Photo Story - Behind the Scenes of Sugar, Butter, and Flour's Only Baker

Columbia, Mo. (Feb. 26, 2025) - Opening a bakery is an idea that gets tossed around by some of the more ambitious baking hobbyists. However, Alanna Ti’a is no hobbyist. With a mind for business and a discovered talent for baking, Ti’a did open her own bakery right in the middle of her kitchen. While becoming a successful entrepreneur over the past five to six years, Ti’a does admit that sometimes customers forget her business is still her own home.

Alanna Ti’a is both the owner of the house at 451 Hackberry Boulevard, as well as the Sugar, Butter, and Flower Bakery that is run from inside the house in Columbia, Mo. on Feb. 26, 2025. She has been running the business for almost 6 years, and takes full advantage of Missouri’s Cottage Food law to operate her bakery without needing to rent out a separate building space in town.

Alanna Ti’a starts the day bright and early at 8 A.M., slowly but surely easing into her workflow in Columbia, Mo. on Feb. 26, 2025. While her husband pursues his academic career as a full time student, it becomes her job to provide enough income to support the household. “It’s scary sometimes,” says Ti’a. “But I just put my faith in God and trust in him. He’s my rock, he’s gotten me through so many things.”

A typical work day for Alanna Ti’a ranges anywhere from 14 to almost 16 hours not including her mandatory dinner break with her husband in Columbia, Mo. on Feb. 26, 2025. This being said, she decided to decorate the kitchen, a place she spends so much of her time, with small trinkets collected over the 30 years she has been in Columbia with her family. “I’m a really quirky person…everything has a fun story behind it,” says Ti’a, specifically hinting at the spot of frosting on her kitchen ceiling.

As Alanna Ti’a receives orders throughout the day, she writes them down on order cards which she then tapes to the wall next to the stove in Columbia, Mo. on Feb. 26, 2025. The cards are then augmented by more tape of different colors to indicate customer status. “Green means [the customer] hasn’t paid yet, and orange means [the customer] needs to set up a pickup time,” Ti’a explains.

Alanna Ti’a prepares several varieties of desserts such as wedding cakes, macarons, and several different flavors of cookies during a typical workday in Columbia, Mo. on Feb. 26, 2025. She also offers allergen-free options, but has clients sign a liability waiver acknowledging that while the pastry is allergen-free, the kitchen is not. The final service contract signed by all customers also includes a clause affirming that the customer acknowledges the liability waiver.

Every day, Alanna Ti’a struggles to find counter space and storage space in her home kitchen in Columbia, Mo., on Feb. 26, 2025. Sometimes, she is forced to resort to crafty solutions like the Butter Chair. “My motto is ‘Space is the final frontier’, like from Star Trek, because it really is,” Ti’a says about the issue. “I just never seem to have enough space.”

In order to keep up with demand, Alanna Ti’a buys ingredients and prepares components, like icing and cookie dough, in bulk in Columbia, Mo. on Feb. 26, 2025. Of what’s immediately visible in her kitchen, Ti’a usually has two gallons of egg-whites, two or three tupperware containers of cookie dough, and a little more than a dozen eggs on hand at most, if not all, times.

Throughout every hardship of being a small business owner, Alanna Ti’a keeps her faith at the center of everything in Columbia, Mo., on Feb. 26, 2025. The archway from her living room to her kitchen is signed from the floor all the way onto the ceiling by missionaries that have visited her church over the years. She participates fully in her faith community, and even hosts dinner for missionaries that are especially far from home.

At the end of the day, no matter how intense Alanna Ti’a’s workload gets, her business is still her home in Columbia. Every day, the same building where she spends hours upon hours baking to provide for her family is the same home where she raised all four of her children.