Meet Shelby Braziel | Self taught baker and blogger

We had the good fortune of connecting with Shelby Braziel and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Shelby, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
You really have to love what you’re doing, and passionately. If you’re in it to become wealthy, a social media standout, or someone you think everyone needs to hear about, you’ll likely never succeed, and if you do, it wouldn’t be for the right reasons. You have to be willing to fail again and again and again. You have to be willing to try new things without worry of backlash and criticism. These things will happen anyways, they just will. Failure or lack of performance can feel daunting, discouraging and make you want to throw in the towel. But if there’s one thing I have learned, persistence and patience will gear you in the right direction, always. Nobody was born knowing how to do life. Practice makes progress!

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Currently, I am a medical assistant in a Dermatology setting. It’s a great job, I actually do love it! But if I’m being transparent, my long term career goal is to be a full time baker & blogger, that’s the dream. I have worked really hard to teach myself how to bake consistently, how to photograph and edit photos of my work, how to build my blog and my brand from the ground up, and to do that alone makes me proud of myself. I developed my brand with the intention to make this my career. I do have a lot of help from my husband, he supports anything that I want to do. He knows my passion is in baking. I am wife, a momma, an employee, a friend, an entrepreneur and founder of Salt & Sugar Baking Co.

Creating my platform from the ground up has not been easy. It’s been a whole lot of long nights and caffeine. A whole lot of tears and a whole lot of dishes. You don’t get days off when you own a business, you work even when you’re not working. You just have to keep showing up for yourself. Additionally, I have a great support group helping me along the way. My community is small, but they always deliver in supporting small business’s and entrepreneurs in our area. Everyone lifts and helps one another, that’s the great thing about small communities!

I have learned that perfection does not exist. I have to remind myself of this daily. I show up as 6 individuals in a 24 hour window, yikes. I always get asked “How?” or “Where do you find the time?”. I don’t have a fancy formula, schedule or an answer to those questions. I just show up and do the things I need to do in order to be able to do the things I WANT to do. Everyone out there with a dream or even a small thought, never give up on yourselves! The ideas and passions you have are there for you to take hold of and run with. If you fail, literally just get up and do it again. If you burn the cookies, make a new batch! Everyone has something they want to do. If you’re passionate about it, just do it! If we waited to do everything tomorrow or when it’s the right time, we may never get there. Just do the things you love and do them with intention.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Being from New Mexico makes you assumedly a desert rat, which I can’t argue with. But a small 30 minute drive from Alamogordo takes you 8,700 feet above sea level to the Sacramento Mountains. I think I’d take them to mountains to hike the Osha Trail, then to the Mexican Canyon Railroad Trestle that over looks the canyon down to the basin. We’d probably eat at The Lodge in Cloudcroft, mostly because that’s where I spent 5 of the best years of my adolescent life at my first job. It’s nostalgic to visit, I will always have a love for that place. We would stop for the best Pizza in town at Cloudcroft Brewing Company. Speaking of breweries, I’d also take them to visit 575 Brewing Company in Alamogordo. The atmosphere is unbeatable and the house brewed beers are just the same. Maybe they’re a wine drinker instead, in which case I would take a trip to Heart of the Desert Pistachios & Wine on the way to Tularosa. They have an incredible wine selection and all the pistachios you could ask for. We would probably eat at Si Senor restaurant, if you didn’t love Mexican food before, you will now. I would take them to breakfast at the Pancake & Waffle Shoppe. It’s arguably the best breakfast in town and it’s small business owned which is even better.

I think I would also take them about an hour up the mountain to Ruidoso, NM. It’s a touristy town, but it’s beautiful. All shops within walking distance to the next. Restaurants, gift shops, mercantile’s, local artisans, bakeries and coffee shops. That’s a whole few days in itself! It’s one of my favorite places to be all 4 seasons out of the year.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Baking and blogging about what I create has always been something I wanted/loved to do, but I was worried about the things people might say or how they may react. I mean, how many people actually continue baking and enjoy it outside of home-economics class in high school? December 2021, while casually listening to Mariah Carey Christmas music in my kitchen, I just thought “there’s literally nothing stopping me, stop caring about what people think”, and the creativity just came naturally.

I put myself out there and hoped for the best. The reaction I got from my family, friends and even acquaintances I hardly knew, was insane! I received so much encouragement and support from the people in my community. I stayed so busy and I enjoyed every minute of it. Personally, I am a huge fan of Molly Yeh and Ree Drummond. Not because Molly loves sprinkles and marzipan or because Ree has kitchen ware galore and a tv show. They are both really genuine people and nothing about what they bring to the table is complicated and over the top. It doesn’t feel like it’s all for show. I really think they do it because they love it and I can relate to that. I literally have every one of their cookbooks and shows recorded. Over the top – maybe, but they have really inspired me and I hope one day I get to tell them that personally! I’m also inspired by Sarah Fennel with Broma Bakery. She has so much positive energy and breaks the food blogging world down so simply for us rookie bloggers and bakers.

I also have to mention that I grew up in a town where the whole elementary school totaled 16 individuals. Yep – so there wasn’t much to do. When the book fair came, I bought cook books, instead of Judy B. Jones or Captain Underpants. I spent a lot of my time in the kitchen with family. Weather it be with my parents, with my sister and cousins decorating Christmas cookies, or in my grandmas kitchen watching and helping her make every pie under the sun while she had green beans from the previous day in a water bath being prepared to can and stored in the cellar. I lived for those days, still do! There have been a handful of people who have inspired me along the way, and I will always be grateful for that.

Website: https://www.saltandsugar.biz/

Instagram: @saltandsugarbakingco

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