Making a little dough

Whitefish grad cooks up a profit selling creations on Internet

Editor's note - This is the fourth in a series of stories about student entrepreneurs graduating from high school this week.

At age 14, Sarah Ann Vail created the perfect job.

As the proprietor of Sarah's Sweets, Vail is her own boss, works only when she feels like it and her overhead costs don't add up to much more than the cost of flour, sugar, butter and chocolate.

Vail, who graduates from Whitefish High School on Saturday, sells cookies on the Internet auction site eBay. During her own self-defined baking season, Vail ships about four dozen cookies - chocolate chip cookies, decorated butter cookies, oatmeal fudge cookies, even a no-bake variety - each week.

"I completely choose how much I want to do it, and how many I want to bake," Vail said. "The best part about this is because I'm so involved with extracurricular activities, I can do it at my own pace."

Vail said the baking enterprise initially was her mother's idea. She saw chocolate chip cookies up for bid on eBay, and suggested that her daughter, at the time a freshman in high school in Southern California, "could make a buck doing this."

Vail now offers her cookies from October through April, so she can hit the major cookie holidays - Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's Day and Easter. She developed a cookie perfect for holiday shapes by tweaking a butter-cookie recipe from the show "Good Eats" on the Food Network, which Vail watches often.

"I just added some more vanilla, sugar sprinkles, and I drizzle them with chocolate," Vail said.

The butter cookie also is perfect for shipping, she said - still soft, but durable.

When Vail knows she'll have time to spare in between her other activities, such as choir, theater, tennis and softball, she will offer a cookie selection on eBay in the morning, for a set price of around $5 more than her cost, plus shipping.

She'll go to school, come home to her computer, and find out what the highest bidder is willing to pay for her freshly made creations. She gets to baking as soon as possible and ships the order that day or the next.

Her record sale was when "a nice older couple" offered $40 for a dozen of Vail's butter cookies. Her average profit is around $15 a dozen.

Watching the Food Network has helped her fine-tune her cooking skills, but her knack for baking also is a family trait. Her great-great-grandparents immigrated from Poland and opened a bakery, and she grew up in the kitchen with her grandmother.

Her business sense comes from her parents.

Mary Vail is a postal worker, but she also has a great deal of entrepreneurial expertise to share with her daughter.

On the Internet site for her business, Winsome Fragrance Co., Mary Vail describes herself as a "mompreneur" who created a line of fragrances for children sold in more than 750 stores nationwide. Mary Vail developed the product line in 1994 to give children a light alternative to adult perfumes.

And Sarah's father, John, now retired, has a master's degree in business.

Vail's career intentions are not necessarily directed toward the business or the culinary world, as her first love is the performing arts. She scored superior ratings in voice in the state music high school music festival and is a veteran of Whitefish High School theater productions. Her biggest role was starring as Belle in this season's Whitefish Theatre Company production of "Beauty and the Beast."

To continue her training in theater, she's going to spend a semester at Flathead Valley Community College before heading out to sing and act at Orlando's Disney World while attending a training program on site at Disney University. She plans on eventually attending college as a voice major.

But no matter where her career path leads, her baking skills will follow. And Vail knows she can always earn a few dollars doing something she loves.

"As long as I enjoy it, I can keep doing it," she said.

Reporter Heidi Gaiser may be reached at 758-4431 or by e-mail at hgaiser@dailyinterlake.com.