SIOUX CITY | Claudia Hessa’s test market didn’t involve shoppers at a grocery store, people with a select zip code or regular customers of an existing business.
They were mothers of preschoolers who, like Hessa, belonged to a MOPS group. That means Mothers of Preschoolers.
“I had done odd jobs and moved around with my husband, John, as he served in the military,” says Hessa. “I was at MCI for eight years and my best friend, Tracy Jones, told me to take a chance with my baking.”
Hessa baked a bunch of cookies and had her fellow MOPS members sample. She followed with a simple question: “If I bake, will you buy?”
That was 13 years and hundreds of thousands of cookies ago for Hessa and her business, The Sugar Shack Bakery at 700 Jennings St., in Sioux City.
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“I thought to myself, ‘Who better to try it on than my MOPS friends?’” she reflects. “They had no time to bake. Plus, they really network.”
They have. Hessa’s humble start at MOPS evolved into holiday trays feature her decorative cookies and bars. She expanded into making cookie bouquets two years later. It was then that Karen Lindemann of Fulton, Mo., learned of The Sugar Shack Bakery and Hessa’s catchy cookies. Lindemann had a small bakery of her own, but she specialized in cakes.
“Karen came up to Sioux City and we traded ideas,” Hessa says. “She suggested I get into cakes, but I had no room as I was still working out of my home.”
In June 2004, Hessa’s business made the move to a business site at 700 Jennings, a building her father, neurosurgeon Dr. Horst Blume, owned for his practice. He had retired in 2002.
Dr. Blume and his wife, Jutta Blume, were both born in Germany. They moved to Sioux City to develop his professional practice years ago. Daughter Claudia, a 1981 graduate of North High, learned to bake with her mother. Jutta Blume still helps her daughter occasionally.
The Sugar Shack Bakery takes its name from a 1962 song that’s been stuck in Hessa’s head for years. Her recipe for success also involves fun repetition.
“Butter, butter and more butter,” says Lindemann of The Sugar Shack Bakery's success. “These cookies are addicting because we use butter everywhere.”
Jones, the friend who encouraged Hessa to “bake” this leap of faith, was Hessa’s first decorator and chief supporter. Lindemann eventually sold her bakery in Missouri and began commuting 451 miles to Sioux City to work for Hessa 25 days per month.
“I’m a super commuter,” she says.
She’s also the voice of reason in the kitchen when Hessa extends her own baking and decorating reach. The sugar cookie extraordinaire is bent on pleasing every customer, no matter the sweet request.
“We’re known most for our little decorative cookies. We sell the most of those,” Hessa says. “We also sell cakes, bouquets, bars, cupcakes, cake pops, cake truffles and more.”
The Sugar Shack Bakery can have a cookie bouquet to a new mom in the hospital within minutes. It can also have cookies to Guam and Japan in a matter of days.
The 16-employee company has served functions like ArtSplash and Women’s Night Out at the Sioux City Convention Center (that involved a 3,000-dessert order).
Hessa is also looking for decorating ideas, and even boarded an Alaskan cruise two years ago to learn at the hands of Food Network experts. Those pros taught classes as the ship steamed up the Pacific Coast.
While Lindemann calls the work taxing, she and Hessa agree on a passion for what they do, what they create each day.
“I don’t regret going into business for myself at all,” says Hessa, the former MOPS member. Daughter Christel, the reason Hessa attended MOPS all those years ago, is now 17. The preschooler has grown up with Mom’s business, and now works there on occasion.
