Love & Best Dishes: Meet Teri Blevins of Lil’ Bit of Heaven Cupcakes

Name: Love & Best Dishes: Meet Teri Blevins of Lil’ Bit of Heaven Cupcakes | Open Video
Uploaded: 2026-07-14T10:08:02+00:00
Duration: 16 min 14 s

0:00
- Y'all, I'm sitting here
0:01
with my friend Teri, Linda's daughter.
0:03
(both laugh)
0:06
- Killing two birds with one stone.
0:09
- That's a little inside joke.
0:10
Her mother's name was Linda.
0:13
But Teri has been a friend since 2013,
0:18
and she has been there always to help me
0:21
with events for the Paula Deen Bag Lady Foundation.
0:27
And our mission is to help women
0:32
and their children.
0:34
And Teri has always been there
0:36
to help make these events special.
0:39
And she owns a Lil' Bit of Heaven
0:42
in West, in Kentucky.
0:46
- Nope, West Virginia.
0:47
- West Virginia.
0:50
My geography is not good, y'all,
0:53
so you'll have to forgive me. (Teri chuckles)
0:55
In West Virginia.
0:57
Oh, and I got some things I wanna ask about West Virginia.
1:00
Hope you can help. - Absolutely, I can help you
1:01
with that. - But I had so much fun
1:05
watching Teri put together this macaron cake.
1:12
And like I said, you catch the video, please
1:15
'cause it's amazing what she did.
1:18
And I just want y'all to know who she is,
1:23
what she is,
1:25
and we're gonna need your website.
1:28
- Yeah. - Where can people go?
1:30
- We can do all that. - Teri, to just
1:33
see what you do.
1:34
- Well, if they go, the website is lil,
1:37
it's L-I-L bitofheaven.rocks is our website.
1:41
And they can go there and see all the fun stuff that we do.
1:44
We do have items that we can ship
1:46
all over the Continental United States.
1:48
- Wow. - Our pepperoni rolls
1:49
are quite popular, we ship 'em everywhere.
1:51
- Yeah, she shipped us some.
1:53
- I did.
1:54
- Yeah. - Cupcakes In A Jar,
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you know, things like that that we could do.
1:58
- Wow. - And it's just been 16 years
2:02
that the bakery's been in business.
2:04
And we're actually celebrating 10 years, I think, tomorrow,
2:08
as a matter of fact that we've been in our building
2:10
on Main Street, so. - Oh my goodness.
2:12
- Yeah. - Now how big is the town
2:13
that you live in? - St. Albans is not very big.
2:16
It's my hometown, I grew up there.
2:18
It was a great place to grow up.
2:20
- Oh. - Not quite
2:20
as small as Mayberry. (Paula laughs)
2:22
Definitely not as big as Savannah.
2:24
It's outside, about 15 minutes outside of the capital
2:27
of West Virginia, which is Charleston.
2:29
- Mm-hmm. - So it still
2:31
has that small town feel,
2:34
which I love. - Yeah.
2:35
What's the population now?
2:37
- I think it's about, it's terrible that I don't know this.
2:39
I think it's about 50,000, so.
2:41
- Okay. - Not tremendously big.
2:42
- The size reminds me of maybe the town
2:44
I grew up in, Albany, Georgia.
2:46
- In Albany, I think-
2:47
- I think we had,
2:48
so our population was 70,000. - Yeah.
2:51
Yeah, and it's probably about that size,
2:53
you know, with the outskirts in Queens.
2:55
- Yes, yes, yes.
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And that is a great size to grow up in.
3:00
- It is, it was a great place to grow up in.
3:02
I raised my boys there.
3:03
They all graduated from the same high school
3:05
that I graduated from. - Oh. (laughs)
3:07
- Yeah, they, my staff laughs
3:09
'cause every day, somebody will come in the door
3:11
that, you know, "I knew, you know, your mom and dad.
3:14
I remember you when you were this tall," and you know?
3:17
- Well, tell everybody how you got started
3:21
because I've always tried
3:23
to encourage girls and guys, you know,
3:28
if they had a burning
3:30
in their belly- - Mm-hmm.
3:32
- To do something, don't, you know?
3:36
You're better to try and fail than have regrets
3:40
than not trying. - Well, it's such a try,
3:42
oh, absolutely, and I'm sorry, didn't mean to interrupt you.
