Mamas Kitchen Bakes Halloween Treats in Enosburgh
Oct 29, 2024
Kayla Beaudoin is making all sorts of sweets for Halloween: Frankenstein mini cakes, eyeball cupcakes, graveyard brownies, candy and caramel apples, party platters with candy grapes, and cheesecake-stuffed strawberries decorated with slightly inappropriate sayings. She bakes them all in her Enosburgh home, but you don't have to come trick-or-treating to get the goodies: With her business, Mamas Kitchen, Beaudoin delivers to customers in Chittenden and Franklin counties. Beaudoin, 30, started baking 11 years ago, when she was pregnant with her first child. "I craved cupcakes," she said with a laugh. She soon turned that self-taught interest into a small business but struggled to balance the demands of a new company with those of a young family. So she took a few years off, during which time she developed her baking skills with the help of YouTube and reflected on how she could improve her customer service. When her younger child was born in 2020, childcare was hard to find, and she resumed her baking business in order to be home regularly. She got her home kitchen certified and launched Mamas Kitchen in 2022, specializing in cupcakes with ambitious flair, topped with little cookies or mini pies. Now, Mamas Kitchen's menu of treats has grown to include an astonishing variety of cheesecakes (in classic, cup and stuffed forms), dessert bars for weddings, and wild-and-crazy TikTok candy trends. (Prices range from $5 for individual cookies and cupcakes to $30 for a pound of homemade candy gushers; party platters start at $40.) Beaudoin switches her offerings weekly based on "whatever my heart desires," she said. She makes a particularly large selection for Halloween, since it's her favorite holiday. Customers — 90 percent of whom are in Chittenden County, where she grew up — place orders on her website for Wednesday or Friday delivery. "I wouldn't be in business if I didn't deliver, because it's not nearly as populated around Enosburgh," Beaudoin said, noting that she usually fills at least 20 orders per week. One of her five sisters suggested she make candied fruit after seeing ASMR-style TikToks of people making, eating and tapping on skewers of shiny, sugar-coated grapes. Some of those videos have garnered tens of millions of views, popularizing the ancient Chinese treat called tanghulu — and "Americanizing" it. Some influencers swap crystal-clear sugar for melted Jolly Ranchers. Beaudoin doesn't love making the candied fruit, but she keeps up…