The Story of Us

Hello! We are starting our blog off with a story of us, as these will be called our "Sweet Stories". These stories will be in no particular order (you're welcome) and will help you know us better and what we do here. We mostly do cake and pop tarts, oh, and wedding cakes. But also bread and pies and boxes of the month, which are new and give us a lot of joy so maybe order one and give us some feedback... they are available every month as the name suggests!

But as for us, I guess you need to know that Eaton Sweets isn't so much an "us" as an "I". It's a one woman show around here and its run by little old me. I am a 23 year old Pastry Chef who got into this industry a little early and a little late. Early because I was given a Pastry Chef position at barely 20, and late because before I went to pastry school I had never even made a biscuit or muffin from scratch. I still remember my first day in the kitchen at pastry school, we had to pair off and make either (ahem) biscuits, or muffins. I didn't even know what cutting in butter was and I realized that maybe I should've picked a profession that I knew literally anything about. BUT, I went home that day and did a deep dive into the history of biscuits and somehow came back to the realization that this was a career made for me after six hours of being glued into a google search about biscuits.

I just decided that I could learn as I go, and no matter what, everything would turn out "fine". That became my mantra! Curdled anglaise, fine, get me a food processor to fix it. Butter too warm in laminating, fine, freeze it for 20 more minutes and keep going. Requisitioned too little gelatin for a mousse, fine, change the water ratio so it's more concentrated to start. I somehow learned to roll with the punches, and by some miracle everything really did turn out fine (mostly). It made me develop instincts and it made me prepared to take my Pastry Chefs position the week I graduated pastry school.

I never really liked the feeling of being thrown into the deep end, I hate sinking and falling sensations. It's the reason I never liked roller coasters. But being a pastry chef completely threw me and remade me. I was able to find my "pastry voice" if you will and I just embraced my love of sprinkles. Even after that job I had more of a clarity in the kitchen and a confidence in my wins or my mistakes. Believe me, there are always many mistakes.

I still don't really know how I decided I should work in pastry. We have a family friend who used to have a restaurant, and working there was my first job. I got to help with caterings when I was in High School and it was good money for a few hours of work so I enjoyed it immensely. Somewhere in there I decided that I liked the work, but would prefer to be covered in sugar rather than aioli. And here we are!

So, Eaton Sweets, it was my way to still do my own thing and use my extra creativity after I graduated pastry school. I graduated pastry school in 2017 and here we are now, serving sweets all year round to our lovely clients! It hasn't been easy and it's been the biggest learning curve ever, but I wouldn't change a second of it. Getting to a point where I've been able to do this full time has been a joy, and man oh man are there so many sprinkles!

So that's me, for now. Nice to meet ya... my name's Hannah Eaton and I'm the "I" behind the "us".