A Rego Park resident has turned her baking hobby into a thriving business.
Carla Rodriguez, 40, owns Butterboy Baking Co., a small Filipino-owned apartment-based micro bakery. Rodriguez, a Queens resident since 2007, has always loved baking. In 2021, she started her micro bakery in her apartment during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Carla Rodriguez, 40, is a micro bakery owner, Rego Park resident, and self-taught baker. Photo by Athena Dawson.
At first, Rodriguez said she just wanted to replicate recipes she saw on social media. “ I started baking with no professional training at all. I’m just copying what they’re doing online, and I’m like, wow, this is amazing. And it’s my way of showing that I miss my family and friends because we couldn’t go out and we can’t hang out,” she said. Eventually, Rodriguez’s aunt convinced her to start selling her creations.
“ I mainly focus on cream puffs, flan cakes, which are the chiffon cake with flan on top. Most of my flavors are inspired by Filipino flavors,” she said.
Rodriguez’s baked goods were popular among her friends and family. Rodriguez said her first big break was when Filipino food blogger FoodBaby NYC featured her babka and ube flan cake in an Easter social media post in April 2021.
“I think her post got the ball rolling for Butterboy. A lot of people were coming to the apartment ordering our flan cake,” she said. By December 2021, Rodriguez went full throttle and joined a Filipino business pop-up at a local church.
Her chocolate cream puffs and crème brûlées drew the organizer’s attention, who requested that she make a croquembouche, a cream puff tower stabilized and decorated with caramel. Rodriquez said she was up for the challenge, as she had never made a croquembuche before.
Rodriguez said she wants to open a cafe in the future, where she can host community events, cooking and pastry classes, and sell her baked goods. Presently, Rodriguez has been hosting croquembouche decorating classes throughout Queens for anyone interested.
In August, she hosted her third croquembouche decorating class at the Yant Art Space in Forest Hills, uniting a small group of women of various backgrounds to learn how to fill cream puffs and build the intricate decorated towers.
During the class, the women watched Rodriguez demonstrate how to melt sugar into a stable caramel, carefully dip the cream puffs into the caramel, and gingerly arrange them into the croqembouche’s iconic tower.
“I came to the class because I love baking and connecting with people, and I had never made a croquembouche before, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to learn and connect with people,” said Flora Pierre, who lives in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. “ I enjoyed the class alot and building it and being artistic,” she added.
Julie Mak, a Forest Hills local, said she previously enjoyed Rodriguez’s pastries and was excited to join her class. “ I love creating things, whether it’s with flowers and desserts or just meeting people in the neighborhood,” she said.
