By Alyssa Serrano
Correspondent
Lilla Vanilla, a bakery in Hamilton, may have gone viral on TikTok for their beautiful desserts, but the business’s origin story is arguably the most beautiful part of the shop.
Lily Voronina, the owner and creator of Lilla Vanilla, fell in love with baking, and began her career after one of the most difficult moments in her life.
In 2016, Voronina’s older brother died in a tragic accident, which devastated her and her entire family. She remembers her brother always telling her, “follow the dream, choose the job you love to do then you will feel happy.”
Before he died, she never really listened to his advice. She had always believed working was just to have money to survive; everything else can come during breaks or free time.
Grief hit her hard, but she knew she had to keep going, “We still didn't recover, but life continues so we have to live.”
Voronina began baking at home as a way to cope. Over time it went from something to keep going and moving on, to something that had grown and carved a space in her heart. Baking just clicked for her, she felt like understanding the processes behind making things came to her easily, and it felt right.
During the time where she was baking at home, she put a lot of pressure on herself to make everything absolutely perfect right away. But overtime she learned that perfection isn’t everything and that “everything can be fixed unless it was dropped on the floor so stop stressing."
Although her business’s mousse pastries have only recently taken off on social media, she’s been making them for eight years, and has been a trend in Europe for even longer.
Virality came almost out of nowhere for her, “Last summer I posted one more video as usual about these desserts and all of the sudden it got 1 million views, and we got known all over.”
Voronina is raising her daughter alone and her business is her sole source of income, so there was never any actual budget for marketing, anything they post on social media was filmed by her or her employees and posted by her.
She was born and raised in Moscow, Russia, and to her, quality is everything. She was raised on extremely fresh and high-quality ingredients, so she refused to compromise on ingredient quality when it comes to her business. Despite this, she does her best to keep the prices as low as possible, because she deeply understands that every cent matters in the current economy.
Voronina believes that her business really stands out because it manages to combine European tastes, culture and points of views with local ideas and culture, to make something that is both unique and delicious.
When the business was first starting, it was during the midst of the COVID-19 lockdown and her daughter was only 7-years-old.
“To be honest all the beginning of the business was a blur,” said Voronina.
During that time, she really leaned on the support of her family. Her daughter has always been a huge supporter and fan, but the rest of her family has also been really supportive, even though they live in another country.
Now, even after being viral, she wants to take her time with her business. She is interested in maybe opening more locations in the future, but she wants to focus on getting through now first, rather than rushing into the future. However, she says no matter where she is in five years, that she has faith in herself and her ability to figure things out.
“This business is my second baby. I love it, it means so much to me. I started this business in a memory of my so dearly loved older brother. I want this part to be known forever — I wish he was here and could see how much I did and he would be so proud!”
