OROVILLE – On any given Monday morning, the commercial kitchen at VFW Post 1747 Hall is filled with the heavenly scent of fresh-baked treats, laughter, chatter and bustling activity as Jade Reichl and her two daughters prepare the specialty desserts they offer through their cottage business, Salty Mountain Sweets.
February marks the business’s third anniversary, but Reichl celebrates Salty Mountain Sweets every day because it provides her stay-at-home income and the opportunity to homeschool her daughters, Raylinn and Adelynn Chavez, 8 and 6 respectively.
Jade Reichl, owner of Salty Mountain Sweets, fills and frosts cupcakes with cheesecake mousse in the commercial kitchen of the VFW Post 1747 Hall in Oroville, California, last Monday, Jan. 8, 2024. (Kyra Gottesman/Mercury-Register)
“I’m living the life I always hoped to have, my best life,” said Reichl. “I’ve never in my life had a bad memory in the kitchen, and the girls are always with me. I am very lucky to work, to be with them every day.”
The business started in 2021, a few months after the 2020 Bear Fire destroyed the Berry Creek home Reichl, her daughters and her fiancé, Diego Bodolay, shared.
“It took everything,” said Reichl. “Just, everything.”
The couple were both working, but finances were tight — so, in February 2021, when the family wanted to celebrate Valentine’s Day together but festivities just weren’t in the budget, Reichl decided to put her love of food to work. She and her daughters made platters of hand-dipped chocolate strawberries and sold them outside Tractor Supply.
Adelynn Chavez, 6, concentrates on dipping pretzels into pink chocolate in the commercial kitchen of the VFW Post 1747 Hall in Oroville, California, last Monday, Jan. 8, 2024. (Kyra Gottesman/Mercury-Register)
They sold out within a few hours, and people were asking for more.
“We just wanted to make enough to go out to dinner without feeling guilty,” said Reichl. “We weren’t prepared for the response. It never stopped after that.”
Reichl continued to offer the dipped and cheesecake-stuffed strawberries. When she added more than half-a-dozen different flavored no-bake cheesecakes in a jar to the business’s menu, she was soon selling more than 100 a week. Now she sells more than 120 pounds of cheesecake a week. She’s also added cookies, filled cupcakes, muffins, dessert breads, coffee cake, whole pies, cinnamon rolls, chocolate dipped pretzels, parfait, salsa and soups — and adds more offerings on a regular basis.
“The possibilities are endless,” said Reichl.
In addition to the traditional fare, Salty Mountain Sweets also offers Brigadeiro, a bite-sized Brazilian chocolate confection, and guava and cheese empanadas, as well as sugar-free, Keto-friendly and gluten-free items. Some of the desserts are made from recipes passed down from Reichl’s great grandmother or Bodolay’s mother, while others are recipes Reichl “found online and added my own touches to.”
‘A whole team’
Salty Mountain Sweets are now sold in four local stores: Lakeside Market, Sipsters Coffee Shop, La Perla Meat Market & Kitchen and Blaze N J’s.
“The girls help with everything – the baking, ideas, recipes and decorating. We’re a whole team,” said Reichl. “They learn a lot, too, including math, adding things up in their head and the lost art of counting change back to a customer.”
Raylinn said she sometimes helps with the measuring and her “first favorite” dessert they make is her great great grandmother’s banana bread — then quickly added chocolate covered strawberries, cheesecake stuffed and dipped strawberries and no-bake cheesecake to the list.
“I have lots of first favorites,” she said. “What I like best is that we all get to work together and I get to hang out with my mommy and sister. I don’t like doing the dishes.”
The 8-year-old also has big plans to start her own business, Lookie Cookie, which will specialize in “all different kinds of cookies. I’m going to make the chocolate for them and make the sprinkles to decorate them, too.”
Rice Krispie treats are high on Adelynn’s list of favorite Salty Mountain Sweets desserts, but so are “all the different flavors of cheesecake, the brownies and the cheesecake-filled chocolate cupcakes.”
“My favorite part really is the eating,” she said. “My favorite thing to do is the cinnamon rolls, the dough part, rolling them out. I don’t like dipping the strawberries. It takes forever.”
The Salty Mountain Sweets crew also fills special orders, and they enjoy making custom platters and trays for special occasions like birthdays, showers, weddings, anniversaries and — what has become their “signature holiday” — Valentine’s Day.
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“I love the baking and making, but I also really like our customers,” said Reichl. “Life is just too fast, and taking time to sit and enjoy something delicious with someone else makes the sweetness of it more memorable. That’s the opportunity I like to give our customers with our products.”
For more information, special orders, new products and pop-up sales dates, visit Salty Mountain Sweets on Instagram at Salty_Mountain_Sweets530 or search “Salty Mountain Sweets” on Facebook.
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