Robison offers peanut butter cup bread.
Robison offers many different chocolate bread flavors including chocolate chip chunk, double chocolate chip brownie, walnut chocolate chip chunk, and candy bar inspired flavors like Health Bar chip chunk.
Lisa Robison holds two loaves of dessert bread she made Monday morning for her customers: a walnut bread and chocolate chip zucchini bread.
Lisa Robison spends up to 13 hours a day baking dessert and savory breads for members of the community in her small home kitchen. She said she goes to the local grocery stores at least once a day to pick up more ingredients.
Robison stirred part of the ingredients needed to make her famous zucchini bread (left) on Monday morning. Robison has created several variations of her zucchini bread including zucchini chocolate chip, zucchini chocolate chip with walnut, and zucchini walnut.
Robison often attends community markets and events where she always sells out of her breads.
Robison offers savory jalapeno cheese bread (above right) on her menu.
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Loading...Tooele resident, Lisa Robison has been busy for the past several years perfecting the art of creating the perfect loaf of dessert bread for the community.
Robison, who owns The Bread Basket, spends up to 13 hours a day baking over 60 types of sweet and savory bread in her small home kitchen.
Robison started baking and selling her bread during Christmas time around four years ago.
Her breads come in sizes ranging from half a pound to three pounds. Prices range from $3-$12.
“I worked at Penny’s as a cook and I said, ‘I would like to make some money for Christmas.’ I thought, why don’t I see if I can just put some breads online, like pumpkin, banana, and zucchini? I sold them out of Penny’s too and everyone started to order them like crazy.”
Robison loved to cook but she hadn’t spent much time baking, so when she sold out of her bread that holiday season, she was shocked.
After the holiday season, Robison continued baking, because the orders kept coming.
From there, she started adding more flavors gradually.
“I started adding a new flavor and then it would be a while before I added another flavor,” Robison said. “Then, when I saw it was selling well, I started adding more flavors like crazy.”
About a year after she started selling her bread, Robison came up with the name for her business.
“I didn’t know I was going to have a business, but I just started calling it ‘The Bread Basket’,” Robison said. “A lady helped me create business cards with a basket on it. It was so cute.”
During the pandemic, business was booming and Robison was able to transition to bread-making as her fulltime job.
“I did a lot of deliveries during that time,” Robison said. “There was never a time when I didn’t have business.”
Now, Robison receives around 250 orders a week on average. From September to December during her busy season, she often receives over 400 a week. She can fit up to 20 loaves of bread in her oven, but she prefers to bake around 16 at a time.
“My oven is actually tiny,” Robison said. “If people saw my kitchen, they would be like, ‘How are you doing that?’”
Sometimes she spends over 13 hours a day baking and is always available for customers to pick up from her home.
“I bake so much and I don’t ever get tired of it, because it’s a passion of mine,” Robison said. My husband thinks I’m crazy. Sometimes people come at midnight to pick up their bread.”
Robison often sets up booths at community events and markets. Every time, she sells out.
“I love that my bread makes people happy,” she said. “People are so happy when they pick up the breads. Women don’t bake anymore, because they are so busy, so I think people love the idea of homemade goods.”
Robison’s recipes come from a Betty Crocker cookbook and YouTube, but many of them have been changed and adapted.
She purchases all of her ingredients from Walmart and Lucky locally.
“I am there every day,” she laughed. “They know me as the bread lady.”
Her favorite flavors are cream cheese carrot and lemon pound cake. Her customers like lemon blueberry, mint double chocolate chip brownie, peanut butter cup, peach cobbler, and apple cinnamon streusel.
Robison also sells poppy seed, zucchini, walnut, butterfingers, Health Bar, Reese’s, and Coconut breads, along with savory specialties like jalapeno and pepperoni, among many others.
“My savory breads are quick breads,” she said. “They don’t have yeast, but they are delicious.”
Robison plans to add an Oreo dark chocolate bread to her menu soon.
Robison’s dream is to expand her business, perhaps creating a chain.
“I want to open up a store really bad,” she said. “This is getting to be too big to be in my little kitchen anymore. I want to have delivery people and hire people to help me bake, because I only bake by myself. I would like to open a store in Tooele and all around.”
“I want my theme to be red and white checkered and make it look like the 1950’s,” she continued.
Robison hopes to expand her business in the next two years.
Robison credits her business success to God.
“I believe God has helped me do all of this,” she said. “It’s been God and my faith. This is a great thing that he has given me to bless the community and to give me something to do.”
Robison encourages others to follow their dreams of starting their own business.
“I feel like people have dreams but they are too scared to put them out there,” she said. “I feel that even if you are scared or nervous about something and you have something you really want to do, believe in what you’re doing. Also, have faith … You never know unless you try. You might be rejected sometimes, but a miracle might happen … Just go for it.”
When Robison isn’t baking, she enjoys spending time with her two daughters and husband. She also enjoys resting, cleaning, shopping, exploring, and fishing.
Robison sees herself as a go-getter, a fighter, and a hard worker.
“Nothing stops me when I put my mind to something,” she said.
Robison’s bakery can be found on Facebook at her group page “The Bread Basket.” She can also be reached at 801-347-4054.
Robison offers gluten free and Keto breads.
csutton@tooeletranscript.com
