With Love Sweets

Jade is twenty-one, she is Cuban, and she is building something of her own right here in Murfreesboro. She calls what she makes a taste of home: tres leches soaked soft and creamy, guava-filled Cuban torticas, and a chocoflan that sets a layer of flan over rich chocolate cake. Her first tres leches order went out this past July, and she filmed herself making it, talking in Spanish the whole way through. By the end of August she had opened a little pink farmstand on Blackman Road, right at the traffic light by the school, with ribbons strung along the top and an OPEN flag out front.

The first day, the chocolate cake pops sold out and Jade could hardly believe it. "This is only the beginning," she told everyone who had stopped by. The second day it was the torticas and the red velvet pops. "Sold out again" has become one of her favorite things to post. Somewhere along the way she says she "accidentally created a dessert everyone keeps asking me for," and that chocoflan now goes out whole for birthdays and family gatherings. "There's something so special about making desserts for moments that matter," she wrote after one of them.

The stand runs on trust. Nobody is behind the counter. You pick your dessert out of the cooler, pay on your own, and some people leave her a note. Jade keeps those. "Thank you for every visit, every purchase, and every sweet note you leave us," she wrote this fall. "You're making our little dream come true, one dessert at a time." Her menu signs off in Spanish, hecho con amor para endulzar tu día, made with love to sweeten your day. "Still can't believe I get to say this at 21," she said in September. Stop by and you'll see why she means it.