Butter+Whisk: Southeast side cottage baker thrives in Tucson's sourdough bread business scene

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — One local cottage baker is making waves in the Tucson sourdough bread business—and what led Emma Plummer to add sourdough bread to her Butter+Whisk menu is far from what you might expect.

Plummer opened Butter+Whisk in 2019 with just macarons on the menu.

This 27-year-old self-taught baker was set on perfecting her version of the sweet french cookie.

With much determination and a few tutorials from YouTube, Plummer’s micro-bakery was in full swing.

"The demand is there and I’m gonna run with it because that’s how I am," said Plummer. "I’m like a 'full-send' kind of person. If I’m gonna make something, I’m gonna go all the way and I’m gonna make it.”

The baker fell sick with COVID while pregnant with her second child in November 2021.

Life stopped for Plummer as she was in the hospital for three months. Walking and talking were out of the picture as she lost muscle.

The sickness also cost Plummer half of her right lung, on top of being leaving her on a ventilator.

During her hospital stay, she was gifted a sourdough starter kit from a friend.

All Plummer wanted to do was bake, she said, simply dreaming of what she could whip up during her final days at the hospital.

She was discharged in the first week of February 2022 and sourdough bread was added to Butter+Whisk's menu soon after her discharge.

Now, Plummer fulfills between 60-100 sourdough bread orders every Friday—and that number does not include all the macaron orders.

“I couldn’t stand at the kitchen for very long," Plummer shared. "My husband did it with me, so we learned together. I would sit at the island and I would tell him what to do, the next step and what to measure.”

Balancing motherhood and a business was hard for Plummer at first.

Sharing that even after close to five years of being a business owner, most people still ask how she manages to work from home with her kids.

But her two little assistants are nothing short of helpful.

Plummer tells me her six-year-old, Asher, loves to rinse dishes and sticker the pastry bags.


“My two-year-old likes to help me put the lids on containers and little things like that, but they’ve adjusted really well and I try to be completely done working for the day by the time they come home from school and daycare,”
Plummer said.

You can find Butter+whisk at markets around Tucson.

Find out where Plummer posts shop next at her Butter+Whisk website.