Nothing excites vegan baker Sierra Maust more than getting to bake, assemble, decorate and deliver vegan cakes to her local customers.
Maust is the 21-year-old baker behind Doux Natural Bakery. She started her business in 2016, a year after she adopted a vegan lifestyle.
After Maust became vegan, she focused on making recipes she loved, but transforming them to be vegan-friendly. After sharing her vegan recipes on social media, she began receiving order requests from people who were either vegan or lived with certain food intolerances. In August 2016, she started her Etsy shop to sell vegan and gluten-free cakes, chocolate chip cookies, cake pops and breads.
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“I’ve never found something so interesting that I could literally do it every day, all day and never get bored,” Maust says about baking.
With Mardi Gras season underway, she decided to recreate one of her favorite king cakes from Sucré, the dessert shop in New Orleans.
Maust says unlike most dry and dull king cakes she’s tried, she wanted hers to be rich and buttery. After three test batches, she perfected her vegan king cake recipe using vegan butter for moist dough, cinnamon, vegan pecan cream cheese and a raspberry and strawberry filling.
“It’s so satisfactory when it comes out perfect … the whole process is like some game,” Maust says. “It’s totally a science.”
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King cakes aren’t the only thing Maust is baking this season. In addition to Doux Natural Bakery’s online store, she sells cookies, banana nut breads, zucchini breads and a variety of cupcakes at the Red Stick Farmers Market.
While the demand for Doux Natural Bakery is growing quickly, Maust says she plans to focus heavily on building relationships and interacting with her local customers. In the future, she says she eventually hopes to open a bakery storefront.
Doux Natural Bakery will stop taking orders for vegan king cakes on Feb. 25. Place your order at douxnaturalbakery.com.