HOLLAND, Mich. — Three years ago, Lilly Turner didn't know how to use a knife. Now, at seventeen years old, she's creating cakes good enough for a bakery- and she's well on her way to making her own bakery too.
Turner, a high school junior from Holland, owns and operates her own bakery. It's called Lilly Jane’s Treats & Eats. She said her business really took off when she mastered the layer cake last year, but she can do it all, from buttercream frosting with caramel drizzle, to chocolate ganache, to peach crumble bars, to gluten-free treats.
Her cakes are unique in both design and ingredients. Lilly has even whipped up her own natural products for food dyes, using beets to make red and spinach to make green.
So far, her cakes have sold around West Michigan and across the country, with orders coming from Mississippi, California, Las Vegas, and Louisiana.
It's not easy work. Lilly says she has to keep the odd hours of a baker.
"I usually tend to have late night orders," she says, "and I usually like to go to sleep at six in the morning or five, when I'm done working on the order."
Fortunately, Lilly attends Michigan Connections Academy, an online school that allows her to complete lessons on her own time. Making the most of her time is an ingredient her dad has baked into her upbringing.
"As we see today, just the youth, they don't have any direction," said Mr. Turner. "You have to understand the potential that you have, you know, and just tap into it, and then let it work itself out."
While Lilly's dad played a huge role in helping her put the pieces together, Lilly had some other sources of inspiration. "My dad encouraged me a lot to that process because he told me about my grandmother and how she was a baker," said Lilly. "She experimented a lot and did concoctions of different stuff."
Lilly thinks she's been gifted some of her grandmother's baking know-how. "It's been passed on, I would say."
The recipe for success is here, and Lilly has a vision that she wants to share.
"My desire is to open up a building, have my own place, my own land. I could employ other young woman and provide job opportunities for them and other people," she says.
