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 with the trends, despite the fact that these viral fads have resulted in new burn scars on her hands. She makes her own sugar syrups from scratch, adds a variety of flavor extracts and rolls them into bright candies. The resulting confections are electric blue, hot pink or neon green.
“I always tell people, ‘I hope you have a good dentist,'” Beaudoin said. “I bit into one and thought my tooth was going to crack. But people really love it.”
Dentists might also need to be on call for her more classic seasonal treats: candy and caramel apples. Beaudoin coats local apples in a thin layer of caramel, chocolate or a bit of both and rolls them in salty peanuts. She also makes a bright-red candy apple, of course, and a cotton candy one that’s almost galactic in color and shine.
“I’m just playing around and seeing what people like,” she said.
Beaudoin will soon move on to cheesecakes for Thanksgiving, in flavors such as white chocolate-raspberry, strawberry crunch, pumpkin or apple crisp. But Halloween baking is the most fun, she said, especially when customers give her creative freedom. Last year, she topped three dozen cupcakes for one party with shards of glassy sugar dripping with liquid candy blood.
They were almost too spooky to eat.
Learn more at mamaskitchenvt.com.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Spooky Sweets | Enosburgh-based Mamas Kitchen delivers Halloween treats and viral candies”
Related Stories
This article appears in Oct 30 – Nov 5, 2024.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
