Photo Courtesy Sadie Jensen

While most people can’t call themselves successful cake-shop business owners at the age of 17, Sadie Jensen is not like most people.

Owner of local Mercer Island online business, Sadie’s Cake Shop, Mercer Island High School junior Sadie Jensen now enters her fifth year of running her business. “I had my first order in the summer going into sixth grade.”

Jensen got her feet off the ground with a cake order for auction from the MI Rotary Club.

“[I] ended up making this really cute cake with a little shoe on it and blue hearts,” Jensen said. “The cake ended up selling for around $500 I think and all the money went towards the MI Rotary. I was thrilled beyond anything I could imagine because people actually wanted what I made and they would pay $500 for it.”

Jensen has taken on larger and more challenging orders since her Rotary cake— some even requiring elements outside of the world of baking. 

“I made a fidget spinner cake but you see, the thing is, I thought it was a good idea to make it actually spin,” Jensen said. “So I built this whole contraption with things from the hardware store to get this cake to actually spin. I was very determined to get it to spin and in the end it did and I was so so proud.”

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Photo Courtesy Sadie Jensen

However, being a teenage bakery-business owner isn’t all sugar and sprinkles. Jensen has to balance her business with an already hectic high school schedule.

“It is so hard to manage time, schedules, and orders. My life is extremely busy with this, school, acting, singing, dancing, and everything else that I do, it can get very overwhelming at times.” 

For Jensen, these moments of hardship are eclipsed by her love for baking.

 “Baking, like any other art form, is a way I can express myself. I create visions of the desserts in my mind and then can make that vision come to life,” Jensen said. “I’d say I’m a very creative person and baking is a way I can use my creativity through flavors, decorations, or designs.”

To check out Sadie’s Cake Shop, visit www.sadiescakeshop.com