A few years ago, her Sweet Notes bakery was only a dream. Now it's slowly coming true

Heading into the kitchen to whip up tasty desserts was almost second nature for Devin Taylor.

"I've always loved baking and spending time in the kitchen," she says. "I have a big Italian family, so we spent a lot of time in the kitchen together."

She got serious about baking in 2017, when she embarked on what she calls her "Julie & Julia" project — referencing a book by Julie Powell and a subsequent film about how Powell set out to prepare every recipe in Julia Child's 1961 cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking."

Only Taylor's version had her teaching herself to bake all manner of goodies — from scratch.

"I didn't actually know how to make really anything from scratch on my own," she says.

So for a year, she "baked through all the classics of everything. And so I taught myself how to make pie dough and cheesecake, buttercream, everything. And I promised that if I was going to learn it, I was going to learn every element I could from scratch."

If a recipe called for jam, she learned to make jam.

"And then after that year was up, I didn't want to stop. So one year turned into two, and then three."

After about two and a half years of baking things and giving them away to friends and co-workers, "people would say, how much would you charge for this if I asked you?" she says. "And then it became something I really thought about in 2019."

She left her full-time job in autumn of that year to start baking full time, with a dream of opening her own bakery.

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How did a global pandemic help her business?

Enter the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I thought, you know, this could be it. Maybe the dream won't go anywhere. Who knows what's gonna happen?," she said.

"And actually, I watched the demand for things triple … my business exploded."

Now she's embarked on a new adventure — opening her own bakery in the Port 44 development in Williamsport. She doesn't have an opening date yet as building renovations are ongoing, but she anticipates opening Sweet Notes Bakery in early 2023.

Port 44 CEO Selena Wilkes recruited Taylor to fill the space at 34 N. Conococheague St., she says. "I think I saw the space four days after she messaged me. And I knew that that was where I wanted my business to be.

"It's a great organization," Taylor adds, "and I just loved the feeling of being in Williamsport on that street with all the other small businesses."

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The space is being completely renovated, and between permitting and construction, the project is taking a while. But Taylor got to work with the architect to design her space — an "exciting" experience, she says.

"Taking things in bite-sized pieces" has been the most frustrating part of the journey. "I'm always a big-picture person, which is good and bad," she says. "So I'm trying to look at the smaller pictures that will make up a bigger picture … because things will take time; there will be material delays, there will be permit delays. But I've signed and I know it's going to happen."

And the most exciting thing has been "being able to actually say, 'coming soon to Williamsport.'

"I heard someone else say, 'and her bakery is opening in Williamsport;' I was like, 'Oh, mine! She's talking about me!' That was really surreal."

What if I want to try that cheesecake now?

But you don't have to wait until then to sample her wares. She's participating in some local vendor events this fall, and you can connect with her through her Facebook page and order up a cheesecake, a cake, macarons and cookies.

The French macarons, she says, are what she's best known for. Well, that and 27 different flavors of cheesecake.

"Those are probably the two things that I sell that are unique and most requested," she says.

But she insists she didn't come up with all 27 flavors on her own.

"People have asked, 'Can you do this?' 'I saw this recipe; could you try this?' 'What do you think about these flavors?' So I said OK, let's try it."

Adapting pie recipes to cheesecakes has be come a trend, she says. "Caramel pie cheesecake, lemon meringue pie, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, all of those with cheesecake elements … people like the experimentation; the familiar flavors, but in a different presentation."

The favorite so far?

"The chocolate peanut butter. Really popular."

What does Taylor's family think?

Taylor's family is all-in for her new venture. Little wonder — they've been her chief executive testers as she's taught herself the ropes.

"I think that's — I know that's why I was able to do it," she says. "My husband is super supportive. And I remember making the phone call. And I said that to him, 'You know what, I don't like my job where I am now. I'm turning away people who want things or want me to try things or opportunities to grow because I can't work 40 hours and continue' — I was baking probably still 30 hours in addition to my full-time job.

"And I said 'I can't do it anymore … What would you think if I quit my job and did it full-time?' And he was like, 'I think it's time to do it.' He's more confident than me.

"My extended family is so excited. They have all offered to help in some way. My uncle said, 'I can't bake but I can move things. So if you need help moving something … .' So yeah, we're all really excited about it. But it's been a journey. And my family and my friends, they have tried everything. Good or bad."

She still tests her recipes on friends and family. "Tell me honestly," she tells them, "would you eat this again? Or what do you really like? And then sometimes they'll come to me and say, 'well, have you thought about trying this? I saw that on Tik Tok.'" And she'd say, "all right, I'll look into it."

She recently tested a banana split cupcake (called "Gotta Split" …) on them. "And that one was really popular," she says.

So how'd she learn to do all this stuff?

She's completely self-taught — no classes and plenty of trial and error, she says — and "the scratch-made element became really important to me … I love that any time someone eats something, I've made every element of whatever it is. So nothing is just canned and dumped."

And she's being generous with what she's learned. She just started posting videos with baking tips "because I would have some people ask, 'How do you make that?' Or 'Why are my cookies flat?'

"A lot of these things I've discovered just because my cookies came out flat once and so then I did some research. And I watch someone else's video and I learn. But sometimes I think the some of the videos look so professional, and it seems unattainable. So I wanted to basically say, 'you can do this, you know, you can impress your family, your friends with something, and it's really not that hard. And so I tried to break it down and show that it's not hard.

"At the end of the day, it's just sugar, butter, flour. And if we combine it the right way, here's how we can make it."

She shares the recipes for whatever she's preparing in the videos, but "there are some recipes I'll never share," she insists.

Like those 27 cheesecakes. Those you'll have to order.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Sweet Notes Bakery set to open in Williamsport in 2023