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Jill Nguyen didn’t grow up baking. In fact, she didn’t start until 2020.

What began as a pandemic bread obsession eventually became Capitol Jill Baking, her Washington, DC microbakery known for naturally leavened breads, inventive pastries, and colorful, highly personal cakes.

In this episode, Jill and I talk about how she built a baking style that feels unmistakably her own. We get into how she develops new products, why she often starts with a feeling rather than a flavor, and how she balances creativity with the realities of producing food consistently at scale.

We also talk about building a business within a community: collaborations with local restaurants and shops, earning the trust of customers and other business owners, asking for help, and why those relationships take time.

Jill shares how she went from making her first cake during the pandemic to creating completely custom wedding cakes, why smell and texture matter as much to her as flavor, and what she has learned from pursuing ideas she hadn’t necessarily been trained to do.

Toward the end of our conversation, Jill describes breadmaking as a practice rather than something you ever completely master. You pay attention to the flour, temperature, humidity and fermentation, make the best decision you can, learn from it and come back the next week a little better.

And for Jill, Saving Bread also means something very literal: keeping good bread local, honest, seasonal and accessible.

A conversation about creativity, consistency, community, trust and giving yourself permission to get good at something you didn’t start doing until later in life.

Find Jill:

Instagram: @capitoljillbaking

Capitol Jill Baking: capitoljillbaking.com

Follow Saving Bread:
Instagram: @savingbreadpodcast