Missoula pastry chef baking sweet treats during COVID-19 pandemic

MISSOULA — A Missoula pastry chef is tackling COVID-19 pandemic isolation in a unique way.

It wasn’t long before Jeremy Sher was fed up with the COVID-19 pandemic, "when stay at home orders were issued, I was really isolated like a lot of people."

But for Sher, it was just him and his dog -- no housemates distracting him or keeping him busy, "and it really took a toll...it hit me pretty hard.”

Knowing the pandemic wouldn’t be ending anytime soon, he shifted his focus from doom and gloom to something a little sweeter.

“The way I started coping was just baking...and giving cakes to all my friends and people I know. My neighbors got a lot of cakes,” Sher said.

These weren’t just some cakes thrown together from a box mix. After all, Sher is a longtime pastry chef with a newfound interest in experimentation.

“I've made carrot cakes, but I really wanted to mess around with hazelnuts and carrots and do a candied thing and pour in a mirror glaze and do all this kind of crazy stuff,” Sher explained.

But he was running out of cake recipients in his own circle, so he began posting photos of his creations on Facebook, “and I just said who needs this cake?”

Thus, a business was born -- Sher was now selling his custom cakes, running around, making surprise deliveries to wherever his customers sent him.

“It took off and people started going nuts, people started saying, oh my God, my sister is an ER nurse. My grandpa is stuck in a nursing home and we can’t visit them and you know people are dying. My neighbor is raising three kids and trying to hold down a job by herself,” Sher said.

He branded the idea #CakeItForward. The hope is that once someone received one of his masterpieces, they’d have a cake sent to someone else who could use a little pick me up. The chain reaction of his idea far outweighs the success of his business.

“The part that really fulfills me, that's really gratifying, is this notion of people taking care of each other and showing other people some love, reminding them that they're special,” Sher said. “Just a little thing to brighten their day, and I get to help with that.”

If you’re feeling inspired and ready to Cake it Forward, you can visit Sher’s website here.