Liberty Baking Co. Specializes In Southern-Style Celebration Cakes, Cookies, Desserts

FAIRFAX CITY, VA — Allison Friedman, owner of Liberty Baking Co., started her business with a cottage license, working out of her home in Fairfax City. But when the pandemic hit, she moved the whole operation to a caterer's kitchen in Herndon.

"Everybody was going back into their houses, and we were like, 'We got to get out of the house,'" Friedman told Patch on Friday. "We worked out of a commercial kitchen with our friend, who's a caterer. Then, it was time to pick a home and we wanted to come back to where we're from."

Since Friedman and business partner/employee/pastry chef Kim Schaeffer are both city residents, it was an easy decision to move to commercial kitchen and meeting space located at 10782 Fairfax Blvd. They share the space with two other businesses, Bisnonna Bakeshop and Jisoo Cake Design.

"Allison has been waiting for this day for six years now," Schaeffer said. "We're finally here. We started in her kitchen in her house in Fairfax City. We're home again and that is huge for us."

Liberty specializes in southern-style recipes such as celebration cakes and desserts like southern pound cakes with cream cheese frosting. The bakery seeks to address a gap in the local market when it comes to baked goods.

"There's no southern-style bakeries here," Friedman said. "It's just European. I've always specialized in wedding cakes and when you're at your wedding, the theory was like, 'Why are we eating something European, when we could be eating birthday cake? We fill that void. People really embraced it and we really enjoy what we do."

But it's the wedding cakes that are Liberty's "bread and butter, pun intended," according to Friedman.

"We do cupcake orders," Schaeffer said. "We do shortbread cookies, which are the decorated cookies that you see probably all over social media — there's crazy talented people out there — and we do cake pops."

Friedman and Schaeffer also take pride in using all natural ingredients and biodegradable packaging.

"That is really big to me aside from like the southern recipes,"Friedman said. "Those two components, in my mind, are what make our bakery special."

The bakery is also a "pop-up/pick-up" operation, according to Friedman. "It's zero waste model, No retail. No throwing tons of cookies away at the end of each night. Everything is special order."

Aside from then occasional pop-up when a limited amount of baked items will be available until they're all sold out, Liberty Bakery only takes online orders from customers for pickup or delivery out of its Fairfax kitchen.

"For wedding cakes, we need six to eight months advance notice," Friedman said. "But mostly, people are coming here to pick up birthday cakes that are either from the shop or special ordered — and those need one to two weeks."

Although the bakery officially opened on May 6, Friedman and celebrated a ribbon-cutting on Friday, with city officials, members of the Central Fairfax Chamber of Commerce and the Fairfax City Economic Development Authority.

Located at 10782 Fairfax Blvd., Liberty Baking Co. is a specialty bakery, offering southern-style baked goods for order, pickup and delivery. Customers can place an order on the bakery's website.