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Community Corner

St. Michael Mom Follows Her "Sweet Dreams" to Cupcakes

Nellie Jans of St. Michael recently started her own cupcake business, Sweet Dream Cupcakes.

Nellie Jans didn't always enjoy baking like she does these days. "I've always liked cooking but it was just in the last couple years I really started enjoying baking," she said earlier this week. This past year when people asked her what she wanted to do, she would tell them she wanted to decorate cupcakes.

With that desire, Jans, a St. Michael mom of two, started playing around with cupcake recipes and giving people samples of her creations. Friends started asking her to make cupcakes for their events and pretty soon a business was born.

Her specialty cupcakes started spreading through the community at grad parties, baby showers and end of the season banquets.

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"It's really been a lot of word of mouth," Jans said.

All of her 25 plus recipes are homemade and she's even started doing some gluten free options yet she's never had formal training.

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"It's trial and error and a lot of monkeying around," she said.

Her flavors vary from classics like chocolate, vanilla and Red Velvet to specialty flavors like Brownie Overload and Strawberry Lemonade.

Her family members are turning into walking billboards and cupcake critics. "I like all the flavors and get excited about the new creations," her husband said.

While Jans is truly passionate about cupcakes and her newfound business, she still wants to keep it simple and small and plans to continue doing it on the side.

It's quite a time consuming side job though. Typical orders for grad parties or other events are around 12 dozen. Making, baking and decorating 12 dozen cupcakes takes 8 hours. Add in the summer weather and she's really had to figure out the right temperature inside her house while baking.

Her menu and assortment of cupcakes can all be seen on her website along with her pricing. In the meantime, she'll continue taking things, "one cupcake at a time."

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