From Easy-Bake Oven to Michelin star kitchen: How a 28-year-old launched an online bakery in Toronto
When Marchelle Mckenzie was five, her parents gifted her an Easy-Bake Oven.
“I’ve been baking ever since,” Mckenzie told CTV News Toronto.
At 28, Mckenzie already has numerous Michelin star restaurants stacked under her apron of experience. Yet still, she glances at that Easy-Bake Oven as she folds tahini and maldon sea salt into enough batter to make 900 brownies every week for her online bakery, Butter and Spice.
“I look at it every day for inspiration,” she said.
Photo credit by Tamar Yashooa
While her baked goods business officially launched in 2020, in truth, the bakery’s roots date back far before the pandemic to when she was a 13-year-old growing up in Mississauga.
When Mckenzie was entering grade eight, she launched M.A.M bakery, an abbreviation of her initials. She baked six-packs of cupcakes for the reasonable price of $2.75 and her brother delivered them. They even created posters on Microsoft Paint to advertise their business.
In high school, the bakery evolved into Mckenzie slipping packages of Betty Crocker sugar cookies into classmates' hands in exchange for cash in the hallway.
“My parents said, ‘You need to stop, you’re making too much money,’” Mckenzie said.
For a number of years, the bakery came to a halt while Mckenzie worked as a pastry chef in world-renowned kitchens like Eleven Madison Park in New York and Restaurant Story in London.
Photo credit by Tamar Yashooa
After her stint in England, Mckenzie planned a trip to Malaysia to visit her parents for a few months. But, while she was set to leave in March 2020, the world had other plans. She was stuck for four months.
When Mckenzie finally made it back to Toronto in June 2020, she found a part-time job at the Rolling Pin, a creative donuts shop in North York.
“I needed something else to compensate for my income,” Mckenzie said. “I was like, I need to do Butter and Spice, again, for real.”
Six months into the official launch of Butter and Spice, Mckenzie curtailed her business into a full-time operation, struggling to keep up with the pace of her top seller, cornflake and OG fudgy dark chocolate brownies.
For the holidays, Mckenzie says she’s been hustling to create Christmas-themed cookie boxes filled with lemon thyme, chai and ginger cookies, along with seasonal brownies like her ginger cookie dough topped with espresso glaze.
Photo credit by Tamar Yashooa
Back in the summer, Mckenzie started developing these holiday assortments. In that same nature, she’s already looking two to three years ahead at potentially moving her online bakery into a physical shop.
One of her first orders of business will be hanging the poster she created with her brother for M.A.M. bakery in Butter and Spice.
“When I actually have a storefront, I’ll put that up to show where I’ve come from,” she said.
Background
Table Talk is a weekly CTV News Toronto series that explores the people who shape Toronto’s food scene, published every Friday at CTVNewsToronto.ca
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
BREAKING Donald Trump picks former U.S. congressman Pete Hoekstra as ambassador to Canada
U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has nominated former diplomat and U.S. congressman Pete Hoekstra to be the American ambassador to Canada.
Genetic evidence backs up COVID-19 origin theory that pandemic started in seafood market
A group of researchers say they have more evidence to suggest the COVID-19 pandemic started in a Chinese seafood market where it spread from infected animals to humans. The evidence is laid out in a recent study published in Cell, a scientific journal, nearly five years after the first known COVID-19 outbreak.
This is how much money you need to make to buy a house in Canada's largest cities
The average salary needed to buy a home keeps inching down in cities across Canada, according to the latest data.
'My two daughters were sleeping': London Ont. family in shock after their home riddled with gunfire
A London father and son they’re shocked and confused after their home was riddled with bullets while young children were sleeping inside.
Smuggler arrested with 300 tarantulas strapped to his body
Police in Peru have arrested a man caught trying to leave the country with 320 tarantulas, 110 centipedes and nine bullet ants strapped to his body.
Boissonnault out of cabinet to 'focus on clearing the allegations,' Trudeau announces
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced embattled minister Randy Boissonnault is out of cabinet.
Baby dies after being reported missing in midtown Toronto: police
A four-month-old baby is dead after what Toronto police are calling a “suspicious incident” at a Toronto Community Housing building in the city’s midtown area on Wednesday afternoon.
Sask. woman who refused to provide breath sample did not break the law, court finds
A Saskatchewan woman who refused to provide a breath sample after being stopped by police in Regina did not break the law – as the officer's request was deemed not lawful given the circumstances.
Parole board reverses decision and will allow families of Paul Bernardo's victims to attend upcoming parole hearing in person
The families of the victims of Paul Bernardo will be allowed to attend the serial killer’s upcoming parole hearing in person, the Parole Board of Canada (PBC) says.