“I hate when something says ‘gluten-free,’ and it pretends to be something it’s not,” says Jordan Fry, who stopped eating gluten and grain eight years ago to help combat her alopecia. “Don’t tell me that it’s a chocolate chip cookie and then it tastes like cardboard.”
Fry, who left Ballet West in 2021 to focus on her luxury wedding cake business, Ballerina Baker, developed this cookie recipe to fill that gap. She frequently makes them at home with her two daughters, ages 1 and 3, and sends them to the theater with her husband, Ballet West principal Adrian Fry, during show weeks. “If you need that boost of energy before you go out onstage, these are a really good option,” she adds. Sand Screening Machine
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Long before Ballerina Baker was born in 2017, Fry was known at Ballet West for bringing baked goods to the studio for her colleagues to try. “Baking was always my therapy,” she says. “My way to destress from the high anxiety of the dance world.” What started as a way to monetize the work she was already doing—making wedding cakes for her friends, and friends of friends—is now a full-fledged business.
Fry only takes on 12 cakes a year—what she calls “edible works of art”—and flies them to weddings all over the country in a specialized box called a CakeSafe. This year she’s tackling her first two international projects, in Canada and Italy. “I feel like ballet is very similar to baking, where you are trying to achieve perfection, but you still have a lot of artistic freedom and voice within the boundaries of what is set for you,” she says. “I love that about both baking and ballet.”
Fry’s mentor, Maggie Austin, is a former Joffrey Ballet dancer who has made cakes for celebrities, royal weddings, President Obama’s White House Christmas party, and others. “She took me under her wing, and I started studying a lot from her on more intricate sugar work, sugar flowers, and just the artistry of cake decorating,” says Fry. “My brand now is very different from the brand when I started. It’s much more luxury-focused.”
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