Mom turns hobby into successful business

Sylvia Chloupek is a stay-athome mom of three girls during the day and a baker at night. She has an online business called Sylvia Chloupek Desserts, making French macarons and modern buttercream cakes.

Originally from Slovakia, Sylvia Chloupek moved to Maryville with her husband, Brett Chloupek, who is an associate professor of geography at Northwest. Missing her traditional Slovakian desserts, Sylvia Chloupek decided to start baking them herself. Her baking journey started slow, dabbling here and there, she eventually decided to take on one of the hardest desserts, the macaron.

When learning how to make a macaron, she had many failed attempts. Sylvia Chloupek said they tasted good, but they were either cracked or lopsided. She would give these out to neighbors and the schools, then people started to ask her if they could order some, which was never her intention.

Before the pandemic, she started her business in January

2020 and said COVID made it easier for her. Sylvia Chloupek said people wanted contactless pickup instead of walking into a grocery store or driving all the way to St. Joseph to visit other commercial businesses. She would leave out her desserts on her doorstep for people to pick up, but she said she missed that relationship with her customers during the pandemic.

“The best part of this is meeting all these Maryville people and making the connection,” Sylvia Chloupek said.

Sylvia Chloupek went to school at the University of Nebraska-Kearney, getting a degree in business management. She was a residential assistant throughout college and always had a meal plan. When having to cook for her family, it was hard because she never gained those skills, so she was quite surprised that now she bakes and has made a business out of it.

When she decided to start selling her desserts to the community, Sylvia Chloupek said it was about a six-month process figuring things out. She wanted her label to be simple black and white, and the bow logo just made sense because putting it on her packages made it feel like a present for her customers.

Sylvia Chloupek said she wouldn’t want to open a bakery, but you can never say never. She said there are a lot of variables that go into owning a bakery, like having fresh ingredients every day, and she wouldn’t like getting up at 4 a.m. every day. Sylvia Chloupek would like to go to pastry school first to broaden her skills before she even thinks about owning a bakery.

“It’s satisfying to bring joy and bring something different, unique, tasty to people,” Sylvia Chloupek said.

What makes her desserts so special is they are made from European ingredients, which she said makes her desserts less sweet and doesn’t make you feel as sick after eating them as traditional cakes in America. They are also made with no artificial colors and flavor. Sylvia Chloupek said when someone asks for the raspberry flavor, they get the real raspberry flavor.

She offers 14 different flavors of macarons, including a few seasonal flavors like pumpkin spice. The cakes are either vanilla or chocolate with an option of 11 different buttercreams and eight signature flavor combinations. Sylvia Chloupek said her most popular cake is vanilla cake with salted buttercream.

Baking is a long process so she stays up late making orders. It also needs to be perfected in certain areas, especially macarons where everything needs to be perfect or they will come out wrong in some way. Sylvia Chloupek said it takes three and a half hours for one batch of macarons and five to seven hours of multiple days of work for cakes since it’s not one process.

Each step of baking needs to be done in a certain way: the icing, the measurements and the timing. She said she has somewhat perfected it, but still, to this day, she messes up and a batch of macarons will come out cracked, or the icing will not drip correctly.

“People think it’s so intimidating baking, if I can do it, you can do it,” Sylvia Chloupek said.

Since starting her business, Chloupek said she has learned a lot, like saying no. In the beginning, she would be open to making anything for her customers, but since she uses cer- tain ingredients and orders in bulk, it makes it easier to stick to what she can do with those ingredients.

She bakes for the St. Gregory’s Gala each year, and people can see Sylvia Chloupek at the farmers market and popups. Sylvia Chloupek also does charity events and donates her treats. She said this has given her the opportunity to get closer to the Maryville community, and she loves it here.

The hardest part about this job is being a stay-at-home mom, taking care of her youngest during the day and getting the family settled at night. When her kids go to bed at night, Sylvia Chloupek takes this time to stay up late and bake. She said it’s not something she always wants to do, but hopefully, when her youngest child starts preschool, she will hopefully have a better work-life balance.

“As a mom, you don’t get much credit or much good job,” Sylvia Chloupek said. “You put the kids to bed today great today. With baking, you know you have a finish product, and it’s nice to look at it, and you get positive feedback, and it’s rewarding.”