Recipe for Success: How Mariela Sandoval Took Her Hobby for Baking and Created VCooks

A devoted full-time college student, a new small business owner, and an emerging ambassador for the joys of cooking, this is the inspiring story of how Mariela Sandoval is taking her talent for baking and sharing it with a pandemic-ravaged world.

The video begins with a bubbly Mariela Sandoval nonchalantly pacing around her cluttered home kitchen, bounce in her step, her attention split between squinting into her iPhone placed on a brand-new selfie stand and gathering utensils for a video tutorial on how to make pasta carbonara.

The third episode of her IGTV cooking show meanders for the first 2 minutes as chopped bacon slowly crisps in a lightly oiled skillet in the foreground. Her childish enthusiasm and infectious smile radiate through the screen as she adjusts her chic, formfitting apron. She acknowledges and waves to the many familiar followers who have joined in on the live chat.

As she nervously begins her show and introduces herself, a high-pitched warble from the other room gets her attention. “Oh my god, this is so embarrassing!” Sandoval apologizes to her audience as her pet canary, Peach, decides to sing precisely when she officially begins her show. “Bro, he was not singing earlier! This is so annoying! I can’t believe my bird is singing!”

As Sandoval laughs off the annoyance, she gets started on her tutorial. Her nervousness wanes as she starts cooking. She gives real-time instructions as she preps each ingredient of the dish, interjecting with tips and techniques that she has learned and perfected during her many off-camera attempts at the dish. Nearly 44 minutes long, the tutorial comes to a satisfying end as Sandoval feasts on the completed dish.

Teaching is a role Sandoval is slowly becoming comfortable with, as evidenced in her welcoming IGTV tutorials. Her eagerness to share her lifelong passion for cooking with others has inspired elaborate plans to increase the production value of her shows and take her tutorials to the next level.

But those grand plans will have to linger as her focus is already overextended by being a full-time student and completing orders for her brand-new small business. The tragedy of the uncontrolled COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with unprecedented stay-at-home orders and a bleak economic outlook, forced Sandoval to respond accordingly.

After years of agonizing, Sandoval finally took her baking talents public and launched her very own venture in October of 2020 – VCooks, a bakery service based out of her modest Whittier, California home she shares with her mother. Just four months later, and much to her astonishment, Sandoval’s endeavor is flourishing. Despite the achievement, Sandoval willingly hesitates to maximize her newfound success, taking time to grow herself over growing her business.

A full-time college student, a small-time operator, and a rising content creator, Mariela Sandoval is doing it all to further her lifelong goal of sharing her culinary talents with the world.

Oh, and she just turned 22.

A Much-Needed Escape

Sandoval’s affinity towards baking started when she was just a child. Not old enough to bake on her own, she would use Play-Doh, along with her creativity, to slap together colorful, non-edible pastries only a child’s imagination could conjure.

The only child of working-class parents from Los Angeles, Sandoval’s world changed at the tender age of eight when her parents divorced. Yearning for an escape from the heartache around her and old enough to finally use real ingredients, she plunged herself into baking and toiled away in her kitchen. “I always looked at cooking and baking as a distraction from what was going on at home. When I would bake, it would be a good time. I would only focus on that. I was being creative, using all my energy, my emphasis on making sure the recipe was good.”

She refers to The Food Network as her inspiration during that time and cites a caravan of celebrity chefs like Bobby Flay, Alton Brown, and Paula Deen as formative influences. “Baking was nice to see how creative people got [with their recipes],” recalls Sandoval. She soon experimented with that creativity in her own recipes, putting her spin on cakes and pastries.

Gaining Confidence

Baking was always a hobby until Sandoval started taking it seriously, thanks in large part to a close friend who encouraged her to make a Mexican Rosca de Reyes cake. “My biggest set off for baking was when [she] passed me [her Rosca] recipe. I saw how she would make it, and I started making it on my own. That’s for sure the start of everything because she really inspired me to make it my own, and I would make it for holidays and [other events], and [my baking] just kind of picked up after that.”

As Sandoval’s Rosca cake became popular with friends and family, her confidence in her baking abilities grew as she started taking on more challenging recipes. “For sure, my biggest hit besides the Rosca was making cake pops [when my friend’s aunt] asked me to do some cake pops for her son’s birthday.” Having never made cake pops before, Sandoval did her research and learned the recipe. “I taught myself based on what I would find on the internet, and I did it.” The cake pops were a big hit.

