Full circle: The story behind Morkes’ famous donuts
Brandon L McBryde Committed to her craft, Bakke starts her day at Morkes at 4 a.m. to make doughnuts.
HUNTLEY – When Ellen Bakke passed Morkes Chocolates six years ago, she wasn’t looking for a job. She just happened to notice a Help Wanted sign in the window of a dessert shop and saw an opportunity to turn her passion for baking into a career.
She managed to win over the shop’s owner, Claudia Kendzior, despite having no professional experience in desert-making. She did, however, have an abundance of recipe ideas and a willingness to learn anything. The pair have been working together ever since and Bakke gives her boss glowing praise, thankful for the freedom and space to create that Kendzior provides her.
Among her ideas are batches of themed donuts, including gingerbread for the holidays, Pina Colada and Moscato for Happy Hour Donuts, and Margarita donuts in early May, which Bakke claims people wait all year for. She loves to play with spices and provide her customers with an interesting and flavorful experience.
“My brain is always creating things,” said Bakke. “It gets me in trouble sometimes.”
It certainly gets her involved in more projects, such as her new business Sweets and Snack Boxes, which has taken off. She sells the boxes four times a year and they contain an assortment of both sweet and salty treats based on the theme. The chocolates included are, of course, from Morkes and inside each box is a surprise for each eager customer.
Also available is a baking box that encourages people to make a dessert themselves. The box includes food safe and reusable cookie mix in a jar, cookie cutters, decoration materials, and a cookie to sample.
Ellen Bakke is a big lover of Christmas, and she uses several different creative outlets to express that love. One such way is her annual Christmas tree display where she decorates a cluster of trees with a theme. This year’s is snowflakes, one year was gingerbread, but Bakke’s favorite theme was last year, when her mother added little face masks to the snowmen that donned her trees.
While Bakke loved the addition her mother made, their collaboration was an anomaly. A self-diagnosed control freak, Bakke jokes that her family knows not to touch her trees due to her Ornament Placement Syndrome.
This holiday event originated as a small cookie party in 1994 when she had the bake lots of goods, but no idea what to do with it all. The partygoers were encouraged to bring an ornament to decorate the tree with, and the party snowballed from there. Bakke bakes up to 40 different desserts every year, including donuts, chocolates, and cookies, and begins tree decorating in October.
However, Bakke still finds joy in her holiday responsibilities, despite the overwhelming amount of work, and considers it a blessing.
“I get to share my baking with everybody,” said Bakke. “I get to share my trees and my love for the holidays. I’m a big kid when it comes to Christmas.”
Ellen Bakke started baking when her kids were young so they would always have a tasty dessert waiting for them at home and thankfully for us, she has branched out and shared her talents so that her community can bring home something sweet, too.
