Sweetening the U.P.
Business profile
Heather Nelson, owner of U.P. Sweets LLC in Iron Mountain, displays the Grab & Go Treat Cooler she has filled with assorted baked items during the summer months. (Marguerite Lanthier | Daily News photo)
Shaving time and effort down for people who want to decorate cutout cookies but not bake them, U.P. Sweets sells DIY kits. (Photo courtesy of U.P. Sweets via Facebook)
Heather Nelson, owner of U.P. Sweets LLC, decorates cupcakes for an order in her home in Hughitt Street in Iron Mountain. (Marguerite Lanthier I Daily News photo)
This sign hangs when Heather Nelson's baking business attends events to sell baked items that she makes from her home. (Marguerite Lanthier | Daily News photo)
Heather Nelson, owner of U.P. Sweets LLC in Iron Mountain, displays the Grab & Go Treat Cooler she has filled with assorted baked items during the summer months. (Marguerite Lanthier | Daily News photo)
Shaving time and effort down for people who want to decorate cutout cookies but not bake them, U.P. Sweets sells DIY kits. (Photo courtesy of U.P. Sweets via Facebook)
Heather Nelson, owner of U.P. Sweets LLC, decorates cupcakes for an order in her home in Hughitt Street in Iron Mountain. (Marguerite Lanthier I Daily News photo)
This sign hangs when Heather Nelson's baking business attends events to sell baked items that she makes from her home. (Marguerite Lanthier | Daily News photo)
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IRON MOUNTAIN -- Heather Nelson recently quit her job to devote herself to her real passion: her bakery business, U.P. Sweets LLC.
“I took a gamble, leaving my full-time job to make this my full-time job,” Nelson said. She previously worked at Bellin Health and was a certified nursing assistant for 20 years.
The business, which operates from her home as a cottage industry, sells a variety of baked goods. Offering a variety that many bakeries don’t, Nelson experiments to create new concoctions and is open to requests.
“There isn’t anything that I’m not willing to try and make. I like to create weird flavors that somebody may not have ever had or thought of making,” she said.
Over the summer, U.P. Sweets received a custom order for lavender-lemon-blueberry cakesicles.
“I actually am highly allergic to lavender, but I made it anyways because it’s what the customer wanted,” Nelson said, noting that she had to have her family sample the desserts to make sure they tasted right.
Nelson first began taking a bigger interest in baking in 2019, when she made cookies for a bake sale at Bishop Baraga Catholic School.
“The amount of raving reviews that I got about them -- that I needed to start doing this all the time -- I kinda went with it,” she said. “I started out just doing cupcakes and was making hundreds of cupcakes in my kitchen.”
There has been a lot of trial and error involved, and many cupcakes have ended up in the garbage before Nelson decides she has the right taste and texture.
“I am a self-taught baker, so anything that I’m creating, I have taught myself how to do. For instance, I’ve never dabbled much in floral arrangements for cupcakes, and last night, I managed to whip up some floral arrangements,” she said.
Nelson rebranded the business as U.P. Sweets last year.
She is working on creating a recipe book that she plans to sell. Another thing she wants to start is a “Bake a Wish” program, for those who are struggling financially or has hardships in their life who can’t afford a birthday cake. More details will be coming in the future.
Nelson lists a lot of special things through her Facebook page. She sells pre-mixed baking jars filled with pre-measured dry ingredients in a variety of flavors. DIY Halloween cookie decorating boxes were for sale the last couple weeks. She has a treat cooler filled with a selection of grab-and-go baked goods that she keeps on her porch during the spring and summer.
U.P. Sweets has a lot of repeat customers and receives a lot of word of mouth. Some weeks see numerous orders. Recently, in a single week, the solo baker made 250 cupcakes for a wedding, a two-tier wedding cake, 10 dozen cookies between regular bakery style and decorated sugar cookies and another three dozen cupcakes.
“I have definitely grown since when I first started in 2019. I kind of just did it on a whim and made a whole bunch of everything and hoped for the best. And now I’m to the point where I don’t have to produce everything and push those sales, those sales are coming to me,” Nelson said.
She hopes one day to open a bakery in a building. “I’ve had enough people telling me that what I’m putting out is definitely worth a storefront, so yes, I absolutely would like to expand one day,” Nelson said. “Truthfully, if I had it my way, I would have a bakery in every state that I could, because I absolutely love what I’m doing.”
Michigan allows some businesses to cook out of their homes, including baked items, but U.P. Sweets is not currently allowed to make something temperature-controlled like a cheesecake. Nelson took the class offered by the state and is a licensed cottage baker.
While she didn’t have baking experience previously, Nelson did work as a cook for a while.
Like the Daily Press, the Iron Mountain Daily News conducts a “Best of the Best” contest, and U.P. Sweets is nominated in two categories: best bakery and best dessert.
People can contact the business though its Facebook page, which also has an order link; at 906-282-6186; or at upsweets.mi@gmail.com.
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Marguerite Lanthier can be reached at 906-774-3500, ext. 85242, or mlanthier@ironmountaindailynews.com. This article has been slightly edited by Daily Press Staff Writer R. R. Branstrom after first being published in the Daily News on Oct. 19.