Rexburg’s Sara Jackson grew up loving to cook and especially enjoyed making desserts. Last year, she took that love of cooking and turned it into a business she dubbed The Culinary Club that specializes in sweet treats.
This month, Jackson is creating and planning to sell chocolate-filled Easter egg treats that are 8 inches long, 6 inches wide and 3 inches deep. They also weigh about 2.5 pounds.
Once they’re finished, Jackson places the treats into baskets filled with green Easter grass.
The treats are made up of a chocolate shell, filled with cheesecake or mousse and topped with a chocolate ganache — thick white or dark chocolate mixed with heavy cream.
“They are meant to be eaten with a spoon,” she said.
The shells come in white, milk or dark chocolate and may be filled with chocolate cheesecake, regular cheesecake, peanut butter mousse, Nutella mousse or chocolate mousse.
Jackson will decorate the egg treats however customers want.
“Just let me know if there’s something else you’d like. We can probably make it happen,” she said.
Jackson kicked off her business in November by making and selling cocoa bombs. The treats are made using a chocolate shell and later adding marshmallows and hot milk to create a hot chocolate drink.
“I thought, ‘I’m going to attempt to make these, and see if they’re successful.’ They took off right away,” she said. “In two months, I sold 2,000. It was like crazy. They’re still like a really popular thing.”
Jackson made so many that her husband, Brett, got tired of looking at all of those sweets.
“They’re very meticulous. Each has to be hand done," she said. "My husband was sick of seeing chocolate everywhere."
Jackson learned to cook from her mother.
“Mom taught me a lot of what I know," she said. "She taught me how to make something out of nothing, pretty much."
While Jackson was growing up, her parents worked from home where they ran a dog kennel while her dad also worked as a professional dog trainer.
Being her own boss eventually seemed to be the natural thing to do, she said.
“It was something I was planning on,” Jackson said.
As a child, Jackson also operated her own Farmer’s Market Sweet Shop. Jackson’s parents later purchased a restaurant and turned management over to her after she returned from a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mission to the Philippines.
“They saw it as a business opportunity," Jackson said. "When I got home, they said, ‘Look, we got you a restaurant. Now you have to run it.’ It was really eye opening, but it was good for me."
While attending Brigham Young University-Idaho, Jackson majored in business finance while also taking culinary classes until the school ended the program. While in college, Jackson worked as a waitress. Following her graduation in 2018, she helped start up Righteous Slice Pizza where she served as its general manager. She also worked as the manager at the Red Rabbit Grill.
Jackson left work following the birth of her daughter, Adelyn, two years ago, and while pregnant with her son, Trey, she started her business last fall. Jackson notes that her business allows her to be home with her children.
“I get to be there with my kids,” she said.
Jackson says that anyone considering starting their own business should start one that they have a great passion for.
“When I was doing other businesses that I didn’t like, I wasn’t constantly trying to think how I could improve my business,” she said.
At one point, Jackson found herself running a cleaning business after initially working as its manager.
“My friend’s partner fell through, and I ended up stuck with it," she said. "I just hated it. Yes, I was making money, but I wasn’t looking forward to new venues to clean. I didn’t love it, but it was a great experience.”
It helps to start a business in which you, and everybody else, loves the product you're selling, Jackson said.
“Sell something that’s actually popular,” Jackson said.
It shouldn’t cost a lot of money to start up a new business, she said.
“Experiment. Start small, and then you can go big generally,” she said.
Someday, Jackson would like to return to culinary school and would also like to run a catering company. For now, she’s perfectly happy running The Culinary Club and plans to continue with it for the foreseeable future.
For more information on her sweet treats, call 406-596-5257.