Get to know IG @joshisbaking
Get to know Josh Lehenbauer, 1 of the best content creators in Cincinnati
Josh Lehenbauer’s bakery prospered in an online platform with Adobe partnerships and other major brands.
Josh Lehenbauer Figure on the inquiries list of the best Cincinnati content creators in 2025. To see the full list, click here.
A scrolling through the Instagram page of Josh Lehenbauer, native of Mason, nicknamed @joshisbaking, shows a range of crystalline food photographs competing with the tastes of New York Times Cooking (the page has even republished its work once).
Pistachio cake with strawberry butter icing, cinnamon pies with cinnamon with brown sugar and a sand-shaped cake in honor of “dune: the second part” are only some of the pastries that attracted more than 15,600 subscribers to Lehenbauer’s page.
The 33-year-old has spent the last six years to improve his skills in pastry and food photography, but he is not quite ready to engage in the creation of full-time content, he says. It started as a “lateral agitation” and that is how he remained, with Lehenbauer performing and pulling pastries in the limited hours that he has full time.
During the day, Lehenbauer works in digital marketing in a local SPA Med. But it is after work when all the magic occurs.
“ It removed a little too fast at first ”
With a diploma in electronic media from the University of Cincinnati and a work experience at Iheartradio, Lehenbauer has long studied photography and videography. But cooking came more organically.
“I have just started (the Instagram page) to keep myself responsible for learning new cooking techniques and new things. And I had fun with that.
He added that he got his mother’s cooking genes, which made wedding cakes when he was small. But he did not take the kitchen himself before 2018, when he was at the end of the twenty.
“(Cooking) really came out of nowhere for me. It was like, I had never really done it … Even having grown with that,” he said.
During the early years of @joshisbaking, Lehenbauer will share a few recipes every month. He then published videos documenting his visits to Greater Cincinnati Bakeries. And around 2020, Lehenbauer launched a blog, joshisbaking.com, to catalog all its recipes.
“When I made the blog, I said to myself:” Everyone made a blog. Everyone makes pastry orders. “So I said to myself: ‘I guess that’s what I have to do,’ ‘said Lehenbauer.” I was just a little invented as I went, because I didn’t know what to try. “
While he had become more confident in the kitchen, the big brands began to take note.
Partnerships with food brands and more
Over time, Lehenbauer has found a flow of income in his social media platform thanks to partnerships with major food brands, such as Betty Crocker.
“A large part of what I do with brands is the development of recipes, and therefore they will send me like their butter or frosting or something, and I make a recipe with it, or whatever the ingredient they are trying to push,” said Lehenbauer.
About three years ago, Lehenbauer began a partnership with Adobe Express, which came naturally since he had already used Adobe platforms to edit his photos and food videos. Thanks to this company, he attended adobe lectures and shares social media graphics that he makes using Adobe Express, another element he added to its regular content.
“I was one of the only bakers in our group of ambassadors, and many others make hand letters or graphics or photography and things like that,” he said about his time during a conference in Adobe. “So I was surrounded by a lot, and I said to myself:” Something told me that I want to do (graphics). “And so I got an iPad and started drawing.”
What is the next step for @joshisbaking?
For the future, Lehenbauer hopes to focus on the design and photo elements of his work rather than the development of the recipe.
“Now I realize that I like to make recipes, but I like to cook and edit and get more things,” he said.
In tandem with this new mission, Lehenbauer hopes to continue to find a healthy balance between his day work and his passionate project. In previous years, he would make paid partnerships with brands almost five days a week, but he has since tamed his own expectations for himself, by prioritizing his mental health.
“Now that I draw and I do other things, I’m not so worried about … trying to feed an algorithm,” he said.
Follow the catchy pastries of Lehenbauer on Instagram at @joshisbaking.
