Peyton Viane is decorating an elaborate cake, with glitter, sprinkles, mermaid tails and pearls.
Like many people – she started baking last year during the first coronavirus lockdown "because of the boredom at first."
But – unlike many – her hobby has become a fully blown business.
She’s grown a following of nearly 20 thousand to her Instagram account, has more cake orders than she can bake, and has even earned enough to buy herself the car she wanted.
She can’t quite drive it yet – because she’s done all this…and is only 15 years old!
Peyton says she gets around nine cake orders a week and she fits making her bakes between school studies – but the bakes no longer fit inside their Oak Park home.
Peyton uses a second refrigerator in her garage to store her cake orders ready for customers to collect and a lot of sticks of butter.
"Each cakes uses a full pack of those. I go though butter like candy."
She says she started baking in February 2020 and encouraged her siblings to tell their friends to buy her cookies.
She graduated to baking cakes and by summer this year, says she realized it was getting serious.
Her mom, Holly, welcomes the take-over of her kitchen.
"I don't do anything. I don't ever have to clean anything," she says of her daughter.
This teen business owner may have the car she wants on the driveway ready for her 16th birthday in February, but she’s been putting her profits to good causes.
"I got nominated for student of the year with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society so a lot of my money goes towards that cause."
As to whether she will continue her career as a baker? She says she wants to do science and math at college, so baking is just – well – the icing on the cake.
