Young northsider started love of baking at four years old with a blueberry pie
Macaroons and cookies and cakes – oh, my!
Nine-year-old Andrew Clark – or The Chef Andrew as he is known on social media – is learning to make all of the above in his own creative way.
The Madison native began baking at a young age. His interest was piqued when he and his mom, Kristi, watched cooking shows together.
Then, one day, he decided he would start making desserts for family Thanksgiving. At four years old, he baked his first blueberry pie.
The next year, when he turned five, he wanted to bake some cupcakes for Valentine’s Day.
“Mom told me, ‘I don’t know how to do it, but you can try,’ ” he said. And his love for baking was born.
“I did it, and it kind of turned out,” he added, recalling his first cake baking experience. “I started by following a recipe. I like to follow a recipe. I like for everything to be like it looks in the photos, but sometimes it doesn’t turn out that way. If it doesn’t work, we have to come up with something else.”
He added that it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t turn out perfectly. He has learned to make it work.
He likes to visit Campbell’s Bakery, and the owner tastes his treats and gives him advice, including tips and tricks to get better.
“Me and him kind of chat baking,” he said. “I’ll bring him stuff, and he will give me tips on how to do it.”
The owner told him that he must first master baking a chocolate chip cookie, since it is one of the simplest items to bake.
“He said that if he couldn’t master a chocolate chip cookie, then most people won’t want to try anything else,” Kristi said. “So, he made sure to get that down pat.”
Clark comes up with all of his own creative cake design ideas.
One of his favorite items that he has created is a pirate ship cake, where he iced the cake in blue, but made pirate ships out of chocolate. He drizzled the chocolate into the shape of a ship.
Another favorite is a Peppa Pig theme cake he designed and decorated.
“I love making caramel because it’s my favorite candy,” he said. “I also made a weather cake. It had rain, tornadoes, jolly ranchers melted down in the oven, cracked it up and used it as the sun on the cake. I made fondant out of marshmallows and filled the cake with skittles. All I had to do was take a cookie cutter and cut it in the middle and then put butter cream and stacked the skittles so when you cut it open it rains out skittles.”
Macaroons was one of his most challenging creations. He said it took him a few tries to get it right.
“When I brought the tray out, I had to show my mom,” Clark said. “We were (excited) because it was my time to master it. We put it in the oven and it really turned out. I put whipped cream in the middle. We made vanilla to begin with because we didn’t want to risk it.”
The next time, he made chocolate macaroons with a strawberry butter cream in the middle.
Clark takes orders for his creations. He has an order coming up in September for a “naked” wedding cake, complete with flower details.
Clark also sells his sweet treats at the farmer’s market, which he has done for the past two years. He has given the profits to a neighbor with cancer to help pay medical bills.
Kristi said when he found out that there were children who didn’t have school supplies to start back to school, he sold sweets and is donating the money for school supplies.
Since Clark loves to spend his time creating new things in the kitchen, the family often invites friends and family over to help eat.
“He will make a cake because he loves to bake, and I’m like we can’t just have a four-layer cake in our refrigerator,” Kristi said. “So, we will invite neighbors to come over and eat and play.”
Recently, Clark made a birthday cake for his younger brother Charlie. The cake featured a Superman logo, a cape around the cake and the inside was filled with green jelly beans for kryptonite.
Charlie likes to be Clark’s taste-tester.
Kristi, who runs her son’s social media accounts, said that she and Clark watch a lot of Instagram videos to get inspiration and ideas for new things to try.
One of his favorite cooking shows to watch is Nailed It.
“It’s where these bakers come and bake and try to create these masterpieces, but it doesn’t turn out,” he said. “It looks so sloppy.”
He also loves Kids Baking Championship, which he has gone through the audition process for himself.
“We’ve applied,” Kristi said. “The first season, he wasn’t ready. This season he got pretty far in the casting process, but they have so many who apply. We’re going to keep trying.”
Clark would love to continue his baking into his adult life and own a bakery one day.
“It is a lot of work, but I think it would be fun seeing the people’s faces when they taste it,” he said. “The cake part is a piece of cake. The decorating part will turn out, but it might not turn out like I thought it would be, but it always turns out as good as it can be.”
Birthday cakes are Clark’s favorite creations, because he likes working with a theme to design a creative confection.
“I love working with a theme, because they are always colorful,” he said.
When he isn’t baking cakes and making caramel, Clark likes baking sprinkle sugar cookies. Like his other creations, these are covered in bright colors.
“I like doing sprinkle sugar cookies, because they’re so buttery and goody,” he said. “When they come out of the oven, the kitchen just fills up with good, because it smells so good.”
Andrew is the son of Andy and Kristi Clark.
