“I also need to give credit to Martha Stewart. I started getting a subscription to her magazine when I was about 15 years old. Martha Stewart made me feel like, ‘I just want to make stuff.’”
Bio:
Cake designer. Creator of all things delicious.
TITLE:
Owner at Stellar Sweets
Age:
28
Location:
Highlands
Contact:
How did you get started as a maker?
I think I knew, because I hated school, that I would also hate what would also come after that. I didn’t want a 9-to-5 job, so I had to find a way to be creative, make money, and be out in the world.
I also need to give credit to Martha Stewart. I started getting a subscription to her magazine when I was about 15 years old. Martha Stewart made me feel like, “I just want to make stuff.” That was before Pinterest and all that. If you wanted to do a craft, here’s what it says to do in the magazine.
So you started off making all kinds of things, but then eventually you narrowed it down?
I started making cakes when Noah [Star’s son] turned 1. I got out my Martha Stewart special cake edition and I made one of my first cakes from scratch with all of this buttercream. It was shaped like a guitar and had licorice strings. It was really ugly.
That’s awesome that one of the first cakes you made was for your son’s first birthday.
Yeah, that was the beginning of it all. Then the second birthday was a pirate ship. And then the third birthday was a choo-choo train with all of these different cars full of candy. I think that was the year that people were like, “OK, you should go to school and learn how to do this.”
So then you went to Sullivan University?
It was pretty convenient having one of the best culinary schools right down the street. I got an associate degree there. It’s a two-year program, but I had some credit from [Jefferson Community and Technical College] when I was just kind of wandering around trying to figure out what I wanted to do.
I kind of wish that I did have a bachelor’s degree. I’d like to teach at Sullivan, but you need a bachelor’s to do that. I started on a business degree at Sullivan, but it was all corporate stuff. It wasn’t right for what I wanted to do.
Were you already doing Stellar Sweets at that point?
Before I started at Sullivan, I already had important things like the name and the logo. I had made a few things and sold them at Rainbow Blossom and gift fairs. When I finished Sullivan, I did an internship. I learned so much from that. At school, they teach you – I don’t want to say the longest way to do things, but it feels like that. There aren’t any shortcuts in school. Everything is based on European pastry arts. You can make buttercream a really easy way. They teach you the traditional way. When I went to my internship, I realized I didn’t have to be a purist. I can use some shortcuts without sacrificing the end goal.
Sullivan was also trying to be cost-efficient, so they were using shortening and preservatives, not stuff that meshed with my organic, wholesome idea of baking. They also didn’t do any cakes, so I had to do a lot of self-teaching.
Is using organic ingredients something you emphasize?
I try to use traditional ideas and flavors, but make them as wholesome as possible. Still, you can’t mess them up by using something like carob chocolate. Do you know what carob is? It’s basically fake chocolate. Growing up with Rainbow Blossom [Star’s parents own the chain], those flavors were pushed on me and I thought those were what sweets were. When I got older, I realized that you could have cookies that were made from sugar, not just honey.
Star Auerbach puts the finishing touches on some of her Stellar Sweets.
Photos by Amber Garvey/Kertis Creative.
This is a good point to talk about your mom. What were her rules for you growing up?
I was a crazy, hyperactive child. My mom would experiment with my diet to figure out what was going to be the right trick to make me not so hyper. She would go through phases where she would eliminate all fruits, or tomatoes. At some point honey and all sugar was taken out. She was trying to do what she thought was right. Plus, my parents were living in the old hippie days. It was very granola.
The problem with that is it isn’t balanced. You can’t control your child. They’re going to go to school and a friend’s house. I was like, “Give me the Twinkies!” I wanted to have what everyone else had.
Now, I could eat so much sugar and it wouldn’t even faze me. I could sit here and eat a box of chocolate. I love sugar that much. Even now, my mom will say, “Don’t eat all that sugar.”
Does your mom eat the things you make?
She’s learning to have a little more fun, but still. I make these cookies. They’re actually seven really thin cookies dipped in chocolate. They’re meant for two people to share. My mom will eat one of the seven very thin cookies and then she’ll wrap them and put them in the freezer. How could you open it and resist the urge to eat more than one?
I think she chooses to get my stuff because she wants to support me. But I also think she recognizes that I use good ingredients.
You and your sister, Summer, are training for an Olympic Triathlon right now. Could you tell me a bit about that?
We’re raising money for the [Leukemia &] Lymphoma Society. The Olympic Triathlon is swimming one mile, biking 25 miles, and running 6 miles. I feel pretty good about it. I can do each one of those activities. Can I do them all together? Sure.
We’re having a fundraiser at the end of February. My dad had lymphoma about 9 years ago, around the same time that Noah was born. Summer’s father-in-law had lymphoma around the time that she first started dating Brandon, her husband.
Since this interview will come out after the fundraiser, is there another way people can donate?
We have a page on the Team in Training website where people can donate.
Donation site:
pages.teamintraining.org/vtnt/lavatri13/rainbowracers
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