HUMBOLDT — With years as a bakery manager behind her, it’s no wonder Stacy Avery turned to her kitchen when seeking a business venture that would allow the single mom and full-time Allen County Community College student flexibility to support her kids and her college career.
“I didn’t think there was much call for it, but I was surprised,” she said of the endeavor.
Avery, who moved to Humboldt from Atlanta in August 2009, recently established “Stacy Cakes” as a home-based baking business.
Baking suits her, she said.
“And not just because I'm my own boss. I loved it when I was at Publix,” too, she said, “because I get to be creative. It’s the best job I ever had.”
Before the 32-year-old managed the bakery for Publix Super Markets, she was a decorator in the same department, she said. Before that, she worked for Kroger supermarkets.
Avery brought her knowledge of running professional kitchens with her to southeast Kansas. But her talent lies in artistry as well as product quality.
She has made cakes shaped like John Deere tractors. Cakes iced with images of Minnie Mouse. Elegant muti-tiered wedding cakes. All start with simple shapes.
“I just start with rectangles and circles and half sheets,” Avery said. “I don’t stencil, I do everything free-hand,” she added of her sometimes elaborate designs.
As for three-dimensional cakes, those, too, are constructed from simple shapes and not baked in molds, she noted.
All that creativity is standard in her pricing.
“I do charge extra if I have to order in toys” to decorate with, she said, but otherwise, “prices are based on the size of the cake.”
In addition to cakes, Avery bakes breads, cookies and cinnamon rolls. All can be found at the Thursday night farmers market on the Iola square.
In addition, “I’m going to try to have a booth at Biblesta,” Avery said. She has already lined one up for Chanute’s Artist Alley street fair on Sept. 25.
Avery also bakes to order. Cupcakes are typically order only “because the buttercream (frosting) melts in the heat. I make my buttercream from scratch,” she added. And, “I don’t use shortening in my cookies at all, no margarine — it’s all butter.
“I’m all about quality,” Avery said. “If it’s not quality, it doesn’t leave this house.”
Working from home has a few disadvantages, Avery noted. Primary is limits to what products she can sell.
Cheesecake, meringues and custards, because of their heavy egg content, are all verboten until she acquires a licensed kitchen.
“I did check with the U.S. Department of Agriculture before I started this business to be sure of what I could sell,” she said.
“At some point, I will be licensed,” and, ideally, have a commercial kitchen and retail space to expand her product line and sell on a daily basis.
Such a venture is probably a year away, she noted, depending on how quickly she can build needed revenue and “finish with school.” Avery is working toward an associate’s degree in business management through online learning at ACCC.
“I really have to be organized with time to get it all done,” she noted.
And from all appearances, she is.
Pans are stacked and secured in glass-fronted cabinets. Under a lace-topped shelving unit, huge canisters of sprinkles, jimmies and tiny candies await use. In the kitchen, a butcher block-like table is covered with squirt bottles of food-grade colorings. Palette knives jut from a crock. It looks all the world like any artist’s table, but Avery’s canvass is cake.
“I tell people I can generally make anything but I specialize in cakes,” she said. “That’s my passion.”
AVERY FOLLOWED family to Humboldt.
In 2008, her mom, Sunny Shreeve, and her sister, Kristal Arana Leo with her four children, all moved here. Shreeve’s husband and father followed thereafter.
The family already had ties to the area, Avery said. “My grandmother was from the country between here and Elsmore,” she noted.
A year ago, Avery packed up her three kids, Jacob, 12, David, 10, and Sarah, 8, and moved to Humboldt as well.
“I don't miss the big city at all,” Avery said. “I love it here.”
She jumped right into Humboldt life.
She is involved in an after school program at Humboldt Untied Methodist Church; she is a band booster; her kids are in sports and David won the pedal pull in his age class at the Allen County Fair, she noted, allowing him to compete at the state fair in Hutchinson.
She’s also very involved in scouting, she said, and now, in Biblesta.
“The funny thing is, I don’t really bake a lot for home use,” Avery said. “If my daughter wants a cookie when we’re selling at the market, I tell her she has to buy it just like everyone else.”
Baking, after all, is business.
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