A wife and stay at home mom started a business purely on good genetics, skill, passion and a signature eye-catching piece.
Sunflour Pies is a homemade pie business created by Emily Decastro. The self-taught baker is homebased and incredibly passionate about what she does.
"I have been baking pies most of my life, whether it was with my mom, or with either one of my grandmothers, or simply just on my own," Decastro said.
All of her pie fillings are made from scratch from her own recipe that she created, and each design is hand-crafted by the passionate baker.
All of her pies have their own special flower arrangement on top to help display the delicate and individual details of each one. The sunflower idea is to not only catch the eye of the consumer, but it being her signature eye-catching piece- hence the name.
"I've taken what I've learned from generations of the skilled bakers in my family to not only make my pies taste amazing, but make them look amazing as well," said Decastro.
What first was just a hobby from the baking talents she inherited from generations before her, became a full-blown business to support her small family.
She receives a lot of support from the Gilbert community and gets her business promoted by well-known companies amongst the town of Gilbert.
One well-known company is Made With Love. Gilbert's Made with Love Market is located in Downtown Gilbert in Heritage Marketplace.
The vintage company features trendy, handmade, and local items curated by your favorite small shop owners. One of those small shop owners happens to be Sunflour Pies.
Maribeth Sublette, cofounder of Made With Love, hired Decastro to be a vendor for their company every Saturday morning for the Downtown Gilbert Farmers Market.
"Her pies are not only amazing, but they're super cute," said Sublette.
"We look to hire vendors who not only sell handmade or homemade products, but who truly exude their passionate and shine such a positive light, because our customers deserve to feel the love in the products they purchase," Sublette said.
Although the passion has been life-long for Decastro, the business is still fairly fresh.
She launched her website Summer of 2019, but has already received a lot of business, attention and consistent consumers.
One consumer, Ashley Wallace, is a frequent customer for the baker.
"I love that Emily allows you to order pies on her website, and there are so many options, flavors, sizes and flowers to choose from," said Wallace.
"I have a lot of parties, and believe me, I am not much of a cook or a baker, so I do a lot of ordering and catering. Every time, I buy a pie from Sunflour Pies and everyone loves them," Wallace said.
"She recently announced you can pre-order pies for the holidays that are coming up just around the corner, and I know me and my friends are super excited to share her pies with our families," said Wallace.
You can order pies through Decastro's website, Sunflour Pies and there are so many flavors to choose from.
All of Decastro's pie fillings are made from scratch and are also her own, personal recipes.
She is excited for Thanksgiving for two reasons: One being it is her favorite holiday, but the second reason being she is excited for this being her first holiday season with her new website, her business thriving and pre-orders coming in hot.
However, she doesn't just do holiday orders. She also does events such as bridal and baby showers, parties, and even weddings.
Her favorite thing to tell her customers is, "Apple pie totally counts as a serving of fruit." Makes me feel less guilty, that's for sure.
