Turning dessert lovers into gourmet bakers

By Georgette Gouvei a / ggouveia@westfairinc.com

Agathe Assouline-Lichten has always loved to bake, finding it both relaxing and stimulating.

“It’s empowering and educational,” she said, adding that it calls on a knowledge of several subjects, including history, science and math.

Growing up in Philadelphia, a girl in thrall to molten lava cake and red velvet cupcakes, she seemed destined for a career in food. (“It was a big part of my childhood,” she recalled.) But her father, a French importer of gourmet foods, had a few choice words for her: Don’t become a chef. And so armed with a Bachelor of Arts degree in art history from Boston University, she spent a decade working for Sotheby’s auction house; Richemont Group, a luxe goods holding company; and Harry Winston jewelers.

“I worked in luxury marketing,” said Assouline-Lichten, (whose French first name is pronounced “a GET”). “They were great places to work. I learned so much.”

Still, she never forgot baking. (She also holds an MBA from the École Hôtelière de Lausanne, now the EHL Hospitality Business School in Switzerland.) In 2015, after a year and half of beta testing, Assouline-Lichten took what she called “a major leap of faith” and became the co-founding CEO of Red Velvet NYC, a gourmet baking kit delivery service that aims to have a nice slice of the $12 billion home baking market that has been boosted both by Covid confinement and programs like “The Great British Bake Off.”

With 100,000plus kits going out the door every year – priced from $20 to $32, plus shipping – Assouline-Lichten took another leap of faith in February, moving the business from Brooklyn to a more than 10,000-square-foot facility in Mount Kisco.

Covid did more from a socioeconomic standpoint than set many to making blueberry muffins, packing on the pounds. It sent young families like Assouline-Lichten, her husband and two boys to the suburbs, in this case, Westchester County.

“Our small family has to grow,” she said, “so we relocated during the pandemic.”

But that made Brooklyn, which she described as a dynamic place with a lot of start-ups, a long commute. In Mount Kisco, she found a place on North Bedford Road that offered five times the space and her own loading dock at a better price per square foot.

Cooking has long had its ingredients-and-recipe kits like Blue Apron. But baking would seem to be even more suited to that business model. Unlike much of cooking, it is really recipe-driven, Assouline-Lichten said – good news for those who like, or need, to follow a game plan. On the other hand, she added, baking has its challenges. You can’t taste it as you go along (though many of us have fond memories of licking the bowl as the brownies or cake went into the oven). And it often requires special equipment to do the job right.

Red Velvet NYC gives you virtually everything you need for the task at hand in some 100 baking kits, right down to such items as parchment paper and heavy cream. The company prides itself, Assouline-Lichten said, on shipping ingredients so they arrive fresh on your doorstep on a day you choose, although some ingredients, like eggs, are illegal to ship; others, like bananas, are deemed too fragile. Recipes are marked easy, moderate and advanced, with a list of the utensils you’ll need. If you lack, say, a whisk or a spatula, you can buy those from the company. She also stressed that your kit can be a oneoff or part of a subscription.

Amid summer, the Banana Pudding With White Chocolate, in homage to New York City’s Magnolia Bakery group, is beckoning, along with Lavender Vanilla Bean Cupcakes and Lemon Tart With Shortbread Crust.

Of course, this being the Christmas-in-July marketing season as well, Red Velvet NYC is anticipating Candy Cane Cupcakes, Chocolate Truffles (gluten-free option), Gingerbread People, Sugar Cookie Trees and Mint Chocolate Sandwich Cookies. There are also French macarons, Nutella cupcakes, crème brûlée, tiramisu, devil’s food cake, apple tarlets and let’s not forget Assouline-Lichten’s beloved red velvet, which you can make as a cake or Pink Velvet Cupcakes. She named her company after the dessert, which is traditionally associated with Southern and especially African American baking, with Juneteenth being a big red velvet moment, but was popularized by the Waldorf Astoria New York in Manhattan. (During World War II, when goods were rationed, bakers used beets for moisture and coloring for the cake, which originally got its coloring from non-Dutched, anthocyanin-rich cocoa. Today, she added, bakers use red food gel.)

Such confections have been featured on the BBC and in Business Insider, Cosmopolitan, Food & Wine and The Wall Street Journal, among others. In July, Red Velvet NYC won the Campbell Soup Real Food Innovation Challenge as an innovative food company that adheres to the Campbell Real Food Philosophy. But for Assouline-Lichten, awards are secondary. For her, Red Velvet NYC is about “knowing you made it and knowing what’s in it.

“I love to learn new skills and do something you think you’re not capable of.”

For more, visit redvelvetnyc.com.