Melanie Moss, owner of Mini Melanie cakes and truffles, tells us about celebrity chef internships, baking in New York and knowing your competition.
AT MINI MELANIE, WE CREATE CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES AND CAKES THAT ARE JUST AS BEAUTIFUL AS THEY ARE DELICIOUS.
Check out her Valentine’s Day goodies!
Show notes for episode 13:
Where to find Mini Melanie:
Melanie Moss, Founder / Pastry Chef of Mini Melanie
https://www.instagram.com/minimelanienyc/
Classes that Melanie teaches:
https://minimelanie.com/pages/classes
What Melanie said:
I thought I would be getting a job in food journalism afterwards, I never thought i would be having my own bakery at the time [ I was going to culinary school ]
But I loved the fast pace of producing food, and once I started doing an internship in culinary school, I said “yes, this is for me.”
Internships:
Internship at Babbo in NYC – Mario Batali’s restaurant and she got hired there as her first job.
Another internship at Pat LaFrieda – Butcher
*I said Ted Barber and his name is actually Dan Barber at Blue Hill Stone Barns
Bites of knowledge:
I really wanted to be my own boss and I was kinda tired of being bossed around by male chefs. I learned so much and could have kept going, but really had this entrepreneurial spirit about me.
I really wanted to create something new and different in New York. I wanted to create a dessert that is really classic on the inside, but super beautiful and eye catching on the outside.
The hardest part was coming up with the concept and the brand – listening to what others are telling you and at the same time trusting your gut.
There was trial and error, but I learned a lot about how to work with chocolate from my internships.
It’s so important to seek out the right help and not feel like you can do everything for yourself because the more staff I’ve incorporated into the business, the faster and stronger we’ve grown.
Owning Mini Melanie has been like a crash course MBA.
I’ve taken advice from anyone in my network that I can, used my instincts
Operations has always been a struggle as well as staffing, there’s a lot of turnover and movement with staff. So I’m in that process of restructuring how the kitchen runs… there’s plenty of challenges along the way.
Customer service and the product itself is the easiest part.
Headspace https://www.headspace.com/, exercise and seeing her family is what helps Melanie keep her cool in times of stress.
Owning a business and owning a business where you are creating a physical product, it’s a lot of work.That’s why it’s important to be concise. Stick to your product line that you’ve perfected.
https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/croquembouche
The biggest thing is really doing your due diligence and doing a lot of research. I could have probably made things easier on myself and expanded my research phase. It’s so important to know your market and your competition and know what else is out there so that you can be sure that after all this work you’ll know you’ll have success.
For someone who wants to go into the food business I would just say that it’s really really not easy. It’s really physically demanding but endlessly rewarding if it’s something that you love.
It can look super glamorous on tv, but it’s a lot of taking out the garbage out.
Where to find Darlene
Pickle Jar Studios website
Pickle Jar Studios on Instagram
Tough Cookie on Instagram
Pinterest