After a long day at school, sophomore Daniela Hernandez gets right back to work pulling out flour, sugar, butter and an assortment of other ingredients. Measuring out dry ingredients, mixing the batter, and icing sweets, as she diligently bakes and frosts her cupcakes to order, she is finally done for the day.

Cooking the day before Valentine’s Day, the start of her business began when she baked too many cupcakes one night and after consulting a friend, she decided to sell them the next day. 

“[I have struggled with] baking so much like making a bunch of cupcakes, frosting, making frosting, doubling, tripling recipes, figuring out temperatures and timing,” Hernandez said. “Along with transportation and how I’m going to get them to school, I bought a new cupcake container to make it easier to carry around. It turns out it was too shallow and the cupcakes didn’t stay in place. When I went to look at them because someone wanted to buy one, they were a mess and all fell over. It sucked because I worked really hard on that batch and it was the biggest one I’d made. Some people were still nice and bought them. But I ended up just giving them to anyone who wanted one in exchange for feedback on what to change, and I got good feedback so it was worth it.” 

Being unable to sell her sweets on campus has made it difficult for Hernandez. She has moved her sales online and reworked her original plan to follow school guidelines and be most efficient.

“I’m figuring out the logo, transportation, how many orders I get put in and stuff like that,” Hernandez said. “In the future, I’ll probably have a website so you could order from there. The name I’ve decided on is ‘Dani’s Delightful Sweets.’ I make cookies, cupcakes, and cakes. I do know how to make other specific pastries but I want to start off small before I overload myself with that amount of work. Thats what I’ve decided on, for now, I might change in the future but that’s what I’ve got so far.”

IMG_20220303_120024_446

IMG_20220303_120019_986

IMG_20220303_120008_086

IMG_20220303_120003_894

 

Finding inspiration from her childhood, Hernandez made her dream come to life.

“I have always been into baking ever since I was a kid,” Hernandez said. “I [baked with] my Grandma and it had always kind of been like an idea in the back of my head. To start a bakery or a business or something like that and then one day I was just baking for fun and decorated cupcakes and it started.”

Despite a few minor struggles, Hernandez has quickly figured out what works best for her. 

“I’ve kind of just been starting to get into a routine of how to bake,” Hernandez said. “Before I was like, ‘I’m going to grab the flour. Let me grab the sugar. Let me grab this let me grab that.’ Now instead I go ‘What do I need or and the measurements? Let me pour it out in the little bowls. Then mix it and have everything figured out beforehand.’ I’ve just been taking them by order so it’s a lot easier and I don’t have to bake as much as I did before.”

As she moves forward, Hernandez has also managed to find a balance between school and work. At first, she was overwhelmed with the number of orders, but now she has learned and limited her sales to preorder to catch up with the demand.

“It’s given me an outlet to take any stress or anything that I have and just put it into something and get something out of it,” Hernandez said. “I know a lot of people are like ‘Oh, I bake with love, I take my time,’ like no, I bake with stress. I bake with anger and it makes them great. I get to take all of the energy that I have stored up in any sort of way and put it into a different form and people can enjoy it. ”