DIETERICH —
With hair in braids and Western attire, Teutopolis High School graduate Jessie Rexroat looks more like a cowgirl than someone who would rather spend hours in a kitchen than a rodeo arena.
Rexroat has a degree in animal science and agricultural business from Panhandle State University in Goodwell, Okla., but she has found her true love in the kitchen — baking.
Baking ...
... and baking some more.
Rexroat made a name for herself in the middle of her senior year by baking 120 dozen cookies for a Valentine’s Day event at Panhandle State.
“I learned a lot about mass-producing cookies that weekend,” she said.
After graduation, she got a job at the Effingham Equity plant in Dieterich. But she found that she still had time for baking.
“People just started asking for stuff and it just kind of escalated from there,” she said.
Rexroat sells “Love by the Dozen,” she said. That’s the name of her fledgling decorated cookie business. She comes by her love of the kitchen naturally. Paternal grandparents Paul and Marcia Rexroat owned a downtown Effingham restaurant for many years, while maternal grandmother Rosie Hoelscher “baked all the time,” according to her granddaughter.
Rexroat said she named her business in an effort to draw attention to it.
“Love by the Dozen is a little catchy phrase that people will remember,” she said.
Baking is only half the game for Rexroat, however. Once the cookies are out of the oven, the real fun begins.
“I put my heart and soul into decorating,” she said.
Rexroat is a big believer in setting the mood for her current project.
“When I am making a batch of Christmas cookies, I turn on the Christmas music,” she said. “For Valentine’s Day, I might crank up some love songs.”
Rexroat said time gets away from her sometimes, much to the amusement of her co-workers at Equity, she said.
“I’ll stay up all hours of the night baking cookies,” she said. “It’s a running joke at work that I’m hung over from baking cookies.”
Rexroat said she gets many of her decorating ideas from the Internet.
“But I always put my own spin on it,” she said. “I never do it exactly like they have it on the computer.”
Rexroat said business began to pick up the week after Thanksgiving and reached a fever pitch in the last two weeks before Christmas.
Her favorite designs include a melted snowman and reindeer. Her absolute favorite, however, is a snow scene that includes a snowman with trees and sky.
While Christmas is over, Rexroat is looking forward to the Valentine’s Day baking season.
“Then I’ll move onto Easter,” she said.
Rexroat can be reached for orders at 217-663-8075.
Features
Related Photos
-
Surrrounded by a slew of her creations, Jessie Rexroat works on just one more gingerbread during a recent bake-decorate session at her home in rural Dieterich. Bill Grimes
Discussion
Finding love in the kitchen
- Features
-
-
Feces contaminates 58 percent of public swimming pools
Human feces taints more than half of public swimming pools, a finding U.S. health officials are using to urge better personal hygiene as the summer months approach.
-
VIDEO: Meet the family that never learned to walk on two legs
Their parents had accepted the children as they were; they'd never tried to teach them to walk. In this very proscribed world, walking on hands and feet made nearly as much sense as walking upright.
-
Ditch the flowers, go with these cool Mother's Day gifts
Instead of buying your mom a generic gift for Mother’s Day like flowers or a day at the spa, here are some cool gadgets that won’t only surprise her, but perhaps perfectly match one of her hobbies or current needs.
-
Lexus IS C is sporty, luxurious
Compared with a more traditional Lexus, like the ES, it's absolutely thrilling. It's a car with some life and personality in it.
-
Have political parties lost their purpose?
The Democrats and Republicans may be worlds apart on most things, but at their headquarters just two blocks away from each other on Capitol Hill, each is confronting the same question: Have political parties lost their purpose?
-
Organic baby food more costly, not necessarily more nutritious
Squeezable pouches of organic baby food are as omnipresent on some American playgrounds as runny noses, diaper bags and overpriced strollers. But studies show that parents who are aiming to buy the best food for their infants may not need to spring for the expensive organics.
-
The top 10 most expensive places to get married
XO Group Inc., the creator of the top two wedding websites, TheKnot.com and WeddingChannel.com, released the results of its annual Real Weddings Study. This comprehensive report surveyed more than 17,500 US brides married in 2012.
-
Roller Derby players share shoulder microbes
Researchers have found that players come into a tournament bearing a team signature of bacteria on their shoulders-but leave sharing microbes with their opponents.
-
Why do goats yell like that?
If you're among the millions who have spent a significant portion of the past month watching videos of goats yelling like humans, you may have wondered: Why do goats yell like that? Are they distressed? Do they yell for any particular reason? Are they trying to tell us something?
-
VIDEO: Who could be the next pope?
Pope Benedict XVI's resignation opens the door to an array of possible successors. There's no clear front-runner, though several leading candidates have been mentioned over the years as papabile, or having the qualities of a pope.
- More Features Headlines
-
