A 9-year-old “baking genius” already runs her own business and makes up to $7,200 a year in tips alone.
Lola Niski has been baking her treats since she was 3 years old, after watching her mother, Corinna Niski, 37, rustle up cakes.
She was enchanted by the TV show “Kids Baking Championship” on the Food Network and decided to try making “gravity-defying” cakes of her own.
After seeing the results of her first solo extreme bake—which included an illusion of a bag of sweets falling onto a cake—several friends and family members began asking if they could place orders with her, sparking Lola to start a tips-only business.
Now, she earns up to $600 a month with her bakery, Sweet Honey Bakes by Lola, despite baking cakes for free.
Lola has been watching her mother baking cakes for as long as she can remember. At 3 years old, when she was old enough to join in, she started asking to bake cakes on her own.
Her Mum, a special education teacher from Long Beach, New York, said: “Lola’s ability to pick up baking skills has always been uncanny. We never intended for her to start a business—we both just love baking and did it for fun.
“Lola has even had requests from friends and family to teach [them] how to bake.”
Lola already has a “signature” bake she’s spent the last six years perfecting: her peanut butter cookies.
Lola said: “I wanted to start baking because I’d been watching ‘Kids Baking Championship’—and I loved it so much. One thing I love about baking is you can experiment with math and science and still have fun.”
Ms. Niski added: “Lola got into baking because she saw me doing it and wanted to help.
“She started at about 3 or 4. Once she got a bit older, she was really motivated to take more risks on her own.”
The mom said they’ve “never thought to calculate” how much money her daughter gets because a lot of the time they don’t charge their family and friends.
“But they will tip her out of generosity. During the summer, when school is closed, she can take multiple orders a week,” Ms. Niski said. “I’d say she earns around $250 to $300 in a standard month—but when she goes to do a pop-up bakery, she’ll earn $600.”
Ms. Niski says the most popular occasion for Lola’s bakery is birthdays, but she’s also designed and baked cakes for weddings and baby showers. Lola’s friends often ask her to make them a birthday cake, which she says is her favorite part about running her own bakery.
Lola said: “It makes me feel very special when my friends always ask me to make their birthday cakes. One of my favorite things to bake for them is my signature peanut butter cookies—a chocolate fudge cookie base with a chocolate ganache and peanut butter cups on top.”
Ms. Niski says she doesn’t know whether Lola will stay in the baking business when she grows up, but a number of her school friends have asked her to teach them how to bake cakes.
“She’s certainly capable of leading a class, and I’d trust her to do so,” she said. “Whether Lola decides to continue baking or not is totally up to her. I just want her to be happy with whatever path she chooses, whether that’s baking or not.”