Fully aware that she was still a novice at baking, Sandoval was nervous and realistic about charging her friend’s aunt accordingly and set the price at around $25 for 50 cake pops. “I didn’t charge as much because it was my first time doing it. But based on how hard I worked and how much detail I put into what I was doing, [my friend’s aunt] paid me more.” Sandoval received around $80 for her efforts.

With her reputation as a baker growing within her own circles, Sandoval decided to take on baking jobs here and there but never fully committed to baking full-time, keeping it as a hobby and never a means to an end.

A stellar student, Sandoval’s goal was always furthering her education and culinary knowledge. Upon graduating high school, she matriculated at Cal State Los Angeles for a few semesters until financial hurdles forced her to enroll at Citrus College.

During that time, Sandoval was able to land her first-ever restaurant job as a line cook at a fast casual American cuisine restaurant located in the quiet inland city of Montclair, California. At the age of 18, Sandoval realized a long-held dream of hers to work in a restaurant kitchen.

Little did she know that her dream would turn into a nightmare.

On the Line

Having had only one prior job – a summer position working as a cashier at a local car wash – and no experience working in a restaurant kitchen, the restaurant manager took a gamble on Sandoval after a successful interview. The gamble paid off.

Sandoval learned the menu overnight and put out prompt, high-quality food that surprised even the most cynical kitchen staff members who thought she wouldn’t last a week. In a matter of weeks, she went from rookie to working the most rigorous shifts in the tight, no-nonsense kitchen dominated by an all-male staff.

What started as a dream job suddenly became an anxious nightmare as Sandoval’s long-held romanticism of working in a restaurant kitchen quickly dissolved. “I [had] this illusion of when I was younger of having my own restaurant and working in a kitchen. And then, once I walked into that kitchen, I had zero clue about what I was about to encounter. At first, it really destroyed my confidence, and I was like, ‘I’m not good at this. I’m not going to do good.’ I felt like I had the pressure on me – I was the youngest, I was the only girl at the time, and I had that pressure on me to [succeed] in such a short amount of time. I felt I couldn’t do it.”

Time would fly as her eight-hour shifts would be bombarded by non-stop incoming hot tickets during the lunch and dinner rushes. She often worked the line with only one other line cook and was putting out food that needed to maintain the quality expected by patrons and the exacting standards of her insistent chef.

A victim of the corporate expectations of maximizing labor and coming under budget, Sandoval, like many others at the establishment, had to take on more than she could realistically handle. “I felt really hopeless. I would have nightmares; I couldn’t do this. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.” It didn’t help that Sandoval was also a full-time college student.

The rigors of college and the expectations of work were too much. “Having those bad moments, those down moments, and then my own chef telling me, ‘You need to have more confidence in what you’re doing. You need to hurry up. You need to learn quick, execute, and be confident in what you do,’ [that] hurt my feelings. I thought I was doing well, but I knew I could do better. But having someone tell you that is completely different. I took it too personal, too deep. But this is something I signed up for and something I wanted to do.”

After 15-months of a dizzying grind, Sandoval found she could no longer work with the stress of being in a kitchen while dealing with the responsibilities of being a full-time college student. She decided to quit her job to focus on her studies.

The time she spent in that kitchen forced Sandoval to see the culinary world for what it was. Demanding, stressed out, and always on edge – this was restaurant life. A childhood dream of working in a restaurant kitchen was soured by unflattering reality. It was all too much, too fast, too soon for Sandoval.

The supporting staff – many of whom she developed deep, personal relationships with – offered Sandoval encouragement and told her to keep her chin up. They let her know that if she could do it in that unique kitchen environment, she could do it in any kitchen, anytime, anywhere.

Forever grateful for the experience and appreciative of the relationships she made while there, Sandoval needed a break from the kitchen.

Refire

Sandoval immediately found a less stressful job working at a local law firm. Working part-time, Sandoval scanned and uploaded documents all day long. A drastic change from working in a fast-paced restaurant kitchen, Sandoval hated the monotony of the office job and did it strictly for the paycheck and accommodating schedule.

She often found herself wondering if she made the right decision to quit her job at the restaurant. That job might have been too much for Sandoval, but she gained strong experience working in the hustle and flow of a busy restaurant kitchen. She especially missed the staff who helped keep her sanity.

Sandoval filled the void by retreating into her own kitchen, baking away, and experimenting with new recipes she picked off of Pinterest. Her culinary passion never subsided; rather, it grew stronger. She yearned for the restaurant kitchen once more.

Like all college-age adults entering a quarter-life crisis, Sandoval was still young enough to toy with many competencies and question her career goals. She realized that her passion for cooking was something she couldn’t ignore and finally decided to make that her career goal.

