“Some people really do rely on having that chocolate at the end of the day,” Schmidt says. “It’s no different than someone who has their beer, cocktail, doobie, whatever.”
Gazing across an array of meticulously decorated medical candies produced by Rachel Schmidt, you’d never guess her first food job was in a butcher shop. Her knack for creative sugary confections is innate amid her diverse background and deep understanding of food. She just can’t help how much she loves the sweet stuff.
“I love playing with sugar,” Schmidt says. “You can make it pretty. Edible sugar art, pulled sugar, gum paste flowers.” She likes to push the limits and see what she can do with food and how she can load it up with nourishing THC, CBD and terpenes. She isn’t just cranking out edibles to get you high. So how does Schmidt remain successful as proprietor and sole employee of her brand, Baked in Humboldt?
The Brand
Having a background as a confectioner and a cannabis grower for so many years, it just made sense that Rachel Schmidt would become the proprietor of a successful medibles brand. With experience working for different edibles companies, plus a lifetime of passion for baking, she finally started working for herself thirteen years ago.
“I had always baked and I had always made candies. I come from a long line of bakers and confectioners. I’ve been a pastry chef, chocolatier, confectioner, and I grow [marijuana].”
Schmidt creates custom orders from mild to strong, with different CBD to THC ratios. She doses everything accurately and has all her products are tested by PureAnalytics in Santa Rosa, California. Some of her customers have been loyal to her since she started Baked in Humboldt®. “Some people really do rely on having that chocolate at the end of the day,” Schmidt says. “It’s no different than someone who has their beer, cocktail, doobie, whatever.”
So, how does she integrate cannabis into anything and everything?
“Those are my proprietary secrets,” she says, gathering an impressive stack of well-perused notebooks stuffed with random individual pages. “This is thirteen years of research and development.”
One of her current projects is her interpretive marijuana strain line: desserts inspired by specific strains of cannabis.
“I’ve done a lot of them,” she says. One example is her interpretation of the strain Trainwreck into a cannoli. The rim is dipped in chocolate, rolled in pine nuts filled with lemon mascarpone, drizzled with a mango balsamic reduction and topped with candied orange peel. She also did a bake for Blue Dream: “It was a lemon butter sponge cake topped with a mango cream cheese, with a blueberry jam that I made. Top that with marshmallow whipped cream and lemon zest for garnish.”
She’s still imagining up new creations daily, like her Afghani Kush petit fours buttercream cakes. Also ever-popular are her bite-sized confections, like chocolate covered coconut truffles or cashew brittle, which can contain 25 to 30mg of THC or CBD each.
“The 50 mg ones are really popular,” Schmidt says, describing how people like to dose out her edibles. “Or let’s say I do a cheesecake. I can do 1,000 mg in the cake and then you can portion that out for yourself.”
The extracts
The single thing outsourced by Baked in Humboldt is the extraction process.
“I think that’s the biggest thing that sets me apart,” she says. “You can barely taste cannabis in my product. That’s why my stuff is so good.”
She brings the crop to her extraction source, who creates an oil she says has a complete cannabinoid profile and includes more THC, CBDs and terpenes than she’s been able to obtain with other methods. The process is an organic ethanol cryogenic extraction and the result is 80 to 90 percent potency oil.
The Crop
Yes, Rachel Schmidt grows the cannabis she cooks into her confections. She even does all her own gardening and harvesting.
“I dry farm my product and everything is organic. No water, no fertilizer, just in the ground. And happy. Everything I grow goes into my food.”
Not just about marijuana
So the extracts are strong and the bud is fresh from the ground just outside the window of the humbly-sized kitchen where Schmidt does all her work. But the other, non-marijuana ingredients are just as important for delicious medibles.
“I source pretty much everything I can locally,” Schmidt says. “It’s not cheap to do it that way. But it’s the best. And it’s really important for me.”
She uses Humboldt creamery dairy, Humboldt Honey, picks her own blackberries and recently bought apples from a guy down in Redcrest, California.
“I always use local Humboldt stuff.”
So how can you get ahold of her products?
She’s known as the “candy lady” around Humboldt County, fulfilling orders consistently. Yet somehow Baked in Humboldt isn’t in dispensaries. It never has been, unless you count her appearances at Wonderland Nursery in Garberville, California. She does custom orders and will release an order form for the holidays, which can be obtained by emailing her at 215bakedinhumboldt@gmail.com. You can also visit Wonderland Nursery in Garberville, who currently has a freezer full of Baked in Humboldt ice cream and gelato for sale. With the holidays coming up, Schmidt says she’s getting ready to fulfill orders for Thanksgiving pies and Christmas cookies.
Candy, Candy, and More Candy
“I’ve made millions of these little pieces of candy. I’ve just gotten better over time,” Schmidt says. “There isn’t anything I can’t load. There’s a million things I can make.” Blueberry swirl lemon meringue pies? Yeah, sure. Pastry dough filled with strawberry mousse, topped chocolate ganache; coconut macaroons with raspberry jam; spice cakes; danishes; mango cream pies. She really does do it all.
“You know the animaniacs cartoon pinky and the brain?” She’s referencing when Pinky turns to the Brain and says, “What are we going to do today?” to which the Brain replies, “Well, Pinky, same thing we do every night, we’re going to take over the world!”
“That’s what I want for Baked in Humboldt. I want it to be a recognized brand. I really do. I always bring the best.”
Written by Marissa Papanek
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