We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ashley St. Aubin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ashley, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

The idea of Pinup Desserts came from my love of baking and wanting to offer people something that is fresh baked and customized just for them. I have always loved baking, and after practically everyone I knew told me I should start my own business, I found a way to do it! I got an LLC in May of 2018 and started slowly picking up jobs on the side of my “9-5” where I worked at a nearby Hotel Restaurant. When COVID hit, I decided to step away from the hotel and focus on solely my small at home bakery and working on other creative hobbies. As for my offerings at Pinup Desserts, I do it all! When I bake for myself I’m love creating something that screams “me” and matches my personality and current tastes (it changes daily!) and I thought others should have that chance too. My specialty is making customized desserts intended to blow away the person being celebrated and possibly offer others a new taste, flavor combination, or a new spin on an old classic. My favorite question to ask my clients is “What are your 2 favorite desserts of all time?” Or “What 2 sweet flavors are you craving right now?” I can usually find something in the answers to create just what that person will love, in the form of cake, cookie, pie, or anything you can think of really. One example would be my Birthday cake this year: 2 layers of Italian Cream Cake and a center layer of Strawberry Cake filled with fresh sliced strawberries and homemade old fashioned strawberry jam and iced with cream cheese buttercream. The simple answer is, I love creating and above all else making others happy. Baking allows me to make something that is enjoyable in taste and experience, so if feels very fulfilling.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Ashley, and I am a natural Chef and learned Baker and Pastry Chef. I started my first job in the restaurant industry at 16 as a hostess and worked my way through most of the front of house positions you could acquire. I always had a love for cooking, but baking really lit me up and became my main passion. I finally found a chef that gave me a chance to prove myself and started working in the kitchen of a Country Club. From there I went on to work at different restaurants, Country Clubs, and Hotels throughout DFW area. I would offer to make cakes for co-workers and friends, and eventually started the concept Pinup Desserts back around 2014. Pinup Desserts is a fun and creative way to explore all of the sweet flavor combinations I wanted to try, and also offer customized treats that are delicious and inspiring. I love making desserts for clients that can be nostalgic like grandma used to make, or even something they may have never had before. In 2020 I went to working full time as a Home Baker and I’ve loved the opportunity to grow my small business and be around more often with my Husband and our 2 dogs.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

In the beginning I definitely felt the need to “fit in” and offer a lot of different options, probably too many, to make sure I could take on any and every customer that came my way. I took a lower pay rate and offered my items at a very much lower rate than I should have asked for, and I even took jobs that I maybe shouldn’t have due to my lack of experience with that specific item. In this journey I have learned that there will absolutely be things you cannot control, like the Macarons that just won’t work with you due to humidity, but if you focus on what you can control, you’re more likely to succeed. It took a while for me to learn that I didn’t have to take every job that came my way, and I started charging what I was actually worth. I have had so many more satisfied, and returning, clients by focusing on my strengths instead of trying to take it all on.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

My big pivot came like a lot of others’ did; Covid happened. I was working full time, and felt like I wanted more time to Bake and work on my home bakery, while getting the added bonus of spending more time with my husband and 2 dogs. After the initial shock of everything changing at once, I started to be able to focus on what was really important to me. I spent my time working on new recipes and trying to perfect old ones. I took longer walks with my husband and dogs and we talked about flavor combinations and new desserts I could make. I was slowly able to focus more and more on Pinup Desserts, and I’m grateful to be able to have my business as my sole job now and spend more time doing the things I love The change was interesting, and at times difficult, but it made all the difference in my quality of life.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.pinupdesserts.net
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pinupdesserts/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/PinupDesserts/