After graduating from Citrus College in Spring 2020 and receiving her Associate of Science in Pre-Allied Health, she enrolled in Los Angeles Trade Technical College, seeking to concurrently obtain three associate degrees – culinary arts, pastry arts, and restaurant management.

She finally quit the office job she hated and landed a job more in line with her interests – prepping meals for the local school district. Sandoval viewed the job as temporary until she could secure an opportunity in a restaurant kitchen again. She was on her way. And then the COVID-19 pandemic worsened.  

Drastic measures were taken to combat the pandemic. Stay-at-home orders were intermittent, all in-person schooling was shuttered, and indoor dining was banned at all restaurants, allowing for take-out orders only. Sandoval’s college experience was now strictly based at home and online.

She took a financial hit when her part-time job at the school district became on-call and forced her to work only one day a week. Many restaurants folded, and the industry was on life-support. Whatever hope Sandoval had of landing a restaurant job was all but gone.

She was distraught when she learned the restaurant she worked at was a casualty of the pandemic and closed its doors forever. Although her time there was exasperating, Sandoval valued the formative experience she gained while working there.

Sandoval started baking more to stave off boredom, and as she did as a child, she used baking to escape the sadness around her. “[The pandemic] has done a lot of damage. It has. But I can’t be at home all day and do nothing. I’m either looking up recipes, doing something to keep my brain awake, alert. If I have the ability to stay home, I want to take advantage of that. I want to set up something that has potential and [take this situation] and not see it as something negative.”

Showcasing her baked goods on her personal Instagram page, Sandoval received requests from followers for recipes and tutorials. Some even offered to buy some of her recently posted goods for their own consumption. And that’s when she realized the opportunity right in front of her. In this time of economic uncertainty, Sandoval decided to take charge of her dire situation and devoted her now all but vacant schedule to something she never expected to do: start a small business.

Sandoval rarely toyed with the idea of monetizing her hobby and only baked for fun. “When I was doing the baking stuff, I was just doing it because I liked it. But to initiate something bigger? My confidence wasn’t at that level yet. I was dedicated to doing school work, and I didn’t really have time to do stuff like that on the side unless if I [had] the time for it.”

The pandemic took away so many opportunities from Sandoval. Now, the pandemic presented a huge opportunity to her. “[The pandemic gave] myself the space to do something I always had in the back of my head and not make time an excuse – ‘I don’t have time, I don’t have time. Yeah, I’ll get to it.’ There is a time and a place, and [this time] I need to emphasize myself. So now that I have the time and the ability to see how I can organize myself and my own schedule, I feel like I can do it.”

Introducing VCooks

Being the sole proprietor of VCooks – V for Viviane, Sandoval’s middle name, and Cooks for a nickname her father gave to her as a child – and not wanting to stretch herself thin, Sandoval limited her orders to what she could realistically fulfill. With no marketing plan, she relied solely on her Instagram page and word of mouth to solicit orders.

Her menu is scant for now and offers only three items for purchase: soft pretzels, Mexican Rosca cake, and coffee cake. Additional varieties of each item and pricing are listed on her official VCooks Instagram account. “I’m learning something new every single day, whether it’s recipes or a method I didn’t know before,” says Sandoval, who is open to expanding her menu or offering seasonal items. But for the time being, she’s happy with her current three-item selection. “I set my standards really high. I don’t want to let myself down. I’m confident in [the menu] that I’ve been making so far.”

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Sandoval’s confidence in her baking abilities is modest. But her patrons feel otherwise and believe she can handle anything, a testament to Sandoval’s abilities as a blossoming baker. “People notice that I like to do my research on baking and cooking. And they would ask me, ‘Would you be able to [make me] this?’” Sandoval is receptive to requests for items not listed on her menu and items she has never baked before. “I get a lot of that, to be honest,” she admits. Accepting these occasional challenges, Sandoval treats them as opportunities to expand her comfort zones and learn new skills and recipes.

Viewing her work with scrutinizing detail, Sandoval prides herself on her reputation to deliver food that meets her clients’ expectations and her own. Never wanting to promote herself as something she’s not, Sandoval is fully aware of her restrictions and always makes them aware to each of her prospective clients.

With her sincerity and candor at the limitations of her culinary talent laid bare – a rare occurrence in this day and age of online personas where embellishment is key to generating a vast social following and drumming up business – for Sandoval, honesty is the best policy and integrity is her commodity. “I want you to enjoy what I bake. Someone complimenting my work and enjoying what I do is worth more than the money. Hearing that satisfaction, hearing you’re content with what I do… that’s what I like to hear.”

