ENFIELD, CT — With the holiday season in full swing as the calendar turns to December, residents will be finding themselves in the busiest part of the year, with shopping, party preparation and an influx of relatives looming on the horizon.
With those elements at work, the timing is perfect for a new business to help alleviate some of those duties. Enter the Sugar Magnolia Bakery, a home-based business recently opened by Enfield native Ellen D’Angelo.
Though she is just 30, D’Angelo has a deep affinity for the music of the Grateful Dead; hence the name of her business. Since graduating from Fitchburg State University with a master’s degree in business administration, she worked with several small business startups, including a stint traveling extensively doing sales for a lumber company.
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For the past two years, she was a catering manager at Ben & Jerry’s in Canton, but in August, she decided to pursue her dream and create her own company. She then jumped through all the hoops required to start a business in Connecticut, including obtaining a trade name certificate from the town, registering as a limited liability company (LLC) with the secretary of the state’s office, and most importantly, securing a Cottage Food Operation certificate from the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection.
“I started the whole process at the end of August and then to get all the licensing in place took about a month,” she said Wednesday in an exclusive interview with Patch. “I am not formally trained in culinary arts or anything like that; I didn’t go to baking or pastry school. When I was 23 I got sober, so I needed new hobbies and I took up cake decorating. It was something that interests me, and it’s basically edible art.”
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Sugar Magnolia offers a wide variety of baked goods, from cupcakes to cookies and muffin trays to cakes. Unlike most pastry shops, D’Angelo personally delivers every order, no matter how large or small, in her “cupcake mobile.” She bought a Honda Accord from a man living near her, and upon acquiring the vehicle, she discovered a symbol she believes indicates this was meant to be.
“I spent seven hours cleaning the whole inside of it, and when I was cleaning out the trunk, I found a piece of metal which was a little bit worn away with age, but when I cleaned it up, it said ‘Ellen’ so I felt like it was meant for me,” she said.
The Honda is adorned with cupcake-themed seat covers and a sticker of dancing bears on the bumper.
Cupcakes are a specialty, ranging from standard vanilla cake with vanilla frosting and sprinkles, to more sophisticated concoctions like hot cocoa cupcakes.
“It’s a chocolate cupcake filled with marshmallow fluff, with a frosting made of hot cocoa and topped with marshmallows and a candy cane,” D’Angelo said.
Among the unique cakes she recalls creating was one for her grandmother’s birthday: a pumpkin cake with a maple frosting and decorated with winter florals. She creates goods for virtually any occasion, including birthday parties and baby showers.
In order to schedule her time wisely, including purchasing fresh ingredients and the time required to actually produce the goods, D’Angelo asks for a week’s notice on orders. She and the “cupcake mobile” deliver to communities in north-central Connecticut and western Massachusetts.
To place an order, see samples of her work or to obtain more information about Sugar Magnolia, contact D’Angelo at 860-878-2265, via email at [email protected], online at https://bakesy.shop/b/sugar-magnolia-bakery or on Instagram at @sugarmagnoliabakeryct.
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