By Emily K. Alhadeff , Assistant Editor, JTNews
Meet Adam Kipust, baker, philanthropist and rising star in the food world.
He’s 10 years old.
Adam never expected his love of his grandmother’s apple cake would lead to a featured video on allrecipes.com. The clip has already been viewed over 5,000 times.
The apple cake that came down to him from his Russian grandmother is his favorite dessert.
“They didn’t really cook much,” he says, but when they opened the cookbook “that was the page it always opened up to.”
After making a few modifications — “I lowered the amount of baking soda, took out the raisins and put more apples in,” he says — he came up with his now-famous result. The recipe has five stars from five reviewers so far on allrecipes.com.
“Adam, you are my new hero!” one reviewer writes while suggesting serving the cake with vanilla ice cream.
“Absolutely delicious, addictive, and easy to make!” gushes another reviewer.
“Someone at the beginning of this year told me to start my own business,” says the Jewish Day School 5th-grader, speaking to JTNews in his classroom. “They liked my baking.”
Adam takes orders monthly, and he doesn’t just make apple cake. He also specializes in a sweet carrot kugel, Hanukkah cookies and mandel bread, which he sells to a regular and growing clientele of his parents’ friends and synagogue members. The largest monthly order he’s had to fill was for 30 carrot kugels. He says it doesn’t conflict with his schoolwork, but it can take up the whole weekend.
He sells his goods for $5 and donates half of his earnings to the Jewish Family Service Polack Food Bank. He puts the other half into savings.
“I don’t really need all the money, so I figured I can give it to people who need it,” he says. Fortunately, his parents buy the supplies so he has no overhead.
In JDS’s 5th-grade curriculum, students deliver food packages every other Tuesday to the needy. Karen Coval, JDS’s director of marketing and communications, explains that the interdisciplinary program integrates Jewish learning, which includes both traditional food and charity work.
“They bake fun things,” she says. “It’s a fun part of the curriculum for them.”
Adam says his classmates are supportive of his baking business.
Coval adds she’s happy to see the idea of charity taking root among the students.
“It was exciting to see him take initiative,” she says.
Allrecipes.com approached Adam after he baked for a potluck dinner his father attended, and word got around that the young businessman was sharing his proceeds with charity. They thought it would be great for their “Behind the Recipe” video series. In an email back to allrecipes.com, Adam’s father, Alan Kipust, explained that his son “has a kind heart and a sweet tooth,” and, in fact, might have baking in his blood. Adam’s great-grandmother worked in a Brooklyn bakery for 30 years, and his father baked for a summer camp one year.
Margaret Longley, a producer and camera operator who filmed the clip, said that Adam was great to work with. “He was incredibly nice and polite and really helpful and attentive,” she said.
While business is booming now, Adam says he doesn’t know if this will be what he does when he grows up.
“I like doing it,” he says with a giggle and a shrug. He also likes just being a kid.