Los Altos High School senior Katelyn Wong has a slightly different morning routine than most teenagers.
After waking up, she makes her way to the kitchen, where she pulls a macaron-topped, strawberry mousse-filled matcha cake out of the refrigerator. Pulling off a sticky note from the cake stand that reads “Do not eat,” she places the cake on a canvas and takes pictures of her creation from every angle.
Wong spends much of her time creating macarons and multi-layered mousse cakes that take hours to prepare. Her love for food and sweets has resulted in a social media following of almost 500 people, as well as an independent business.
After editing, the photos will be posted on her Instagram, @katelynsdesserts, along with a detailed caption listing the components of the treat. Wong started the account, under a different username at the time, back in 2020, originally creating it to display her digital art. After a while, she transitioned it into a baking account, starting with simple desserts such as plain cakes and cookies before moving on to more complicated desserts.
“I started baking when I was young, so I had a lot of practice with piping,” Wong said. “I learned a lot of techniques through Instagram and YouTube because I would be inspired by different people.”
There’s no elaborate story as to why she got into baking. It’s quite simple, really: she loves desserts and she loves to eat.
Wong currently posts on her Instagram account and sells some select desserts to customers who order through her website. When first starting, Wong said she got overwhelmed with the orders she received, feeling pressure to cater to everyone’s specific desires.
Now, the structure looks a little different. Each week, Wong alternates between baking cookies and cream puffs. The “dessert of the week” is available to order through her order form.
Aside from the cream puffs and cookies, Wong also creates custom-made cakes for her customers, giving them a wide array of flavors, decorations and toppings to choose from.
Wong’s close friend, Los Altos High senior Leah Tran, said that students know Wong as the “baker friend,” baking treats for every occasion or group hangout. Wong’s passion and attention to detail are evident in all the treats she makes. Whether it be making bread or specialized “How to Train Your Dragon” macarons, Wong puts time and effort into every dessert, Tran said.
“She’s very hardworking, very passionate and very talented,” Tran said. “If there’s something that she has to work for, she will do all that she can to get to it.”
To balance her business with her academic life as a high school senior, Wong said she’s taken a step back from the business now but wants to get it up and running again.
When it comes to pricing the desserts she sells, Wong takes materials and labor into account, also consulting friends and other bakeries for price points. Most of her proceeds go to Second Harvest Food Bank, where she volunteers. However, finding reasonable prices for her goods was difficult.
“As a small business owner, along with many others, I felt pressured to make things really cheap,” she said. “When I first started my business, my pricing only accounted for the materials and not even labor.”
Wong said for her, it’s important to recognize not just the price of materials, but the hard labor that goes into baking, frosting and decorating these products.
“People don’t realize the amount of work [small businesses] put in to make these unique, handcrafted items,” Wong said. “We don’t have factories to make tons of products and huge batches.”
Along with baking, Wong also has an affinity for biology and chemistry. Through her account and YouTube channel, Wong combines her love of science with baking. She has a series of videos called “The Science Behind Baking,” where she explores reactions in baked goods.
“I always wondered how my [cream puffs] were able to go from a flat dough to a giant cream puff,” Wong said. “I started researching more in-depth … I wanted to know the actual chemical reactions.”
Though she doesn’t see herself pursuing a career in culinary arts, Wong said she would love to bake in a community kitchen or join a baking club in college, as baking has allowed her to express herself creatively.
“Baking has helped me find a medium of experimentation and creativity while still having structure and requiring precision,” Wong said. “It’s exciting to try making new things and [baking] has encouraged me to step outside of my comfort zone.”
