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Mya Steinhauer, a senior from Blue Earth Area, owns and operates her own bakery business: Sweets By Mya.
How to turn a favorite hobby into a profitable business?
For Mya Steinhauer, it all started with a bartender’s sweet tooth.
A few years ago, a senior from the Blue Earth area was asked to serve cookies to the coffee staff who met regularly at Julie’s Bar and Grill Frost.
The coffee crew expected Steinhauer to prepare standard cookie fare — monster cookies or sugar cookies, perhaps. However, Steinhauer decided to go full-on with her first cookie commission, and brought elaborately decorated cookies to Julie’s Bar & Grill throughout the month of December.
“I loved seeing how much they liked[the cookies].” Steinhauer recalled that the coffee shop staff wrote her a thank-you card at the end of the month. “Food is something I love, and I love to prepare for people.”
Once Steinhauer discovered her calling, Sweets By Mya, Steinhauer’s Frost-based baking business, was born.
Up until this point, Steinhauer had baked primarily for her family — her parents, Dan and Danielle Steinhauer, and her brother, Mason. She began to really test the limits of what she could do during the long, empty days of the Covid quarantine.
Now, Steinhauer still bakes in her family’s kitchen, but works as the owner and operator of an established business.
Sweets By Mya has already received a lot of traffic from community members looking for sweet treats. Steinhauer said she gets asked to make birthday cakes and cupcakes two or three times a month, and during the most festive times of the year, she does a big, holiday batch of baking.
Last Thanksgiving, Steinhauer hit a home run with a pumpkin-themed batch of baking, receiving rave reviews from customers who sampled her famous pumpkin pie bites.
Steinhauer did a cupcake sampler last Passover, offering five flavored cupcakes in a box.
Some holidays, instead of doing her own catering, Steinhauer works with her mentor and employer, Lacey Hassing of Lacey’s Catering Wells. Lately, Steinhauer has been helping Hassing during her big vacations around Christmas and Valentine’s Day.
In return, Hassing lends a helping hand when the Steinhauer family’s kitchen expands beyond its capacity, advising her husband on pricing and lending Steinhauer her kitchen space through Maya commissions.
By far, Steinhauer’s most desired project is the wedding.
“I definitely had to use Leslie’s kitchen for that.” She laughs.
In Hassing’s kitchen, Steinhauer made 500 cakes and a wedding cake.
“It was a lot of fun.”Steinhauer says. “I also helped organize the wedding, and people came up to me and told me how much they loved the cupcakes.”
Steinhauer reckons her cupcakes are one of her most popular items, though her Thanksgiving Dubai bites are in high demand.
With an eye on the future, Steinhauer has recently been adding decorative techniques to her repertoire. She practiced the intricate piping required to decorate cakes and the trendy ‘flooding’ technique for sugar cookies.
Maya’s goals for Sweets include expanding her marketing efforts and, in the coming years, continuing as a profitable side business.
However, Steinhauer’s future plans extend beyond baking. She plans to study statistics at Iowa State University next year. Dietetics – the study of food and nutrition sciences – Steinhauer had a passion for food and health.
You’ll no doubt continue to bake on the side, though.
“Creating is a fun way, and it’s a fun way to make money.”Steinhauer explains. “It’s definitely my creative outlet.”
Steinhauer can be ordered on her Facebook page @Sweets By Mya and she can be reached by phone at 507-525-8762.
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