Chef-owner Stefanie Embree opened OKC Sweets in 2020, after working as a home baker since 2018. We met in late 2020 while judging a spiked hot chocolate competition for Halloween. I stopped by her Western Avenue bakery shortly after, and was immediately impressed with her products, the thought and creativity that went into the displays, and of course, how damn cute all the specialty items are. She has an eye for detail that served her well on Next Level Baker, the Chef Gordon Ramsay competition in which she won the 2025 inaugural season.

In many ways, her story sounds like a small business dream trajectory, but then you sit down with her, and hear about her twin sons born at 25 weeks, the near-closing of her business, and after all the successes, the cancer diagnosis earlier this year. Throughout, she's maintained two of the chief components of her personality that make it so easy to cheer for her success: her kindness and her commitment to making things around her -- people included -- better. We also learned that we share the same ADHD energy in what we do, and I'm pretty sure you'll notice that on this episode. We also get a bit of a teaser about an upcoming collab with fellow Gordon Ramsay alum Chef Gabriel Lewis.