‘I love to be a part of family traditions’: Just in time for holidays, Domestikated Biscuits gets permanent home

This is the time of year when Kate Sousa and her employees at Domestikated Biscuits are their busiest, making dozen after dozen of buttermilk biscuits, stuffed biscuits, scones, cinnamon rolls and more.

Sousa comes from a family of entrepreneurs and was looking for something to do to make a little money as she stayed home to raise her four children. Five years ago, around Thanksgiving, she wondered aloud to her husband if people would be interested in buying her buttermilk biscuits for the holidays.

She posted on Facebook, asking if anyone was interested in biscuits. She sold 70 dozen between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

“I still remember the thrill of getting the first message that wasn’t from friends and family,” she said.

While Sousa grew up cooking with her grandmothers, she didn’t have any experience selling food. In fact, she only started trying to make biscuits when she and her family lived in Florida. Biscuits are a traditional food in the south, Sousa said.

However, her first attempts at making biscuits went badly.

“I had one batch that was so bad they skipped like rocks,” she said. “I worked really hard to learn how to make biscuits.”

The following year was 2020 and Sousa adapted, working out of her house and doing porch pickups and deliveries. Her products are vacuum sealed and frozen and her freezer space at home was limited.

“After the kids went to bed, I would work,” she said. “Everything I make is unbaked and frozen, so people make them fresh.”

In 2021, she started working out of the Supper Club and last month she celebrated her grand opening at 723 N. Crestline St., where she has freezer space to sell her products and access to a commercial kitchen.

Sousa creates the biscuits in large batches and then freezes them, just as she does for her family. She likes the convenience of being able to pull a batch out of the freezer and popping it in the oven for a fresh batch of biscuits.

“It lets people do the magic without the work,” she said.

Selling frozen food is also a good way to make sure none of the food goes to waste if it isn’t sold right away.

“Things are frozen until they’re sold,” she said. “As long as it stays sealed, it’s good indefinitely.”

At first, she just sold her biscuits, now properly fluffy, but gradually started to add new products. Her cinnamon rolls are popular and right now she has seasonal orange cranberry rolls. Her husband saw a video about someone making stuffed biscuits and Sousa has been experimenting with different fillings – sausage gravy, chicken pot pie, ham and cheese, turkey dinner and bacon egg and cheese.

She sells her sausage gravy by the quart and also offers a variety of scones as well as huckleberry cobbler.

Each frozen pack, either a dozen or a half dozen depending on the product, comes with detailed baking instructions and a complete list of ingredients in case people have allergies. Prices range from $12 to $18 per pack.

Sousa said her new location on Crestline is larger, which has allowed her to hire more independent contractors to help her make her products. She and her crew, all of whom have full-time day jobs, spend hours each Monday night making dozens of scones, rolls and biscuits.

November and December are her busiest months, and she makes about 64 dozen products a week. People can order online at domestikatedbiscuits.square.site to have their orders delivered or visit the Crestline location Monday through Saturday.

Sousa said she enjoys that some families tell her that her biscuits and cinnamon rolls have become an important part of family traditions like birthday celebrations and breakfast on Christmas morning.

“It’s an honor,” she said. “I love to be a part of family traditions.”

While her biscuits, cinnamon rolls and sausage gravy stuffed biscuits are staples, she changes the menu each month to offer new or seasonal items. Her menus are posted on her Facebook page.

“I’ve thought about adding pot pies with a biscuit top,” she said. “The recipe development part of it is really fun.”