Betts Bakes

Palisadian Betty Morin Launches Baked Goods Company

By SARAH SHMERLING | Editor-in-Chief

A delicious dream, decades in the making, is now ready to be served across Pacific Palisades and other Westside communities.

Palisadian Betty Morin took her nearly lifelong hobby and turned it into a new business, Betts Bakes, which officially launched in August.

“I come out of entertainment,” Morin explained to the Palisadian-Post. “I worked in film production for many years and music event production.”

Morin was chief of staff for an entrepreneur who produced global music events. She worked for him for 10 years, which is where she said she got the “entrepreneurial bug.”

When her boss was going into semi-retirement in the mid-2010s, Morin switched gears and launched a frozen food business, which was sold in places like Gelson’s, Bristol Farms and Pacific Palisades Farmers Market.

“It was healthy, frozen entrees,” Morin described, “and I was the business side and my partner was the chef.”

Due to a series of events that transpired over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, Morin was forced to put the business on hold, where it remains to this day due to ongoing supply chain issues.

“The pandemic was just this wakeup call about well what are we going to do now?” Morin shared.

The answer came somewhat serendipitously.

With pandemic-related restrictions in place, Morin’s husband, who is in AA with 20 years of sobriety, continued to attend virtual meetings.

“He said to me one day, ‘You know, we should bake some stuff for some of these guys, they’re having birthdays and they’re all sitting at home on computers,’” Morin recalled of the tradition of giving a cake to someone celebrating another year of sobriety in the program. “And I said, ‘That’s a good idea.’”

With that, Morin turned her efforts toward crafting baked goods for birthdays, delivering them around town to her husband’s friends. Word began to spread of her culinary skills, and Morin soon started to receive orders for other celebrations.

“I thought, ‘OK, maybe this should actually be a business now,’” Morin shared, “‘Maybe the time is now.’”

So, Morin took her knowledge of the food industry—including the ins and outs of the health department—and a passion for baking that dates back to when she was 10 years old, and launched Betts Bakes.

Morin first learned to bake from her mom, whom she described as more of a cook than a baker.

“Everyone seems to fall into two categories,” Morin explained. “You either like cooking or you like baking. Baking is more scientific and precise … and I love baking. She taught me how to do it all based on what she’d learned from her mom. I just instantly loved it and took over all of the family baking.”

Morin recalled that she was responsible for all of the baking when it came to holidays and birthdays within her family. The dream of opening a bakery of her own dates back 25 or 30 years.

“I thought, ‘I’m going to start a bakery,’” she recalled. “I’m going to sell cookies and cakes and cupcakes and all that, and then could have never really did it. And now, things sort of aligned—after many, many, many years of working.”

Betts Bakes currently offers six different cakes: chocolate, carrot, old-fashioned yellow with chocolate frosting, marble, vanilla and lemon. There are also two flavors of cupcake, chocolate and vanilla, and a lemon meringue tart. The vanilla and chocolate are available as gluten free.

Her current delivery range includes the Palisades, Santa Monica and Brentwood. Those outside of the area are encouraged to contact Morin.

Morin, who has lived in the Palisades for three years now, said she was always a fan of the area. She actually discovered the community by way of the Ridge Runners group—which helped found the Fourth of July race.

Morin said she started running with the group 25 years ago in 1997. She was living in Brentwood at the time when a friend of hers—one she met while running on San Vicente—invited her to run with the group.

“We ended up running six days a week with these guys for years,” Morin added.

Now, Morin is a happy resident of the community, which she shared she loves the small-town feel of. In fact, if you live close to Morin, you might get lucky: Following her photoshoot with the Post, she went around and gave her neighbors the  treats she crafted to be photographed.

“I love just creating delicious treats that people can enjoy,” Morin shared. “I think it makes people happy … it’s nice to make people happy. It makes me feel good.”

For more information, including how to order from Betts Bakes, visit bettsbakes.com.