Al the Pastry Gal on Substack

My official intro post for all you substack subscribers <3

With today’s ruling about the incoming TikTok ban, many of colleagues have flocked to “Red Note” (myself included follow me I’m still “alchenny”). So in addition, I think this is the perfect opportunity to reintroduce myself on other social media platforms as well.

So hi! My name is Allison, I went to French pastry school in 2022 in France at École Ducasse. Some would say I went to pastry school so you don’t have to, but honestly I went because it was always a dream of mine.

I was going to school at Duke University and I was really struggling to make it through each semester. I hated what I was studying and didn’t see a point in wasting my tuition on aimless wandering. So instead I used my tuition to aimlessly wander the countryside of France into French pastry school

I posted 1 video for every single day of pastry class, and TikTok loved it.

At the time I was posting because I truly wanted to document this experience because this was my dream and I’m sure it was a dream of many others. I wanted to share this experience with everyone who didn’t have the means to be as ridiculous as me.

Then I went back to college. A lot of people are confused why I didn’t continue to pursue my passions, but frankly I wasn’t convinced that this passion could be a sustainable career. I needed a back up plan, and college degree is a great one.

But it wasn’t just an 8-month Eat, Prey, Love stint. I was still committed to follow my passions and interests. I switched from being pre-med to studying visual media, and spent as little time studying as I possibly could so I could do crazy baking projects.

Over the summer I spent time selling cookies on park benches in New York:

It was a very grass-roots operation that I realized wasn’t very sustainable.

My friends and I started a pop up restaurant out of our apartment. It was called [ stage ] and I was in charge of the pastries:

I’m going to go on a limb here and say I heavily influenced the rise of pop up restaurants and pop up culture lol. On the other hand, I also had many people that were upset with our goofy (but elaborate) dinners.

Also I made a lot of pies for a frat party once lol:

Yeah you’re definitely allowed to be mad at this one.

And then we graduated!

So now what?

I’m about eight months out of college now (time has evaporated in a blink of an eye which is terrifying), and I’ve recently moved into my own apartment to pursue baking and recipe development full time. With this new found time and space I’m planning on making more ~educational~ content in addition to all the yapping I do, so we can all learn and grow together in our baking and pastry making.

Let me know if you want an apartment and what other bakes you want from me this year!

January marks my 3 year anniversary of creating content and I am so honored that TikTok and social media has changed my life and allowed me to bake as my full-time. While I’m sad to see it go, I take this as a reminder that nothing is permanent and it’s my job to constantly adapt and improve my content to make sure that I can continue to provide value and positive baking vibes to you all.

If you’ve made it to the end of this little post I thank you. You deserve a cookie :)

Wishing you all a great year ahead,

Allison