After 16 years of cakes and ‘fairy dust,’ 3 Women and an Oven to close shop

For 16 years, south Overland Park’s 3 Women and an Oven has been there through its customers’ milestones.

It’s had the goodies for Sweet 16 birthday parties, graduations, bridal showers, weddings, gender reveals and first birthday “smash” cakes.

But owners Jayne Torline and Stacey Webb say it’s time for a different focus. They plan to shutter the boutique bakery, at 14852 Metcalf Ave., in late October.

“We always said ‘God, family and work.’ God has been with us and now it is time for us to focus on our families,” Torline said. “Our children were teenagers when we started but now we are grandparents. Our parents are elderly. We can’t say ‘no’ to our families. We really want to be there for them.”

The bakery started by happenstance. The women — self-described ‘food people’ — would celebrate their own milestones at area restaurants, bringing in their homemade birthday cakes.

They offered a slice of carrot cake to Mike Garozzo, owner of Garozzo’s Ristorante, while dining during opening month at his Overland Park restaurant in 1997. He offered to buy their carrot cake and then German chocolate cake (his favorite) for his restaurants and did so for years.

“But now we use them for a lot of our catering events,” he said. “I can’t not eat them, they’re too good. And their presentation is always beautiful and they are the sweetest little group of ladies.”

Webb was a professional chef with a passion for pastry; Torline had the business background. A third partner later dropped out of 3 Women and an Oven.

They were ahead of the artisan baked good trend in Kansas City, baking the way their mothers and grandmothers did — from scratch with fresh eggs, butter and real vanilla and as many locally sourced products as possible.

“We decided if we did anything, we wanted something that we would be proud to serve to our family members,” she said. “People are so much more conscious of what they are consuming now.”

They built the wholesale business through word-of-mouth and started a website before many area bakeries had one. Now customers often see a new offering posted on social media — like their new banana bars and key lime bars — and stop in before the day is over to try it.

Since they lacked advertising funds, they donated to charity fundraisers. At one event, attendees went through 4,000 servings of treats in 45 minutes.

“It was like bees to a hive,” Torline said.

The bakery is especially known for its carrot cake, which launched the wholesale business, and its pink champagne cake, now the most popular order.

It also has sugar drop cookies, French macaroons (shells and filling made on-site), sugar-free shortbread cookie espresso, lemon bars, Snickerdoodle or chocolate chip “kisses” (smaller cookies), cranberry coffeecake bars (gluten-free), chocolate chip sandwich cookies, “dangerous” brownies, the 5-inch “girlfriend” cakes for two or three people, and more.

It has more than 15 rotating flavors of cupcakes and babycakes — coconut key lime, chocolate-covered strawberry, Italian wedding, chocolate peanut butter, pink champagne and chocolate Irish Car Bomb with Guinness. There also is an option to ask for sparkly “fairy dust” (an edible glitter).

But the one thing they don’t have that can be found in other bakeries: a book of decorated cakes for customers to flip through.

“We are going to create something special for them,” Torline said. “Maybe it is just their favorite color, or it’s a 3D-sculpted cake topper of the Man in the Moon. We focus on flavor first and then we make it pretty.”

The women wanted to find someone to take over the bakery and take it to the next level — multiple locations, franchising, licensing or kiosks for daily fresh deliveries. But they didn’t find anyone who met their standards.

“The challenge is — we do everything from scratch, we make our own icing. You have to order cakes at least three days out, and a minimum of two weeks for anything custom,” Torline said. “And the customer service that has always been so important to us.”

Torline and Webb met one-on-one with their 13 employees to tell them the bakery was closing and most plan to stay until the end.

“It is just horrible when employees come to work and find the doors locked. We wouldn’t do that to our people. We love our employees,” Torline said.

Their wholesale clients also have promised to support them, and they will honor any events they have booked through the period — the same bakers and Torline will do the delivery.

Casey Houser and Jill Danna of Independence are set to wed Oct. 20. They had tried some other area bakeries before booking a Friday morning tasting at 3 Women and an Oven.

They ordered a three-tier cake: German chocolate on the bottom, an almond with raspberry pastry jam on a top tier and another tier as a surprise flavor picked by 3 Women and an Oven.

“We were looking for something more. The cake spoke for itself,” Danna said.

This story was originally published August 24, 2018 at 5:21 PM.