Our Story
Francie Jean’s begins, as the best things often do, with someone who loved you before you knew enough to appreciate it.
Jean François was a French baker. Classically trained, exacting, and not particularly interested in impressing anyone. But he had a soft spot for a little girl named Maggie Rose. She learned to walk in his bakery. She grew up grabbing a muffin on the way to school, always certain of her welcome. He named his cat Rosey. He named a cake the Maggie Rose. For a man who didn’t have many family members, he made sure she knew she was his.
He passed away in 2017. This is her way of returning the favor.
Francie Jean’s is named in his honor, a small-batch French buttercream built on the technique he spent his life perfecting. Every jar is made with egg yolks, real butter, and the kind of care that doesn’t take shortcuts. It is silky, rich, and far less sweet than what you’re used to. It tastes like someone made it for you specifically.
Because in a way, someone did.
Meet Maggie
Maggie LaFear has spent her entire life around food, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
She grew up in West Virginia, the daughter of a pastry chef mother who brought her to Jean François’ bakery before she could walk and instilled in her early that food is never just food. It is care, craft, and the clearest way to show someone they matter. That lesson followed Maggie through a childhood in fine dining kitchens, through WVU where she studied animal sciences, and into a career that has never strayed far from a kitchen or a counter.
Today, she works as a Food Safety Analyst at Whole Foods Market, bartends at Iowa Taproom in Des Moines, and runs Francie Jean’s out of a licensed commercial kitchen. All at once, because that is simply how she operates. She has been in the service industry since high school and has never left because she genuinely loves people, especially feeding them.
Francie Jean’s is the thing she has been working toward her whole life. A product built from decades of watching people who cared deeply about what they made, and finally deciding it was her turn.
She lives in Des Moines with her dog and her cat, who have both been very supportive.
