OhMyGoodies! Bakery | No Two Cakes Alike
By LAUREN JURGENSEN | Photos by CARTER GASKINS
Sara Warnow, better known as the owner and founder of Topeka’s OhMyGoodies! bakery, welcomes couples into her home for wedding cake tastings. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience where they can enjoy a unique twist on an otherwise traditional wedding ritual, she said.
“I wanted it to be something they can both do together,” Sara said. “Guys love wedding tastings. I mean, you get to go and eat cake for an hour. I feel like it’s the one part of wedding planning the men are actually invested in.”
What began as Sara’s childhood hobby has grown into one of Topeka’s most sought-after custom bakeries. OhMyGoodies! by Sara Jean is already booked solid for 2025, less than five years after its founding.
FROM HOBBY TO BOOKED SOLID
Baking has been a lifelong passion for Sara. Her mother taught her the science behind it when she was young.
“I’ve baked my entire life,” Sara said. “My mom’s a great baker and I loved learning from her.”
As an adult, she baked birthday cakes for her four children — but admits that cake decoration wasn’t always her strong suit.
“My earliest cakes always tasted great, but didn’t really look that great,” she said.
Sara found herself with more free time once her children reached adulthood. Her husband traveled frequently for work and she often had the evenings to herself.
She needed a hobby to fill those quiet hours, and television provided her with some unexpected inspiration.
“I started watching YouTube videos and all the baking competition shows that are popular on the Food Network,” Sara said. “I loved watching people decorate cakes. I loved all the different things you can do with cakes, including how you smooth out the frosting.”
The shows made cake decorating look effortless, she said, so she decided to give cake decoration another try.
“It wasn’t as easy as I thought it was going to be, but I realized I was actually pretty good at it because I’m a very creative person,” Sara said, talking about how she experimented with different techniques as she learned. “There are so many different mediums. You can work with fondant, you can work with buttercream, you can work with isomalt, you can work with wafer paper.”
The possibilities seemed endless, and her family was soon up to their necks with desserts. “My family eventually said, ‘Okay, you either need to start a business or slow down because we’re going to weigh 500 pounds because you keep giving us all this cake,’” she said.
In September 2021, OhMyGoodies! LLC officially launched.
FLOUR, FONDANT AND A FULL CALENDAR
Sara’s business differs from more traditional bakeries in one way: instead of recreating existing designs, she bakes something new and original every time.
“My big thing is that none of my cakes are ever the same,” she said. “Every cake I do, I design from scratch, so nobody really has any idea what they’re picking up. They know the theme, but I don’t go off inspiration photos. I ask them what idea they’re going for and then I design it.”
The freedom to create something new every time has led to some remarkable creations.
Some of her favorites include a fully functional boxed-wine cake that could not only dispense wine, but also be refilled. She even designed a Jeep Wrangler cake with working headlights.
“The Jeep Wrangler cake was probably the most time-consuming cake I’ve ever made,” Sara said. “If you think about Jeeps, they have so many bits and pieces, from the lights to the door handles. It took me about 16 hours.”
Even brides who show up with Pinterest boards full of cake inspiration photos understand Sara will transform their ideas into something different and fresh.
“They know I’ll take those different inspiration photos and create something completely unique,” she said.
Sara said her business has grown rapidly. Within six months of launching, she found herself working at a demanding pace while maintaining her full-time job in education.
“After six months, my calendar started getting really full and I was doing about 10 orders a week. I was working every single night and all day on Sundays,” Sara said.
By 2024, her orders had increased to 12-15 cakes weekly.
“It was definitely another full-time job on top of my full-time job,” she said.
Sara has since reduced her workload to preserve her personal time, but demand remains high. Last year alone, she completed around 545 cake orders, including 55 weddings. The fall wedding season was her busiest so far.
“In September and October, I think I did 27 weddings. It was a little crazy. There were a couple days where I had five weddings,” she said.
A SLICE OF SUCCESS
From baking, decorating and marketing to invoicing, scheduling and delivering, Sara handles almost every aspect of the OhMyGoodies! operation.
She credits her success as a solopreneur to her family and support system. Her husband Kenny promotes her business everywhere.
“He actually has a shirt that says, ‘Ask me for my wife’s business card,’” she said. “I would not be as successful as I am if it weren’t for my family.”
While Kenny helps with deliveries whenever he’s available, and her daughter and daughter-in-law occasionally assist with set-up, Sara remains the sole creative force behind the bakery.
Despite suggestions that she should quit her day job to focus exclusively on baking, she said she enjoys balancing her two careers. She works full time with school administrators, providing continuing education for principals and superintendents.
“I love my day job. I really, really do,” she said. “I feel like working with educators and kids is just as important as the cake business.”
When it comes to marketing, Sara built her business by relying on social media and word of mouth.
“I didn’t realize I was good at marketing until I started the business,” she said. “Honestly, it’s so easy to market cakes because I bake 10 to 15 every week and they’re all different. So, the marketing content is naturally there.”
She likes to throw contests to keep her customers curious and engaged. For her recent children’s decorating contest, she asked kids to submit designs and then recreated the winning entry as an actual cake.
“I had between 250-275 entries,” she said. “These kids were amazing and came up with some of the greatest ideas.”
The winner was an 11-year-old girl named Blakely, whose design featured a teapot that poured liquid into cups. Sara turned it into a reality.
“We added a pump to the cake that pumped water from the teapot into the cups, and kept recirculating,” she said.
Sara’s marketing efforts are just as creative as her cakes. One time when a client’s child fell ill and they had to cancel their order, Sara offered the Yoshi-themed cake to anyone who invited friends to follow her Facebook page.
“I went from 13,000 followers to 14,200 in three days,” she said. “My followers include people from all over the world. Right now, my biggest goal is to grow my online presence and keep increasing my reach through social media.”
SWEET COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
From sponsoring children’s sports teams to donating desserts for fundraisers, Sara enjoys helping the Topeka community.
“When I started the business, I said that if I ever got big enough, I wanted to be able to give back because I knew my success would be thanks to my customers,” she said.
This past year, she ran a holiday cinnamon roll fundraiser to benefit local organizations like Woolly Farms and Kansas Honor Flights.
“I made almost 2,000 cinnamon rolls right before Christmas and was able to donate over $6,000,” she said.
Sara said she does it to inspire others.
“I share the things I do because I want it to encourage others to do the same,” she said. “People often message me and say, ‘I’ve never even heard of these organizations, but because you shared that you donated to them, we’re going to volunteer and donate, too.’”
For her, it’s all about making positive connections and supporting the local business community.
“I want people to know that buying from me locally is so different than buying from a big corporation,” she said. “When you spend your money with me, you’re going to get a good product because it’s made from scratch, it’s made with love and it’s completely custom.”
