A rising sibling-run bakery made their mark at the pop-up shop

Though Alexa Carter is quick to credit younger sister Rylie as the better baker between them, Alexa boldly launched their co-owned business in June 2024, a year and a half after conceiving of a bakery item that could only have come from a Nebraska native’s brain: the Chili-Roll. 

Yes, you read that correctly — and yes, it’s a cinnamon roll with chili baked inside.

Both sisters grew up baking in the kitchen with their stay-at-home mom on the family farm outside Rising City. As the oldest two of five children in the Carter family, they got inventive with recipes that could accommodate their younger sister who has both diabetes and celiac disease.

Now both in the Engler Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Program at UNL, they wear out the highway traveling between the family farm and Lincoln.

From May to August 2025, the two took over the Small Business Pop-up, bringing Rising Rolls Baking Company’s inventive baked goods to downtown Lincoln.

But let’s circle back to the cinnamon roll that changed everything. Alexa was attending the Nebraska Youth Beef Leadership Symposium as a 17-year-old and the groups were tasked with coming up with a new or improved food creation to pitch to a panel of judges. In their brainstorm session, Alexa asked, “Why don’t we just combine chili and cinnamon rolls?”

And it was immediately well-received, naturally. 

Not quite. Despite discouragement and pushback from her group and peers, Alexa persevered and made a prototype, all the while dreaming of marketing it to UNL for concessions. Once her group had presented, the Dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Tiffany Heng-Moss, stated boldly, “Now we’re going to pretend this is Shark Tank. I want this on campus.” 

This launched Alexa into the Engler Program, a minor program at the university focused on entrepreneurship and community building, and she was soon selling her Chili-Rolls on campus. Rylie signed her letter of intent to the program in November 2024.

“It helps that we have parents who are very supportive of our business dreams,” said Alexa, with Rylie immediately agreeing. “They’re excited for us to be able to do what we want to do.”

But let’s get down to business and talk sweets. In addition to their most famous roll, the sisters opened their stay at the Pop-up with their spring selection of cinnamon roll flavors. These included:

• Regular Cinnamon Rolls (for the traditionalists)
• Red Velvet
• Pecan Sticky
• Confetti
• Chocolate Covered Strawberry
• Apple Pie
• Maple Bacon
• Pumpkin Pie

The sisters also sold a variety of scrumptious cookies (those with an asterisk could be made gluten-free):

• Strawberry Shortcake
• Lemon Crinkle
• Easter Egg Chocolate
• Cupid’s Blend M&M*
• Red Velvet*
• Snickerdoodle*

Cake rolls were also on the product list, including: 

• Lemon Blueberry
• Chocolate Whoopie Pie
• Strawberry Shortcake
• Carrot Cake
• Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup

While they are no longer in the Pop-up,  we highly suggest following Rising Rolls Baking Company on Instagram and Facebook to see what the sisters have been baking up. You can also check out their website to view all products and place special orders.