Junior creates her own Indulgent Bites

Already at the Los Gatos Farmers market at 7:30 on Sunday mornings, junior Emily Jacobs begins to set up her booth. She hangs up her sign in the back, which says “Indulgent Bites” in an artistic font, and begins to set out rows of mini crème brûlées, caramels and macarons on delicate cake holders lining the front.

From crêpes to orchids to persimmons, the Los Gatos farmers market features many stands in at the corner of Montebello and West Main Street every Sunday. One of the booths that has appeared since last April for every other weekend is Jacobs’ Indulgent Bites.

The business began because Jacobs wanted to try her hand at something new.

"I always liked making crème brûlée for my family and I thought they would be pretty easy to sell,” Jacobs said. “And then I had all of these extra egg whites [from crème brûlées] and so I made macarons."

Jacobs likes variety in her booth and is constantly adding new desserts, like caramels and pies, and most individual items range in price from $2 to $5. She also frequently switches up the flavors of the macarons and has thus far experimented with raspberry, chocolate, lemon, key lime, peppermint and pumpkin spice.

“I just keep my business constantly changing,” Jacobs said.

An enticing feature about Indulgent Bites is that all of Jacobs’ products are gluten-free. She originally liked the restriction because it made her company unique and more appealing, but she sometimes finds it difficult to stay within that mold.

“Crème brûlée and macarons were already gluten-free and [everything] is gluten-free now, so just I wrote it on the sign,” Jacobs said. “And everyone was like ‘Oh my gosh, you’re gluten-free,’ so now I can’t change it.”

Selling at the Farmer’s Market in the first place was no piece of cake. In order to sell her products, Jacobs’s business must meet all of the requirements.

Every Friday afternoon, Jacobs drives to a commercial kitchen in San Jose that she rents to make her treats. It is a requirement for food-related companies to make their goods in commercial kitchens. Jacobs said it can get difficult because of its distance and price, but it is a necessity.

She also had to procure business licences and baking certificates in order to sell at the farmers markets. This was also an expensive endeavor, costing roughly $3,000, not including the cost of getting booth space. But Jacobs has been paying this off since she turns a good profit.

Jacobs is not sure where the business will go after she graduates from SHS.

“If I go to college in California, I could hypothetically do [my business] over the weekends,” Jacobs said. “If I move [out of the state], I would need to get all new permits and get into the markets. It would basically be like starting over and it would be too expensive to do in college by myself.”

But until Jacobs’s graduation, Indulgent Bites can be found in Farmer’s Markets in Willow Glen on Saturdays, Cupertino on Sundays and Los Gatos every other Sunday. She also delivers orders that may be requested via contacts located on her website at www.indulgentbites.weebly.com.

Even if she does not continue with this current endeavor, Jacobs is interested in pursuing cooking into the future.

“I like how it feels to have a bunch of boring ingredients turn into something great,” Jacobs said. “I like when people try my food and they like [it] and when people buy it, it make[s] me feel like, ‘Wow, my stuff is worth spending money on.’”