Spokane baker, at age 15, has a hopping bakery business: Snak Rabbit

When Madison Stoltz began baking at age 8, she quickly layered on a creative flair for cakes and buttercream frosting.

She continued stirring up treats – cupcakes to welcome her family’s Airbnb guests and desserts for special occasions. Soon, custom orders came along. By 12, she launched her sole business, Snak Rabbit, a Spokane bakery with a playful name for snacks and a former pet bunny.

Today, the busy 15-year-old runs a hopping business out of a small home kitchen converted from a laundry room. She handles a growing number of special orders, along with sweets that she makes for small events and, more recently, treats cooked up for the Perry Street Thursday Market during most weeks this summer.

That’s all balanced around soccer tournaments, her top grades at Lewis and Clark High School and time with friends and family. Her sister Emma, 13, also plays soccer.

“My favorite thing to do is bake, and I do it in pretty much all my free time,” said Madison, who is in her school’s culinary club. “At first, I did more simple designs, and then I started playing around with buttercream decorations and flower designs. I do most of my decorations with buttercream.”

She can do more of that specialty during summers.

“Sometimes, I bake all day, and sometimes that’s a lot, but it pays off and it’s really fun most of the time.”

Mom Susannah Stoltz said Madison’s bakery business has a steady profit, and other than investing money back toward expenses, her daughter is saving that income.

From the start, she and her husband Brent Stoltz have encouraged their daughter’s hobby that has turned into entrepreneurship. In 2019, Madison made an anniversary replica cake for Susannah’s dad and stepmom’s 40th anniversary that showed off her skills. Then Madison wanted to create a bakery website.

“It was all her idea; she built the website herself, raised all the money for the domain name, the website hosting,” Susannah Stoltz said.

“She did a lot of bake sales, paid for everything, and for her Perry booth. She self-funds everything, and as parents we just wanted to support that, for her to be able to save that much money as a 12-year-old, and gain some pretty neat life skills.”

More recently, Madison has tackled elaborate layer cakes, cake pops, dessert charcuterie boards, baked goods for holidays and custom birthday cakes. She’s mastered buttercream flower decorations.

For a recent Mother’s Day event, she made miniature copycat royal wedding cakes, using the lemon-elderflower flavors created for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s cake.

“I did a networking event where I made French pastries, so profiteroles, eclairs and macarons,” she said. “For each order, I try to do stuff that’s different from what most people do. I try to research more unique flavors.”

She gets creative with flavors, fruit fillings and frostings but stays true to the recipes to make baked portions. “For the stuff that is actually baked, I follow it pretty closely so it doesn’t mess up the science.”

Last year, Madison visited all the regional farmers markets to research where she wanted to set up, and then chose the Perry one. She had to apply this past January and let organizers know about her schedule and products.

She gained a “cottage” food license, with her providing a state licensing official with a kitchen layout, labels for every cabinet, what each space stored inside and recipes.

“She had to show where the food storage is, the sanitizing, submit all the recipes, then photographs of everything,” her mom said. “Since COVID, they haven’t done personal inspections. They do the photographs and then a phone interview with the inspector, which she completed all herself prior to starting the market.”

Her kitchen, about 10-by-14 feet, has storage spaces, a huge commercial mixer and a KitchenAid mixer, double ovens, a double-burner cooktop, a microwave and dishwasher. The family converted it about three years ago.

For the Perry market, Madison says she doesn’t do her typical elaborate decorations for the quantity needed, instead focusing more on flavor. There, she has sold cupcakes, cookies, brownies, cake pops, strawberry-rhubarb quick bread and gluten-free almond tea cakes.

The recent ongoing hot days have been a challenge, but Madison had quick ideas to make it work.

“With the display, we will be doing that differently,” Madison said. “Usually, we have a lot on the table and you pick it from there, but we will put out only some for display and then keep as much in the cooler as possible.

“For the cupcakes, we’re going to freeze them before so the frosting doesn’t melt.”

Her mom and friends help Madison at the market, but stay more in the background. She plans to be there Thursday, July 25, and again on Aug. 8, 15 and 22. She lists her schedule and treats on Instagram, @snakrabbit.

Her cottage license requires her to handle the bakery’s money and most of the operations. She already has plans on where to use her growing business skills.

“I want to keep doing farmers markets and custom orders until I go to college,” Madison said. “Then, I will probably have to stop it while I’m in college. I want to get a business degree.

“After college, I want to go to culinary school, and then hopefully I can restart my baking and open up a physical bakery.”