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Sugar and Spice and Everything Vegan: Erica Parlee Talks Cupcakes

Her Campus Placeholder Avatar Rebekah Hanish
Her Campus Placeholder Avatar Emily Oyster
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at U Iowa chapter.

It seems like cupcakes are all over lately. New cupcake bakeries, decorating books, blogs and, oh, the cupcake reality shows! With cupcakes generating so much hype, making your way in this delicious $6 billion dollar a year industry can be quite the task. That’s why Erica Parlee has taken a different approach to these hot commodities – a vegan approach.

A freshman at the University of Iowa, Parlee started her own vegan cupcake business in the fall of 2010 out of her home in Des Moines.
“My boss at my chiropractic job encouraged me to start selling them because she thought I could make a profit,” Parlee said.

Parlee originally decided to go vegan with her baking to set her apart from other bakeries, and though she wasn’t a vegan when she started, she’s a vegan now.

“If you Google vegan cupcakes in Des Moines my name is the only name that comes up,” Parlee said.

While living at home, Parlee’s business Miss Dolly Cakes filled about one order a week for her vegan cupcakes. Her most common orders are for birthdays and chiropractic conventions. Now she only takes orders when she knows she can make it home for a weekend, but Parlee intends to carry on Miss Dolly Cakes here in Iowa City when she moves out of the dorms.

“I might advertise a little bit when I have my own place in Iowa City if it’s possible to do with my schedule and class stuff,” Parlee said. “I don’t know how it’s going to work here. I need to do more research on the cupcake market in Iowa City, but I’d like to try.”

Despite her success with the vegan cupcakes at such a young age, Parlee doesn’t intend to bake for a living. Having worked at Yost Family Chiropractic in Des Moines for the last few years as a receptionist/assistant, Parlee wants to become a chiropractor as well. She still works at Yost during holiday breaks and would like to return there full-time when she graduates from school. However, she is quick to reassure that this doesn’t mean she will ever give up baking altogether. 

“My boss always tells me I can always have a fulfilling career as a chiropractor and do cupcakes on the side,” Parlee said, “I can have my cupcake and eat it, too.”

Check out Erica Parlee’s vegan cupcakes and look for her advertisements in Iowa City next year:
http://missdollycakes.com/
 
 

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Rebekah Hanish is a journalism and English double major at the University of Iowa with a minor in African American studies. With a passion for writing and editing, she joined the Her Campus UIowa team as Campus Celebrity blogger last spring and is the future Editor-in-Chief of Her Campus UIowa for the coming fall.
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Emily is a junior at the University of Iowa and is studying Journalism and Pre-Law with a minor in Health Communication. She has been a part of the Her Campus University of Iowa team since it was founded in 2010 and is a member of Ed on Campus. She has grown to love magazine writing and editing and if she somehow can't land her dream job (to be Carrie Bradshaw), she wouldn't mind settling for a job in the magazine industry. If nothing else, she hopes to attend law school somewhere in the Bay Area out West, her favorite place to be. Since the age of 15, Emily spent her summers in California, doing internships and falling in love with San Francisco. Some of her other interests include her 4-month-old longhaired wiener dog Henry, blogging, celebrity gossip, sushi, Private Practice, fro-yo, being a journalism nerd, and anything involving good conversation with good people. Although she's not exactly sure of her plans for the future, she knows journalism will somehow be the driving force in her career.