Mya Steinhauer, a Blue Earth Area senior, is owner and operator of her very own baking business: Sweets By Mya.

How does a favorite hobby become a profitable business? 

For Mya Steinhauer, it all started with a coffee crew’s sweet tooth.

A few years ago, the Blue Earth Area senior was asked to supply cookies for the coffee crew which meets regularly at Julie’s Bar and Grill in Frost.

The coffee crew expected Steinhauer would make standard cookie fare – monster cookies or sugar cookies, perhaps. However, Steinhauer decided to go all-out on her first cookie commission, and she brought elaborately-decorated cookies to Julie’s Bar and Grill throughout the month of December.

“I loved seeing how much they loved (the cookies),” Steinhauer says, recalling that the coffee crew wrote her an appreciative card when the month was up. “Food is my favorite thing, and I love making it for people.” 

Once Steinhauer had discovered her calling, Sweets By Mya, Steinhauer’s Frost-based baking business, was born.

Up until this point, Steinhauer had primarily baked for her family – her parents, Dan and Danielle Steinhauer, and brother, Mason. She truly began to test the limits of what she could do during the long, empty days of COVID quarantine.

Now, Steinhauer still bakes in her family’s kitchen, but she does it as an established business owner and operator.

Sweets By Mya has already gotten plenty of traffic from community members seeking sweet treats. Steinhauer says she gets asked to make birthday cakes and cupcakes two or three times a month, and she also produces big, holiday-themed batch bakes during the most festive times of year.

Last Thanksgiving, Steinhauer hit a home run with a pumpkin-themed batch bake, receiving rave reviews from customers who sampled her famous pumpkin pie bites.

Steinhauer also produced a cupcake sampler last Easter, offering five flavors of cupcakes in a single box.

Some holidays, Steinhauer teams up with her mentor and employer, Lacey Hassing of Lacey’s Catering in Wells, rather than making her own treats. Lately, Steinhauer has been assisting Hassing with her biggest holiday rushes during Christmastime and Valentine’s Day.

In turn, Hassing gives her mentee a helping hand by offering advice on pricing, and lending Steinhauer her kitchen space when Sweets by Mya’s commissions expand beyond the Steinhauer family kitchen’s capabilities.

So far, Steinhauer’s most demanding project has been a wedding.

“I definitely needed to use Lacey’s kitchen for that,” she laughs.

In Hassing’s kitchen, Steinhauer crafted 500 cupcakes and a wedding cake.

“It was really fun,” Steinhauer says. “I helped cater the wedding too, and people came up to me and said how much they liked the cupcakes.” 

Steinhauer estimates that her cupcakes are one of her most popular items, although her Thanksgiving pumpkin pie bites were also in high demand.

With her eye on the future, Steinhauer has been adding to her repository of decorating techniques recently. She has been practicing the intricate piping required for decorating cakes and the trendy ‘flood icing’ technique for sugar cookies.

Her goals for Sweets by Mya also include expanding her marketing efforts, and, hopefully, maintaining it as a profitable side business in the years to come.

However, Steinhauer’s plans for the future extend beyond baking, too. Next year, she intends to study dietetics at Iowa State University. Dietetics – the study of food and nutrition sciences – had a draw for Steinhauer, who expresses an interest in both food and health.

She will no doubt keep baking on the side, though.

“It’s a fun way to be creative, and it’s a fun way to make money,” Steinhauer explains. “It’s definitely my creative outlet.” 

Steinhauer takes orders on her Facebook page @Sweets By Mya, and she can also be contacted by phone at 507-525-8762.