Sweet treats teen baker’s ticket to NY
A 13-year-old self-taught baker hopes her sweet treats will take her all the way to New York.
Sammy Swan has always loved baking and started making cupcakes for friends and family two years ago.
More recently she launched her own minibusiness, Swan Bakes, to help fundraise for a musical theatre trip to New York in 2020.
The National Youth Theatre Company member and cheerleader hopes to raise more than $8000 for the trip.
“I had my first order of unicorn cupcakes for a party a while ago and since then they have been my most popular product,” Sammy said.
“I have learned a lot from that first order though and the process is getting better each time.”
The Takapuna girl has now made dozens of unique designs for more than 20 birthdays, real estate events and community fundraisers.
Her Instagram page @swan.bakes is filled with snaps, including her signature unicorn cupcakes with Swiss meringue buttercream, chocolate mermaid tails with gold lustre dust and edible glitter, and unicorn macarons.
Sammy said she is mainly self taught but gleaned skills from her big sister Sophie and a family of great bakers. Her father Matt Swan’s seven sisters all bake, as do her grandmother and godmother.
“I also watch a lot of tutorials on YouTube and get a lot of great ideas.”
The teen has a modest collection of utensils, moulds and tools and learned the hard way “you need more than one mermaid tail mould to make 24 cupcakes”.
She had also learned the importance of giving back to the community.
“She made dozens of gorgeous pink cupcakes with handmade fondant ribbons to raise funds for breast cancer awareness,” mum Penny Swan said. “It would be great if she could achieve the goal of raising money for the trip but it is also about learning life lessons.”