By Pham Tran
If Doordashing Crumbl to school makes you sweat your pants off like getting caught by the FBI, don’t worry because your tummy is in good hands with these new talented bakers at Fountain Valley High School (FVHS). Although they are young, they are strong, their bubbling spirits are at a top-tier level like those Michelin chefs out there.
From just a little homely hobby, with great courage and a positive attitude in mind, these bakers made a step further on the stairs towards transforming their love for baking into a student-run business right on campus. Let’s not wait any longer and meet one of the most active cookie sellers at FV—you never know if they will become your own personal academic-caused hunger rescuers!
Sophomores Minh La and Jay Lam founded the Buss Astronomical Flavors (Buss AF) cookie business. Back in middle school, La and Lam were first exposed to baking in their culinary class. They lit the baking fire in them up and decided to use the foundation from class and bring them to another level. La and Lam hit their kitchen and started sharpening their skills with online recipes. With time, the two bakers accomplished their mission and are now selling their treats to the community.
The starting point of Buss AF came from Lam’s teenage dream of traveling to Japan last year. The plan commenced as Lam asked La to partner up and create a cookie business with their common love for baking. And from that day, the Buss AF was born.
“It was a little side hustle because we both love making cookies and [we] bake them the most out of [other desserts],” Lam said.
The Buss AF cookie sellers introduced themselves to the community with the power of social media and the networks they have. From just a story on Instagram of their first batch, La and Lam reposted and roamed the business from friends to friends and students to students.
“We both posted the story, then we reposted it on our mains, which have more followers. Through our mains, people see that we were selling cookies and pre-order them,” La said.
Entrepreneurs never arrive at their destination peacefully without encountering the rocky obstacles on the way. La and Lam are no exceptions. The bakers put patience and dedication into every batch of cookies, as the process is known for being time-consuming and easily boring.
“My oven only has three racks, so if we’re making a lot of cookies, then the time has to be divided out. It takes more than two hours of baking time and there’s also refrigeration time that we have to take into account,” La said.
It took trial and error to find out what selling flavor could steal customers’ hearts. After selling batches of cookies, the Buss AF arrived at the conclusion that the winning flavors of their business got to be Mr. Matcha and Mrs. S’mores. It’s your blessing to be a customer of the Buss AF. Your votes on their polls decide what comes out of the oven so the appetites could never bore out.
As certified bakers, they always please their customers with a realistic example of their upcoming Valentine’s bake sale of the three flavors s’mores, matcha and red velvet Oreo.
If you happen to attend a blind eating contest and eat a cookie that tastes so rich in its flavor that you could strongly smell it through the nostrils, most likely that cookie belongs to team Buss AF. The holy grail that La and Lam put into each of their cookies calls the name of brown sugar.
“A lot of people usually use softened butter or maybe melted butter but then it doesn’t amp up the flavor. When you use brown butter, it tastes much richer. You can really smell the cookie and it just enhances all the ingredients,” Lam said.
La and Lam’s motto for their business is to “give them the best cookies you can.” As entrepreneurs, they always put quality over quantity because leaving a bad impression on the customers is an automatic fall from cloud nine in this business.
“If you give them a bad cookie, they’re probably not going to rebuy from you, or tell other people to buy from you,” La said.
Being newbies in the baking world can be quite challenging. But dear future bakers, luckily for you, La and Lam have one piece of important advice for a case like this.
“They should always use the best quality ingredients they can get their hands on and also put a lot of effort, like putting their heart and soul into making the cookie,” Lam said.
At the end of the day, La and Lam found their peace in baking. Besides being a hobby and a business, it is also a stress relief. When baking, your mind focuses on one thing at a time. Whether you are measuring flour, beating eggs or melting butter, you always get to enjoy the moment and live in it.
