“I always say I went to the culinary school of YouTube,” Guilbeau said. “I was trying to make my kids’ birthday cakes, and I was failing miserably. And I just started gobbling up videos, and trying and trying and trying.”
Being a home baker for around five years, primarily making cakes for weddings and other events, Guilbeau then took a two-year hiatus from baking after her sister Mandy died.
“Right after I started Buttercup, my sister was in a car accident, and she suffered a traumatic brain injury,” Guilbeau said. “We cared for her at my parent’s house for four and a half years. ... After she passed away, we moved to Tomball. And that’s when I took a two-year break just to kind of reset, because it had been all hands on deck.”
Deciding to get back into baking, Guilbeau and her husband signed a lease on her storefront on Tomball’s Main Street in November 2020, calling its opening in June 2021 her and her parents’ “jump back into life.”
“We had gone through so much with her injury and then after her passing,” Guilbeau said. “And the fact that Tomball and this community just scooped us up and gave us such a big hug was so special. And I don’t know if [there are] any places in this world where you can find that anymore.”
On opening day, Buttercup Bakery sold out of everything within an hour, Guilbeau said.
“It was madness,” Guilbeau said. “It was crazy. The line was wrapped around the block. ... [My family] handled the front; I was greeting people. There was such an outpouring.”
At Buttercup Bakery, customers can visit four days a week to buy baked goods, such as cookies and cupcakes, and sourdough bread is a recent addition.
“There’s zero shortcuts, no mixes, no nothing,” Guilbeau said. “Everything starts from nothing and becomes something.”
When not manning the front counter, Guilbeau and her two employees work to make special orders and cakes for occasions, such as weddings.
“So all week we’re working to get those special orders out on the weekends,” Guilbeau said. “And the bakery front [counter] is like the cherry on top. It is offshoots of special orders; it’s things we see or we dream up.”
Through it all, Guilbeau said her sister—for whom they throw a benefit every September to raise money for patients with brain injuries—is part of Buttercup Bakery’s inspiration.
“She is a running thread through everything,” Guilbeau said.
Buttercup Bakery
- 411 W. Main St., Tomball
- 281-547-8215 www.buttercuphouston.com
- Hours: Wed.-Sat. 10 a.m.-1 p.m., closed Sun.-Tue.
