Self-taught Centre County baker turns passion into business. See her creations

Yilka Thompson is a long way from where she started out in life. Yilka (pronounced Jilka, with the “Y” a soft “J” sound) Morales was born in the town of Puerto Armuelles, located on the Pacific coast of Panama, very close to the ocean. Her father worked at Chiquita Banana, and she and her siblings learned firsthand about the banana export business.

Today, Yilka and her husband, Curtis, live in Pine Glen, pretty much the polar opposite of Puerta Armuelles at this time of year. Though she misses the ocean views, tropical fruit, and fresh seafood, the Thompson household is warm and cozy with Yilka’s busy oven baking batch after batch of sourdough bread, cookies, scones, cupcakes, and macarons for her 200 subscribers who order weekly from her website via Hot Plate.

Yilka’s Baking Studio opened in November 2023, and the business is on a trajectory like a SpaceX rocket.

“I originally thought that I would have a baking business based on selling decorated cookies, but I also got into making sourdough bread around that time, and that part of the business is very strong. Everyone needs bread for breakfast, but they don’t need fancy cookies every week,” laughed the personable 43-year-old. “Now I find that the steady sourdough orders are the backbone and the cookies are for special occasions.”

One special occasion that is coming up is Valentine’s Day and Thompson has created some gift collections that can get your message across — no matter what that might be.

“I have five different sets of cookie collections especially designed for the holiday, but I can also do larger single ones and write what you would like to say on the cookie,” said the enterprising baker who studied marketing at the Universidad Autonoma de Chiriqui in Panama before emigrating to the United States.

Yilka revealed that she is entirely self-taught in baking, having learned everything online. She started decorating cookies as a hobby in 2011 and discovered she had a passion for it. Her favorite YouTube baker is Erin Jeanne McDowell, whose videos “are like taking a class.” She learned how to create her beautiful script messages by teaching herself to use Canva and a projector. Her home-baking business is registered with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and inspected under the LFE (Limited Food Establishment) program, which oversees shelf-stable foods.

Today, her cookie collections run the gamut from classic cut-outs to cookies shaped and decorated like vegetables or charcuterie to a pizza cookie kit that lets you finish the decorating process at home. In addition to fancy cut-out cookies, she makes “Triple B” cookies, oversized at 6 ounces each, inspired by those from the Levain Bakery in New York City. Curtis was the marketing genie who came up with the idea.

Yilka explained. “The name Triple B Cookies (Bigger-Bolder-Better) was actually created by my husband. He is a big chocolate lover and one day asked me to bake a chocolate chip cookie, but big. That request is how Triple B Cookies was born.”

Macarons are another popular choice on her cookie menu and provide a gluten-free alternative since they are made with almond flour. Additionally, scones, pancake mix, cupcakes, and many variations of her sourdough bread, like Cheddar-Jalapeno, Multigrain, and Roasted Garlic-Rosemary-Asiago, are offered.

The baker understands the importance of quality provisions. “For all my baked goods, I use high-quality ingredients, including King Arthur flour and Ghirardelli chocolate. Any additional components, such as jams or fillings, are made from scratch. Whenever possible, I use local ingredients or items grown in my own garden, such as blueberries, as well as other seasonal ingredients I can source locally.”

Yilka, who worked at the Costa Rican embassy in Panama after graduating from the university, first came to the United States in 2008 at age 26 as an au pair for a family in Tyrone.

“I wanted to improve my English, which I studied in school, but I wasn’t really conversational,” she said.

A year in Tyrone, with no other Spanish speakers around, forced her to strengthen her language skills. After Tyrone, she moved to Staten Island, New York, to be an au pair for a year and enjoyed the multi-cultural experiences available in the city.

In 2009, she met Curtis, a Bald Eagle Area High School graduate who didn’t stray far from his roots. They married in 2010 and currently live one street away from where Curtis grew up, not far from his mother and brother. There are four fur babies in their household, two French bulldogs (Odin and Luna) and two cats (Lucky and Moo.) Both Curtis and Yilka work full-time at Penn State. Curtis works as a Solutions Engineer in IT, providing tech support for auxiliary and business services and managing digital signage on campus. Yilka works as an Enrollment Services Specialist, mostly remotely, with one travel day a week to campus.

Life on the mountaintop in Pine Glen, on the Appalachian Plateau, is very different from life on a tropical isthmus nine degrees north of the equator, but Yilka is happy in central PA, with annual trips back to see family. This is her home now.

“I love everything I do, but the very best part is the connection with my customers,” she said. “Some email me to say how much they appreciate my products and how much joy they bring. That is the best.”

Check out Yilka’s joyful products and special Valentine’s Day offerings at her website, Yilka’s Baking Studio. The window for weekly orders is Friday at 6 p.m. to Sunday at 6 p.m. Then items can be picked up from her porch in Pine Glen on Tuesdays from 4:30 to 5:30, or she delivers to the Walmart Benner Pike parking lot near the Goodwill store on Wednesdays between 5 and 5:30.

Special Valentine’s Day orders cut off on Feb. 6, and the pickup will be on Thursday, Feb. 12, from 5 to 5:30 p.m. You still have time to order a baked treat for your Valentine from one smart cookie.