Baking was just a portion of her daily work as a wife and mother until her father and grandfather died. Then, it became Jenn Jacobs' passion.
"Honestly it came from grief," she said. "My granddad and then my dad passed away. It was my therapy. I started baking just to help with the grieving process."
From there, the passion blossomed. She helped her son Garret bake and sell cinnamon and orange rolls to raise money for a mission trip and found a market for her products.
"There's lots of love in them," she said of her baked goods which includes cookies and cupcakes, as well as the rolls.
Jenn and her husband, Scott, have three children. She works at the Primary School during the school year, but still bakes as often as possible.
"The most famous are the cinnamon and orange rolls -- that's where I started anyway," she said. "They're 100 percent from scratch. The roll dough is a recipe I adapted. The glaze is 100% my recipe."
Orange rolls are from a similar dough recipe and Jacobs created a filling and then a glaze. They sell six in a pan for $12.
Cookies for sale Saturday included chocolate chip, snicker doodle, M&M, sugar sprinkles. Cupcake flavors included Oreo, cotton candy, lemon berry.
"I try to do things kids will love, but adults will love as well," she said.
Jacobs has made cakes and provided food for a "few catering gigs" and said she loves preparing "grazing boards" -- trays of favorite snacks, fruits, cheeses, etc.
Now, she has a "home" for her products. She bought a 1978 Argosy camper and two weeks ago, with help from family, flipped it.
"My mom did the curtains. Scott did all my upholstery," she said, explaining that the trailer is 95% original and they put in new flooring, upholstery and curtains -- "cosmetic stuff."
Jacobs' mother and stepfather, Tim and Lorie Gunter, live next door and repair and remodel travel trailers and recreational vehicles.
"This is my beauty from ashes. This is where it all started," she said, recalling that her sister died relatively young and the previous day (Friday, June 7) would have been her sister's 39th birthday.
"It's all the Lord," she said, saying this is beneficial to her as well as to her customers.
Friday, the day before the Hot Summer Nights event, Jacobs baked for 12 hours. "When it's gone, it's gone," she said. "This is my gig during the summer. Even during the school year, I should be able to do this. If it's a heavy week, I leave school at 4:30."
Jacobs said she has several non-negotiables in her life to maintain balance. Those include dinner together as a family, rocking her youngest child to sleep and a definite bed time. Baking and other activities must fit around those non-negotiables.
"My husband helps so much," she said. "And my eldest son. When we made the rolls for his Haiti mission trip, he learned how to start and mix the dough. My middle boy is the taste tester."
"I travel a lot with my mixer, like if I go to my grandmother's. She (the mixer) goes every where with me."
During a trip to her grandmother's in central Arkansas, Jacobs said she had a failed cupcake experience which she attributes to both higher humidity and a different oven than that to which she is accustomed.
Creating new flavors takes work and she said creating the cotton candy cupcake took numerous tries. "First two times the cotton candy just didn't taste like cotton candy. We tweaked it so it does now."
"I'm not a huge sweets eater. I depend on other people to help taste," she said, admitting that the Oreo cupcake is her favorite. "There's something about that icing, it's almost addictive. It has a cookie crust, then chocolate chip cake -- it's rich!"
On her business cards, Jacobs has printed "As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace." I Peter 4:10.
"This is my gift and that's my thing.
"If I cook for you, that's the greatest love that I will ever show you, that's my heart. I want people to know, this is a God story."
Community on 06/12/2019