The phrase “DOING WHAT I LOVE, LOVING WHAT I DO!” introduces Sandoval’s VCooks Instagram page. The phrase itself has become a testament to the wherewithal and determination Sandoval has demonstrated in launching her baking business.

After only two months, VCooks has become bigger than anything Sandoval expected. Christmas was especially successful for VCooks.

But to Sandoval, her business is much more than a money-making opportunity and more of a way to build her reputation as a baker. “The money isn’t a priority to me. I don’t know how else to say it. I wanted to do it because it was something I genuinely liked to do, and I really wanted to build up my name. I really wanted to build up what I do. It was about [my clients] enjoying the experience of what I went through, what I put myself through, and what I’m able to offer. The money was never the [main factor]. My mom would tell me, you can charge [more], but I felt like since I was such a beginner, how was I going to charge [a higher price] for something I was still working on?”

Her avid appetite for knowledge and the desire to always be better underpins Sandoval’s craft. Every order provides an opportunity for her to build upon her culinary skills. “I’m sure anyone can cook. Anyone can bake and try something. And even if it’s not good the first time, you learn from your mistakes.” Like a painter putting the finishing touches on a portrait, Sandoval perfects her menu items ever so slightly with each subsequent order, instilling new baking knacks she’s picked up through her own research and appetite for knowledge.

“Professor” Mariela Sandoval

What started as a direct response to her economic situation brought on by a once-in-a-century pandemic, Mariela Sandoval has taken her passion for baking and parlayed it into a thriving business. But, although she found a silver lining in an unrelenting year, Sandoval was fully aware many weren’t as fortunate. As 2020 mercifully came to an end, the mentally taxing solitary confinement brought on by the pandemic continued for many.

Empathetic at the plight of many who were yearning for an escape from the uncertainty around them – and reminded of the solace baking offered her during difficult periods in her life – Sandoval responded yet again to the pandemic and started making video tutorials teaching people how to cook. “I don’t like people feeling down, and a lot of people aren’t as hopeful [anymore]… I don’t want that to be the case when you’re around me. What can [I] do to inspire others to do something at home? [When I] make my videos, I hope people get inspired to cook something and bake something.”

Using only her iPhone, Sandoval recorded several real-time baking tutorials and posted them to her Instagram account. The positive feedback from the videos only inspired her to do more, so she created a YouTube channel to showcase her videos. 

Her YouTube channel is sparse for now, but she hopes to have carefully curated content on there soon. In the meantime, she’s content making her IGTV tutorials and is always keen on spreading the joys of cooking by inspiring others to develop their culinary interests.

Full Circle

With her baking business still in its infancy – and if her Christmas orders were an indication of where her business could go in 2021 – Sandoval often asks herself the question: What if VCooks takes off? Sandoval is hesitant to think about the possibilities of VCooks becoming something more than just a small-time gig.

Instead, Sandoval’s focus is solely on furthering her education. “I can balance everything without quitting either school or my job. Because I don’t want to let go of school. I’ve always admired being in class. I’ve limited myself to a lot of job opportunities because I’ve dedicated myself full-time to school.”

Sandoval still works her on-call cafeteria job at the local school district. She wants to glean as much knowledge as possible from different kitchens to expand her culinary comprehension further.

Being a full-time student, fulfilling orders for VCooks, making cooking tutorials, and taking the occasional on-call job at the school district cafeteria, everything is a precise balancing act for Sandoval that she’s finally confident of maintaining.

“My goal for this business that I have is, yes, I’m going to work from home, but at the end of the day, I want someone to learn something I learned,” says Sandoval. “I’ve always had luck with having really great professors and great teachers, and seeing their style of teaching has motivated me to be the same. Their character adds to what I’m trying to do. I want people to feel they can learn [cooking] and do it themselves. I want that comfort to be in my kitchen one day. I don’t want my staff to feel unsure about what they’re doing and have that low confidence. The last thing you want in your mind is [thinking] you can’t do this. I want to be positive, motivating, and reassuring. You can do this. You trying is more than enough. I want that to be my reputation and the vibes that I give off.”

No longer at the whim of a demanding chef, Sandoval controls her menu and runs her own kitchen, albeit from her home. But it’s a start, and it can only get better from here. In this era of unprecedented upheaval and inspirational ingenuity, Sandoval not only has made her passion for baking into her very own business but has set herself up to be an ambassador for the healing power of cooking. “Cooking is fun, and you can do it.” Mariela Sandoval proves that every day.