Meet Nikki,
the Messy Baker

The Whole Story

The Daily Mess was created during a time in my life when I desperately needed something that felt like mine again. I'm Nikki, and I've been living with Multiple Sclerosis since I was 20. MS has been part of basically my entire adult life — through jobs, relationships, surgeries, good years, really shitty years, and all the plans that had to be changed, canceled, rebuilt, or figured out along the way.

Years before The Daily Mess existed, I created What a Mess MS — a place where I could talk about what living with chronic illness actually looked like. Not the polished version. Not the inspirational-quote version. The funny, frustrating, scary, ridiculous, are you kidding me? version.

And then, during another season of my life when things felt especially uncertain, I started baking. At first, it wasn't supposed to become anything. It was something I could make with my hands. Something creative. Something I could get better at. Something that gave my brain somewhere else to go when life and MS felt very, very loud.

There was sourdough. There were a lot of experiments. There were failures. There was flour absolutely everywhere. I started giving things to friends and family, then people started asking if they could buy them, and somehow this little thing that was giving me something to look forward to started becoming something other people looked forward to, too.

And The Daily Mess was born. The name wasn't some carefully constructed branding exercise. It already belonged to me. Because What a Mess MS had taught me something I didn't realize would eventually become the heart of another business: life can be messy and hard and wildly different from what you planned — and that doesn't mean something really fucking good can't come out of it.

Today, The Daily Mess Bakehouse is so much more than the sourdough starter that started taking over my kitchen. It's a tiny bakehouse built on really good ingredients, ridiculous amounts of butter, things made by hand, recipes I obsess over until they're right, and food I genuinely get excited to hand to someone.

And yes, MS is part of this story. It isn't the bakery, but without it, I'm not sure the bakery would exist. What a Mess MS and The Daily Mess are two different worlds, but they're built from the same place: making something good out of the mess — without pretending the mess isn't there.

So, welcome to The Daily Mess. Turns out, the mess makes some pretty good shit.