Pop artist: Daisy Pops brings variety of cake pops to storefront in downtown Kent

When the COVID-19 pandemic killed the part of teaching that Amy Mucha loved most, connecting one-on-one with her students, she retired from her position at Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy and turned her side hustle — making cake pops — into a full-time job.

After years of work, she's set to open her Kent storefront at 154 N. Water St., and she's inviting the public to an open house from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday. It will feature a ribbon-cutting, lunch, activities for children — sidewalk chalk, coloring pages and games — and giveaways, including a year's supply of cake pops.

Attendees will also be able to purchase a wide range of different cake pops, including the shop's Fruity Pebble variety, Mucha's personal favorite and bestseller.

To start, the store will be open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.

Daisy Pops' methods differ from other cake pop operations.

"People often think of a tiny piece of cake on a stick, which is somewhat true, but how we actually make them is we bake our cakes, and then we kind of destroy them," Mucha said. "We put them in a food processor and mix them with a little bit of frosting, so that when you bite into it, it's more like a truffle than it is a piece of cake."

Daisy Pops doesn't make spherical cake pops. All of its treats are flat so the dough can be rolled out and shaped using cookie cutters made with a 3D printer.

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"Daisy Pops is officially about 5 years old," said Mucha. "It's named after my 6-year-old daughter, Daisy. My two boys, they didn't want their naming rights so it went to the girl."

As a high school math teacher at CVCA, Mucha assumed her cake pops would never be more than a side gig. Fate had other ideas.

As the COVID-19 pandemic reared its head in 2020, two things happened.

First, in-person learning was suspended.

Second, individually wrapped treats became popular. In May 2021, Mucha made the decision to jettison her teaching career, adopting a "go big or go home" mentality, and turned her focus to Daisy Pops.

Sweet, sweet bribery

Mucha's cake pop journey began before her children were born. Her mother-in-law gave her a cake pop recipe book containing directions on how to make a cake pop shaped like a koala, one of Mucha's favorite animals.

After her first attempt, she was hooked. After her children were born, the hobby took a back seat, eventually reemerging later as a classroom incentive.

"I would usually bring them in for bribery for my students to make them do their math problems better," she said. "I would send them in with my kids to their schools for their teachers."

The mother of one of Mucha's students asked if she could buy one of her sweet treats, and that got the business in motion. At first, she sold to a small handful of people, but the demand kept increasing. Last year, she said, Daisy Pops sold nearly 138,000 cake pops.

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She said she doesn't miss teaching because the things about it that appealed to her are still there in her work with Daisy Pops.

"I teach my co-workers how to make cake pops, I teach our customers how to interact with Daisy Pops. We do a lot of cake pop parties and workshops, so I still get my teaching fix teaching those," said Mucha. "But I feel like I get that relational, interpersonal part in cake pops still."

She argues that it helps that cake pops are more fun for everyone involved. Her students, she said, didn't always enjoy their math lessons.

Pop artists

In the back, three of Mucha's roughly dozen employees, whom she refers to as "pop artists," are working diligently to churn out Daisy Pops' confections.

One of them, Michelle Cremi, is one of Mucha's former students.

Cremi got her start as a pop artist during her senior year while taking Mucha's statistics class, the same year Mucha started the business out of her Kent home.

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"She brought a group of us in to help her," Cremi said. In return, Mucha gifted them all cake pops for their graduation parties to hand out to guests. Since then, she said, she's been hooked on the work.

"I love it. It's great," Cremi said. "I think it's a fun balance of creativity and order. There's math involved and you can be creative with the decorations, and I like collaborating with the other artists. It's a fun team environment."

Contact reporter Derek Kreider at DKreider@Gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: New Kent destination Daisy Pops serving up cake confections