Monroe youth baking his way to Paris

Andrew Fegler only just finished his high school sophomore year, but he's already raising funds for college, one cupcake at a time.

Fegler, who knew he wanted to be a baker since he was in the fourth grade, has set his sights on pastry school in Paris, and nothing else will do. But that's not cheap; a single year can run about $40,000 or more.

So he decided to do an old-fashioned bake sale with a modern twist; through his Facebook page, he's taking orders for his creative cupcakes, hoping that within two years, he'll have a sizable sum set aside for school abroad.

Why cupcakes?

It's what Fegler likes making best.

"I used to want to be a cook, but I saw all these cupcake shows they have on TV, like Cupcake Wars, and all these cupcake shops popping up all over, and I got into pastries,GÇ¥ said Fegler, at his family's spacious Trombley-area home.

He spends a fair amount of time experimenting; a recent effort to create the perfect recipe for s'mores cupcakes turned up a couple dead ends.

"At first, it was graham crackers on the bottom, and then chocolate cake with marshmallows, and that wasn't that good,GÇ¥ he said.

Trying to bury a large marshmallow in the dough before baking didn't work out; it just melted and created a sinkhole. And though some recipes claimed you could put a big marshmallow on top before baking and get it to puff up and self-frost the cupcake, Fegler was disappointed with the results.

"So I put the graham crackers in the frosting, and made a marshmallow filling,GÇ¥ said Fegler.

As for the secret ingredient he discovered that keeps his cupcake batters nice and moist, he's not telling.

But whatever it is, it works; his first public sale was a success.

"The swap meet on Main Street, he started having vendors outside, so I set up my table and it was successful,GÇ¥ said Fegler. "It had low traffic, but most people bought enough to cover it.GÇ¥

He brought four of his cupcake creations to a fundraiser for Relay for Life; s'mores, snickerdoodle, Twinkie and key lime pie.

"I realized my things were pretty good when I found out people would be $2 for them,GÇ¥ he said.

Encouraged, he decided to keep raising funds by baking; this time for his education.

Already he knows a lot about his favorite subject. He can customize cupcakes endlessly; starting with basic chocolate or white cake batter, he can add fillings, frostings of all flavors, and even add things like berries or cookies to the cake itself.

Recently he made 100 Oreo cupcakes for a friend's child's birthday party; an Oreo cookie placed at the bottom of each stayed crunchy.

And for another order, he topped each cupcake with a candy disk airbrushed with a photograph, then delicately garnished.

Cupcakes can be mini or regular-sized, and Fegler even has a device called a "cricketGÇ¥ that cuts out cupcake wrappers, so that the wrappers, too, can be customized for any special occasion, such as a birthday or a wedding.

"It's almost unlimited,GÇ¥ he said.

To learn more, visit Andrew's Bake Sale on Facebook, or email AndrewBakeSale@Gmail.com.-á

There are a lot of cupcakes to bake in the next two years to get Andrew to pastry school in Paris.

But he's optimistic. He's already taken two years of high school French, and he's signed up for next year as well.