The Trey Spells: Turning a flair for eclair into a business affair
Online-based business, The Trey Spells turns the classic French dessert eclairs into various flavours and colours.
Founder of The Trey Spells, Wan Natasha Syazana Wan Shahin Hairuddin’s love language is food. She has always been in love with baking ever since she was a child.
The 22-year-old only discovered her passion for French pastries, after experimenting with different types of desserts and pastries and found out that she enjoys making eclairs, macarons, choux and croissants the most.
The business student started her business back in August 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic when most classes were online
and people had to stay home.
With more time on her hands, she decided to brush up on her baking skills and make more desserts. That is when she decided to try her luck with starting an eclair business.
The young entrepreneur decided to name the business “The Tray Spells” because the word “tray” represents the trays that the baker uses for her bakes and “spells” means the secret technique and recipe of the eclairs she has developed.
“The reason why I chose to make eclairs is because of the aesthetic and the cute long shape of the pastries topped with frostings,” said the entrepreneur.
“Unlike classic eclairs which are eclairs that are topped with chocolate ganache, my eclairs are topped with piped frostings which come with different kinds of toppings, flavours and colours that the customer desires,” said Wan Natasha.
The youthpreneur also ensures that her eclairs are also aesthetic worthy so that customers would not only be satisfied with the flavours but make them Instagramworthy.
The young baker would make sure that the product has its own aesthetic visuals, she also takes in custom orders for when customers want the eclairs in a specific colour for a special event or a gift to someone.
The Tray Spells currently only offer eclairs which come in 10 different flavours and are sold in certain boxes.
The first box is the Basic Box which is one of the best sellers and it contains five pieces of
eclairs flavoured Vanilla Walnut, Milk Chocolate, Peanut Butter, Strawberry and Matcha.
Next is the Premium Box that comes in flavours of Salted Caramel, Banana Nutella, Taro, Blueberry and Kaya Pandan.
They also have the Ferrero Box and the Biscoff Box which comes with five pieces of each flavour.
Customers can find the bakes on Instagram @thetrayspells where the baker takes pre-orders weekly and the collections will also be done weekly.
The Tray Spells’ eclairs are also being supplied to three different cafes which are at Macchiato at Digital World, Not Just Pink at the
Promenade, Sg Hanching and Cafe Hopping in Seria but the eclairs are sold by pieces and not the set.
Other than these places, the youth at times, join in on some pop-up events during her free time like her summer breaks or public holidays, to promote her business.
“I am working on a new french dessert and am still working on how to perfect and maintain the dessert to assure quality before sharing with other customers,” said the 22-year-old.
The new dessert that the entrepreneur has been working on is the Paris Brest, a French dessert that is similar to an eclair but comes in a big circular ring shape.
Like any other business, there are always challenges. However, the youthpreneur has seen these challenges as fun and learning opportunities to make herself feel and be more independent.
“The most challenging part for me is balancing my time as a baker and also as a full-time university student as both have big responsibilities on their own. But with time, I have learned so many new things from being an entrepreneur and managing my own business whilst being a student,” said the baker.
With her business, her knowledge and skills grow each and she believes that this business has a bright future ahead with all the support that she continues to receive from family, friends and customers.
The youth has shared that in business, for her, it is the passion and love towards something that is crucial to move forward to a more positive and brighter side and other than hustling to survive, hustling with passion as sincerity is the key to success.
Give this small french pastry business some support by heading over to their Instagram @ thetrayspells and join in on their weekly bakes of delicious and aesthetic eclairs.