Blonde Ambition
Auzerais Bellamy is a blondie business maven.
auzerais bellamy of blondery | Photos: jaclyn warren
Auzerais Bellamy starts every recipe the same way: European butter, Domino brown sugar, eggs, chocolate, cocoa powder, and King Arthur flour.
She’s been working on this blondie recipe for 13 years, something she started while getting her associates in pastry at Johnson & Wales University. At first, the blondies were a treat that she sold to her family and friends in California. “I started a website because I couldn’t keep up with the [blondie] orders,” says Bellamy. “I kept selling out so I had to make it a business.” Ever since, Bellamy has sold eight blondie flavors—four signature and four seasonal—through her website, Blondery.com.
“My family is honest with me, but it was a reassurance to know that other people thought it was good,” Bellamy says. “My strategy was always to go where my customer is, and my customer is someone who appreciates the skill and importance of all natural, ethically sourced ingredients.”
To get Blondery name recognition across the city, Bellamy started doing pop-ups. For a pre-COVID-19 farmers market, she would bring 100 to 200 boxes. “But [during COVID-19], selling is much different,” Bellamy says. “I can't draw people in with samples anymore. Pricing has to be transparently displayed, and I can only take preorders. But I'm a great saleswoman."
As a full-time content manager for Food Network, Bellamy knows the importance of branding and marketing; she has turned herself and Blondery into a social media knockout, garnering more than 100,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel. Her PR maven, Deborah Kwan, connected Bellamy with The Financial Gym, whose founder was donating money to Black entrepreneurs who were levelling up their businesses. They gave Bellamy three months of financial advice, constructed her financial model, and provided her with a graphic designer. Otherwise, the core “we” of Blondery is just Bellamy, her assistant, an apprentice, and a slew of industry friends at the ready to help bake off orders at the One Girl Cookies kitchen in Industry City. The idea is to grow Blondery into a ready-to-bake, chef-driven collection of goods.
But the Blondery brand is about more than the rich, buttery squares. As a Black female business owner, Bellamy hopes to be a mentor to all those aspiring to do the same. She’s building a YouTube channel with topics related to Black-owned businesses and Black people in the restaurant industry. While training at Bouchon Bakery, Bellamy was unable to find a mentor who looked like her. “I always said, ‘Yes, chef’ because I knew whatever criticisms I was getting was going to make me a better chef and person,” Bellamy says. “But when it’s someone who looks like you, it comes more from a place of love, rather than a ‘Hurry up and get it done.’”
Bellamy hopes that Blondery will be a safe space to teach people of color how to move through their careers with confidence, but the concept will require more help, more hands and a full-time kitchen space. “There are hurdles with everything, though,” says Bellamy. “As an entrepreneur, there are hurdles being Black, white, Mexican … to lead a large team is hard. To lead a small team is hard. Our world just needs a little more compassion.”
