723, Instagram: @loulouslecheflan.
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