With a swift swipe of her hand, the piping bag moves with ease. Precise lines lay gently around a flawless sugar cookie, detailing designs that are perfectly replicated using a projector. Drawers filled with an assortment of glitters, sprinkles, cake garnishes, and cookie add-ons; a refrigerator filled with piles of icing bags, all varying colors; a visibly loved and used stand mixer that years of orders have been created from. A home adapted perfectly for a baker.
In her home kitchen, sophomore Halie Lessly, six years into the craft, decorates her next order in calming focus, eyes unwavering from the dessert. Alone with her icing, batter, and passion, Halie is simply happy.
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Since Halie was 10, she has been doing what she discovered is more than just a hobby. After being gifted baking supplies from her mom’s baker friends, Halie tried them out. From the peace, satisfaction, and creative outlet baking allowed her to have, Halie fell in love. As is the case for most hobbies, her skills had a lot of room for improvement when she initially started.
“I started out really bad,” Halie said. “I don’t even know how I got better. I think the more I bake, the more my skills will improve. I can already see a difference from the beginning of the year to now. I hope it evolves into something I can do for the rest of my life.”
She first got the idea for starting a business after her aunt and grandmother’s encouragement to start selling her baked goods. With support from her friends and family, Halie’s business, Halie’s Sweet Treats, was able to take off.
“I am so blessed to have such a close family,” Halie said. “My mom and her older sister, Angela, have done so much promoting for me. I think my aunt was actually my first customer.”
Halie’s business gets a lot of attention on Facebook when her aunt posts her work. Around a year after she started, Halie started gaining more customers. Halie’s soccer coach, Coach Emily Klein, bought cookies from her before they even met.
“Her younger sister came to [volleyball] camp and brought us cake pops she had made, so I just wanted to support her small business,” Klein said. “She made cookies for me to give as gifts. I have had her cookies and her cake pops and they are both incredible.”
Now 16, Halie does not like to tell her classmates at school about her business, compared to when she was in middle school when she used to talk about it often.
“I think now that I’m older and more self-conscious about opinions on my baking, I’m so scared to tell others for fear of disappointment,” Halie said. “I have had a couple of customers in the past that saw what I had made and refused to pick them up and pay for all my hard work.”
Though she owns a business, she is still a teenager and a student at her core. She wants people to see her as capable of quality work, but also wants understanding for her imperfections, something that every person has.
“I want others to realize I am not a professional and I am a teenager who still spends my whole day at school,” Halie said. “But I also don’t want others to think less of me just because I’m not an adult. After these past few months and seeing a big improvement I might start telling others more about it.”
Now that Halie has established a well-rooted business, she’s learning to balance her life as a student and business owner. She offers advice for future teenage entrepreneurs.
“I would definitely tell them to just go for it,” Halie said. “When you’re first starting out, success and progress may not start immediately—it definitely took some time with me. Just keep with it and if it doesn’t end up working out, no worries, at least you’ve got some experience in the real world and how businesses operate. And if it does end up working out even better.”
Halie also juggles playing soccer on top of business owning. She has been on the JV2 soccer team since last year as a freshman. According to Klein, Halie’s contributions both on and off the field have positively impacted the team’s season.
“She was always working to make not only herself better but her teammates as well,” Klein said. “She contributed in a lot of ways, but holding her teammates accountable as well as just her kind heart were two big things. Any one that is in Halie’s presence becomes a better person and it really showed on our team last year.”
However, at the end of the year, Halie tore her left ACL during a soccer game outside of school, ending her spring season early. Just two weeks after her surgery, Halie pushed through to complete an order that had been placed months before, with a stool to prop up her injured leg. Past the adversity and even still in recovery, Halie looks back on the experience as a life lesson.
“The surgery has taught me that I can persevere through hard times that I never would have thought I could if I hadn’t been through them,” Halie said. “I am still in the process of healing, mentally and physically. Lots of praying [helped me] get through it, and baking as a distraction to the pain.”
Halie also takes advanced honors classes, so managing a balanced life has been difficult for her to find since some orders take at least a week to make, making it challenging to also complete school work and focus on soccer. Her business and passion has taught her many things.
“Baking has definitely helped me work on my patience and time management,” Halie said. “A lot of times, things that you think will turn out great completely backfires, and it’s really frustrating. But I had to learn to go with the flow and quickly come up with a new idea.”
Halie’s future is undecided, but one thing’s for sure; baking will stay a part of her life for a long time. She aims to open a bakery with a business major in college. For now, she’s still in the process of solidifying her future decisions. As a sophomore, she’s just focused on her school and keeping her small business going.
“She has had so many customers who are completely blown away by her talent and are so incredibly happy when they pick up their order,” Halie’s mother said. “I don’t want her to ever forget the happiness and joy she is bringing to others by what she makes. If she can spread that same happiness to people all the time, with or without her baking, that is what life is all about.”
As time moves forward, Halie’s Sweet Treats unceasingly grows. The business’s Instagram page currently has almost 200 posts, the first post being from 2022, which showcases many of Halie’s works. With hundreds of followers, Halie is able to promote her business and take in orders through a form on this account. Her growth and improvement is documented from post to post.
Support from the important community around her along with her genuine passion and faith has driven her business to its current success and progress. Though she runs into adversity often, her love for baking trumps it all.
“It’s really just what makes me happiest,” Halie said. “It just feels good in my soul. It’s very stressful, but it’s worth it, especially after seeing when it’s finished. It definitely feels like I am doing what I was born to do.”
