It’s 2:45 p.m. at East High School in Waterloo, Iowa. The final bell rings, and most of Daniesha Watson’s classmates are heading home to scroll through TikTok or stream the latest Taylor Swift album (again). But Daniesha, whose friends call her “Day Day,” is heading to her second shift. She’s not complaining, though. Pie awaits.
“I put on a hairnet and apron, and can already smell the pies baking in the oven,” Daniesha says. “When I step inside the kitchen, I immediately see a mountain of apples. I waste no time and start slicing them until my friends from the finance committee arrive.”
We’re at Try Pie Bakery in downtown Waterloo, which has been a haven—and a launching pad—for high school girls since 2013. That’s when Megan Tensen began “preheating” the business concept baked into Try Pie Bakery.
Elliot Tensen
What started with a few students baking out of a church kitchen has grown to a six-day-per-week business that just so happens to be part culinary school, part crash course in entrepreneurship.
Tensen says that Try Pie came to life after several city groups brainstormed ways to revitalize the city’s downtown. “These organizations did door-to-door surveys, and heard that parents wanted positive things for kids to be involved in after school,” she says. The kids? They were looking for work opportunities. Tensen recalled seeing a model of a teen social enterprise in Minneapolis called the Cookie Cart. “We thought something similar could fit the needs of the students and of the community.”
In 2013, the first cohort of five girls visited several women-owned businesses in the area, “and landed on pie as what they wanted to bring to the Cedar Valley,” Tensen says. “They could have chosen anything, and I enjoy baking, so it worked out well,” she says. “We brought in some women from the church who taught us how to make pie crust, and honestly, it didn’t go great. It ended in tears! At that point, we didn’t know if this concept was really going to work.”
Each girl was making the pie crust by hand: employing measuring cups, a pastry cutter, and a rolling pin. The pastry was wildly inconsistent, often ripping before it even made it to the pan. The girls’ patience was growing as thin as the crust.
Elliot Tensen
It was time to call in the pros. Tensen and her team drove two hours to Des Moines for a baking class with 40-year dessert veteran Deb Cazavilan at her Wooden Spoons Workshop. In addition to learning how to make a consistent, delicious crust, the crew gained a lot of baking wisdom and confidence. (See “Try These Pie Tips Next Time You Bake” below for more about what they learned.)
Around this time, Sarah Helleso, a University of Northern Iowa student, began volunteering during her final year of studies. After one semester in that role, she officially joined the staff in 2014. Since then, Tensen and Helleso have co-led the program as directors. Helleso oversees the programming, fundraising, and operations, while Tensen manages financials and business operations.
Megan Tensen
The hope is to get on a healthy trajectory with their finances while building their confidence in themselves, their gifts, and their skills.
— Megan Tensen
As soon as the staff and the pie-making process were in place, Try Pie grew rapidly—along with the demand for its baked goods. By 2018, the team had grown to 10 student staff members, become an official 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and moved into the downtown Try Pie Bakery storefront they call home today. The full-scale bakery is open Monday through Saturday, and the students work weekdays after school from 3:15 to 6:15 p.m. for a total of six to 10 hours per week (Tensen and Helleso cover the hours the kids are in class). The student staff size is now 30, Tensen says, and reflects diverse students from high schools across the district.
Besides playing a key role in baking, the students are also involved in the business side of Try Pie. The finance committee works with an accountant to enter expenses and analyze costs, the marketing committee dreams up ways to introduce the brand to more fans, and the recipe development committee brainstorms, tests, and perfects new menu items. Each student also has a mentor with whom they work one-on-one to set personal and financial goals.
Elliot Tensen
Once a month, all 30 student staff members gather for classroom workshops hosted by local businesspeople that focus on skills in managing credit, investing, and budgeting. Tensen says this complements the project like a scoop of ice cream on a slice of pie: Students are paid for their bakery and workshop time, and also receive contributions to a retirement account.
“The hope is to get on a healthy trajectory with their finances while building their confidence in themselves, their gifts, and their skills,” she says. “We don’t expect everyone to go into culinary arts, but the confidence and financial knowledge they gain allows them to take that and contribute to their community however they like,” Tensen says.
In 2024, Try Pie’s 30 students cranked out 26,498 homemade pies; to date, 91% of Try Pie’s 86 graduates are employed–achievements all around. The bakery was even featured in a recent, award-winning documentary, Pieowa: A Piece of America. Daniesha and her friends are not only experienced bakers and budding entrepreneurs, they’re movie stars.
But the pie business never rests. Her apple-slicing completed, Daniesha sets down her knife and sits with her fellow finance committee members.
“The finance director fills us in about how much of the customer’s pie price goes into our mission statement, ingredients, programming, and towards our paychecks,” Daniesha says. “Then my friends and I catch up as we input receipts into QuickBooks.”
Elliot Tensen
Soon after, volunteers arrive with dinner for Daniesha and her colleagues: “They made enchiladas, chips and salsa, and a salad station,” she says. And at least until tomorrow, they’ve outsourced the dessert. “The brownies and pumpkin bars were delicious!”
And while any sweet might taste good to Daniesha after a hearty dinner, the pies she’s helping make, market, and sell in downtown Waterloo have a sweetness that goes beyond any dinnertime. Try Pies are bringing a special, enduring sweetness to the lives of young women, their families, and their community each and every day.
Elliot Tensen
Try These Pie Tips Next Time You Bake
The team at Try Pies learned a lot from Deb Cazavilan at Wooden Spoons Workshop and has built on that with experience. These pointers might come in handy the next time you whip up a homemade pie, too.
- Gear up. During the tear-inducing pie crust trial, “getting the consistency and thickness right was so challenging,” Tensen says. “The pie crusts were too thick or ripping; all of the things that could go wrong did.” All of that changed during the workshop, when the team learned about the powers of a food processor and a food scale. By weighing the ingredients rather than using volume, and by mixing in a food processor for a specific amount of time rather than working the pastry with warm hands, the product became remarkably consistent.
- Chill out. Speaking of warm hands, Tensen tells us that every new member of the Try Pie Bakery staff is taught that the success of pie crust hinges on keeping things cold. Because pockets of butter steam up to create the layers that make pastry flaky, cold butter and ice water are essential for the flakiest crust, she adds. Once butter gets too warm—as it can if you leave it at room temperature too long or mix it with warm water—it will melt before it has the chance to puff during baking.
- Take your time. “Pie can be intimidating” to new bakers like first-year staff members, Tensen says, “but it’s easy to break it down into steps.” To help kids build their baking confidence, Try Pie uses an assembly-line system in which students manage just one task each day. You can do the same at home: Roll out the pie crust, then cover it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it overnight. The next day, make your desired pie filling. The following day, roll out and blind-bake or par-bake the crust (if your recipe calls for it), then assemble and bake.
- Flex with the seasons. Apple pie is Try Pie’s bestseller year-round, Tensen says, “with peach-blackberry close behind.” Seasonal flavors like rhubarb-raspberry-lavender, pumpkin praline, and apple-pear-cranberry are also customer favorites. Keep in mind that classics like apple, pumpkin, and pecan are always winners on the holiday table, but if you’re feeling a bit bored by your pie programming, take a cue from what’s freshest and best at your market to mix things up other times of the year. (Why not try one of these 15 pies you’ve never heard of soon?)
