Growing up, Ranequa Bean didn’t eat her vegetables. But she did eat her sweets.
So it’s no surprise she is now the owner of 350 Baked, which features her homemade cakes, cookies, brownies, and cobblers. Her goods are available online and in four locations, including High Point Grocery and Cordelia’s Market.
But getting back to those childhood eating habits. “I was definitely a picky eater,” says Bean. “Any type of vegetable you put in front of me, I wouldn’t eat. Only meat and cheese. I didn’t like ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise. I didn’t start eating a lot of things until I went to culinary school.”
Her mother was a good cook, but Bean’s “love for cooking” came from her aunt, Shapell Gates, who was a “Southern cooker.”
Bean’s first baking effort was a cake she made for her stepfather when she was in high school. “It was embarrassing. It was so bad … awful.
“The lines ‘Happy Birthday’ started at the top left of the cake and ended at the bottom right of the cake. I had some little flowers on it. He was so happy. He said, ‘This is the best cake ever.’”
The cake might have looked bad, but Bean says, “The taste was definitely there.”
A dog lover, Bean originally wanted to be a veterinarian. “I did animal science for two years. But it was in an animal physiology class where we had to artificially inseminate cows when I said, ‘No, mom. I can’t do this.’ I’d smell like cow poop all day.” She had a revelation: “I like dogs. I don’t like cows.”
It was “love at first sight” when Bean discovered the culinary arts program at The Art Institute of Tennessee-Nashville. She earned her associate’s degree in baking and pastry, but her bachelor’s degree in culinary management made the biggest impression. “They taught me how to open a business.”
She also learned to love vegetables after she tried grilled asparagus for the first time in culinary school. “It was something about the taste from the grill … the oil and salt. The grilled flavor brings the vegetables alive.”
Bean worked at several businesses, including the Radisson Hotel Nashville Airport, where she was sous-chef. Her first food-related job in Memphis was sous-chef at Baptist Memorial Hospital.
In her spare time, she sold pre-ordered slices of her caramel, strawberry lemonade, banana pudding, and other cakes at Sprouts Farmers Market and Whole Foods Market.
Bean chose the name 350 Baked because 350 degrees is the temperature of the ovens her desserts are baked in.
Last February, Bean quit her job as culinary director at Remington College – Memphis Campus. “350 Baked was getting a lot of recognition. I was getting more money from it than Remington.”
Also, she says, “I had reached my breaking point of working for anybody other than myself.”
More people were seeing photos of her cakes on Facebook and Instagram. “My goal in 350 Baked is to be a household brand.”
She also had another goal. “My goal was to be in three locations by the end of this year. I did it in three weeks. And I told my husband, ‘God is so real.’”
Bean now offers a regular list of cakes, cookies, and cobblers, as well as rotating specials. Her cakes and other baked goods are available on her website, 350baked.online, or via her Facebook and Instagram. She also sets up at the Downtown Memphis Farmers Market.
“Moistness” is what makes her cakes different from other people’s, Bean says. She credits culinary school for teaching her how to get the right texture and flavor profiles. She also has “secret ingredients,” which set her cakes apart. Her slogan is: “Without us, it’s just cake.”
Bean doesn’t want a brick-and-mortar location. “My business plan is to get a big ice cream truck, but with cakes.” She wants her truck to make “the sound like the ice cream truck makes,” but be more unique.
So, when people hear it, they’ll say, “There’s 350 Baked.”
