Today we’d like to introduce you to Maja Vidrih.
Hi Maja, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’m Slovenian by birth, but my path here wasn’t direct — I lived in Spain, then China, before eventually coming in Olathe, Kansas with my husband Miguel and our three sons. Baking has been a constant through every move. In China, I actually ran a small business selling Western-style cakes and pies to expats who missed the taste of home.
When we moved to the US, I found myself on the other side of that same craving — I couldn’t find good bread here, the kind I grew up eating in Slovenia. So I started baking it myself, for my own family, out of pure necessity.
That’s when the real idea clicked. Cakes and pies are everywhere in America — there was no shortage here. But nobody was making Slovenian food. So instead of competing in a crowded space, I decided to niche down and bring something genuinely new to the table: potica, breskvice, strudel — the treats I grew up on, made the way my family always made them.
That’s how Maja’s Magic came to be. Today you can find me at the Merriam Farmers’ Market or through my Treat Shed here in Olathe, where neighbors can stop by an honesty-box setup for a taste of Slovenia, made fresh right here in Kansas.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It hasn’t been smooth at all, and I don’t think it’s supposed to be.
When we first moved to the US, I already knew I wanted to continue the work I’d started in China. But everything was new — a new culture, new rules, a completely different way of doing things. The first few months weren’t even about business. They were about survival logistics: finding kindergarten for the boys, finding doctors, figuring out where to even buy basic things. This wasn’t a move from one state to another. It was a move from the other side of the world, and life here runs very differently.
Once the family was somewhat settled, I turned to the business — and immediately got swarmed. Registering an LLC, getting an EIN, learning what I could and couldn’t sell under Kansas cottage food law, figuring out which farmers’ market made sense. It was a lot to process all at once. And right in the middle of it, I found out I was pregnant with our third son. For a while, I genuinely considered giving up on the idea entirely.
But I’m stubborn, and I’m determined, so I kept going one step at a time. Just when I thought I’d finally figured it all out, I got a letter from the IRS saying I hadn’t paid my taxes. My account was stuck in some kind of limbo — they had my contact information, but their records didn’t list me as the owner, so I couldn’t even access the portal to fix it. It took two more months to untangle. All told, it was about a year and a half of paperwork and learning before things were actually sorted.
And then, of course, there was the baby. He was four months old when I did my first farmers’ market with him in the sling, alongside a three- and five-year-old at home. Baking while raising three boys, with my husband at work and no family or friends nearby to lean on, was genuinely hard. But baking was also the thing that kept me sane — something that was mine, in between the diapers and the sleepless nights.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Slovenian baked goods are the heart of everything I do — traditional recipes I grew up on, made the way my family always made them, in small batches from scratch.
My signature piece is Walnut Potica, Slovenia’s most iconic celebration bread — a rolled yeast cake with a rich walnut filling that takes real time and technique to get right. Alongside that, I make hand-stretched Apple Strudel, Breskvice — delicate shortbread cookies shaped and decorated to look like little peaches — and Kremšnita, our beloved vanilla cream cake, along with rotating seasonal specialties.
But I don’t think of myself as just a baker. I think of myself as a cultural ambassador — someone keeping Slovenian food traditions alive in a place that had never really tasted them before. Most of what I sell isn’t in any American bakery case. When someone bites into a breskvica for the first time, or tells me it reminds them of something their Czech or Polish grandmother used to make, that’s the moment I’m working for. Food carries memory, and I love being the person who hands that memory back to someone, or introduces it to them for the first time.
What sets me apart is that specificity. I’m not making a general “European-style” pastry — I’m making the exact recipes, techniques, and shapes that come from one particular country and one particular family history. Nobody else in this area is doing that.
What I’m most proud of, though, goes beyond the bakery itself. I’ve lived in four different countries, and in three of them I’ve built my own business from the ground up — each one successful. I did that as a single woman in one chapter, and with two or three young children in others, learning new cultures, new languages, new rules every single time. I had support from family and friends along the way, and I’m grateful for that — but the work itself, the resilience, the determination to keep learning and keep achieving no matter what situation I landed in, that was mine alone. That’s what I’m proudest of. Maja’s Magic isn’t a one-time success story — it’s proof of a pattern.
Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
If there’s one thing I’d tell anyone thinking about building something from scratch, it’s this: just start. Don’t wait for the perfect moment, or for everything to be sorted out first — because it never fully is. You figure most of it out step by step, along the way. There’s a frame hanging above my desk that I found through a Buy Nothing group, and it says, “Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” That’s really how it works. You take the step you can see, and the next one shows up once you’re standing there.
Beyond that, I’d just say that food is one of the most honest ways we have of connecting with each other. You don’t need to be Slovenian to understand what it feels like to bite into something and suddenly be somewhere else — a grandmother’s kitchen, a country you’ve never visited, a memory you didn’t know you still had. That’s what I’m really offering, beyond the potica and the strudel.
If you’re ever in the Kansas City area, come find me at the Merriam Farmers’ Market or the Treat Shed in Olathe. I’d love to hand you a piece of Slovenia myself.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://majasmagic.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/majasmagic/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089385387220
