When there's a crisis, Erin Easterling is on her way with a basket of muffins, biscuits, butters and jams. If there's a birthday party, she's baking a cake. Since she can remember, she has employed food to show love.Â
"Food has always been a way to cheer people up," Easterling said. "If something goes bad or ugly, I'm bringing food — because I don't really know what else to do."Â
Easterling is the one-woman show behind her baking/catering company called The Golden Bee. She squeezes in late nights and early mornings for what she considers a side gig to her career as a school physical therapist.
Erin Easterling poses with a buttercream frosting cake in her home on April 19, 2024. Easterling owns The Golden Bee, a cottage bakery out of her home.
Out of her home in Gonzales, she whips up lavender scones, artisan breads, cheese boards, cookies, cakes, macarons, meringues and more for birthday parties, luncheons, tea parties and special occasions. A year ago, she remodeled her kitchen for more counter space, as she was regularly fulfilling orders and hosting cheese board and galette de rois classes.Â
"I pretty much quadrupled the size of my island," she says of the renovations.
Easterling learned many entertaining and catering tips from her mother and grandmother, whom she helped in the kitchen growing up. When she started The Golden Bee in 2021, she intended to exclusively host charcuterie classes and build charcuterie boards for events.Â
Out of her home in Gonzales, Erin Easterling bakes artisan breads for The Golden Bee.Â
She always told herself she'd never bake cakes because she wasn't comfortable baking for others. Three years later, she is continually developing new skills and finding her style — which she describes as "rustic."Â
"Icing a cake is harder than it sounds," Easterling said, "but I've found my own style."Â
She warns her customers that she's not a professional, but they look good and taste delicious.
In April, The Meatatory, a butcher shop in Prairieville at 17424 Airline Highway, announced that it's partnering with The Golden Bee to offer homemade bread and pastries. This month, The Meatatory will sell Easterling's products at the store, and customers can pick up orders at the shop.Â
Erin Easterling adds strawberry jam to a buttercream frosting cake in her home on April 19, 2024.
Owner Laura Stewart found Easterling "through the power of social media" and noticed that she made charcuterie boards, pastries and homemade breads, which was enticing to her.Â
"People eat with their eyes," Stewart said, "and her pictures are always beautiful."Â
Easterling's breads and pastries will add to a slew of other local products that The Meatatory carries, including pepper jelly, pickles, in-house barbecue sauce and more. Stewart says she likes to keep things as local as possible to encourage people to support local business.Â
Erin Easterling made a meringue mushroom chocolate cake that included green dyed coconut to look like grass and barks of chocolate to replicate wood on the side of the cake.Â
"The Great British Baking Show" serves as inspiration for Easterling, but while she's baking she watches "Seinfeld" for comfort.
Since Easterling started The Golden Bee, the meringue mushroom cake she made for a community service event has been her favorite. Her vision for the cake came from the "fairy rings" of mushrooms she finds in the grass outside.
For the creation, she started with a chocolate cake, then created mushrooms out of meringue and added green-dyed coconut to look like grass. Down the sides of the cake, she used barks of chocolate to replicate wood.Â
"I probably took 50 pictures of it because I was just so excited to how it turned out," she said.Â
Erin Easterling made a checkerboard cake with colorful meringues for her niece's 16th birthday tea party.
Another favorite is the colorful checkerboard cake she made for her niece's tea party-themed sweet 16 birthday celebration. Her niece is a big fan of singer Harry Styles, so Easterling wanted to make a cake that she thought Styles would like. She settled on a white cake with pastel pink, yellow, green, blue and purple meringues dollops on top.Â
Cutting the cake revealed a pink, white and green checkerboard pattern for each slice.
"I like making and baking things that turn out pretty," she says, "because I feel like if it's pretty, 90% of the time it's going to taste better. When it looks pretty, it shows that you care and put extra effort into it."Â