3:44
It's such a true statement,
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and I don't know if I've ever told you this,
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but I've shared with you the fact that, you know,
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I found you on Food Network back in, you know, early 2000s.
3:56
And that really inspired me to start baking
3:59
and cooking again, which was something
4:00
I'd always loved to do.
4:02
But in 2010, I entered
4:05
the Real Women of Philadelphia Contest
4:07
that you were doing with Philadelphia brand
4:10
cream cheese. - Yeah.
4:11
- And so in that particular contest, you know,
4:14
you had to create original recipes.
4:17
- Yes, yes. - You had to produce videos.
4:20
And I had the best time.
4:23
My poor husband became the producer,
4:26
the director, the editor. (Paula laughs)
4:28
And I created several recipes and sent them all in.
4:31
- Aha. - And I didn't win a thing.
4:34
Not a thing did I win.
4:36
But let me tell you something-
4:37
- It must have been an off day for you.
4:40
- I had the best time.
4:43
And I'd like to say that sometimes God whispers
4:45
in my ear what He wants me to know,
4:47
and then sometimes He just knocks me flat upside
4:49
of the head when I'm too stupid to pay attention.
4:52
At the end of that recipe contest,
4:54
I had such a wonderful experience
4:57
even though I didn't win.
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And so I googled 2010 recipe contests.
5:02
Duncan Hines was having a Red Carpet Cupcake Challenge.
5:06
In that case, they wanted you to actually
5:08
use their products, come up
5:10
with a cupcake recipe. - Aha.
5:12
- I was walking through my office
5:14
where I worked at the time
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and thought in my head, "If I took chocolate butter cream
5:19
or chocolate frosting and peanut butter,
5:21
mixed it together and froze it,
5:23
I could drop it like truffles down inside chocolate batter.
5:26
That'll be a cupcake."
5:28
And I created this cupcake and sent a picture,
5:31
didn't win, didn't win. (Paula laughs)
5:34
But I finished in the top 10 in the country
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after about a thousand or so entries.
5:39
That in turn meant that Duncan Hines reached out
5:43
to our local paper and did a press release.
5:46
And all of a sudden, my husband looked at me
5:49
and said, "I don't know if you're aware of what you've done,
5:51
but I hope you are prepared for what you've done."
5:54
And that was July of 2010.
5:56
Lil' Bit of Heaven Cupcakes officially started
5:59
August 1st, 2010. - Wow.
6:01
- And it's been almost 16 years
6:03
that Real Women of Philadelphia
6:05
and me not winning a thing is what started
6:08
that whole process. - That was so much fun
6:11
doing that. - Oh, I had a blast!
6:13
I had a blast! - It was so much fun.
6:16
And it's been like, well, you say 2010?
6:19
- 2010. - But you know, it's funny how
6:24
I can look back over my life
6:27
since I took responsibility for myself.
6:29
- Mm-hmm.
6:30
- I can look back over my life
6:32
and just see all these God links.
6:34
- Yeah, it's amazing, they pop up.
6:36
And if you're paying attention, you know,
6:40
the things that you realize, you know,
6:43
you having me here.
6:45
We've talked about the fact that in 2013, you know,
6:48
I got an email from pauladeen.com inviting me
6:52
to a Christmas cooking school
6:54
that you were having in this home.
6:56
And sometime during our journey,
6:58
I've talked about this with you.
7:00
And we talked about the fact
7:01
that you had no idea why I got that email.
7:03
And I didn't have any idea why
7:04
I got it either, not a clue! (Paula laughs)
7:08
And I made the decision to come down here,
7:10
and I met Bubbles,
7:13
and I met Peggy,
7:14
and I met, you know, everyone in your beautiful family,
7:17
and that in turn started those friendships.
7:21
- Yeah, it just-
7:22
- And it just has been all ever since.
7:25
- Well, some people, we're just,
7:31
we're meant to (clap)
7:33
collide. - Collide.
7:34
- We're meant to collide.
7:36
Where did you work before you started the bakery?
7:39
- So my, mostly my career
7:43
was in restaurant management.
7:45
- Aha.
7:46
- The last grownup job I had,
7:48
(Paula laughs)
7:49
I was actually the customer service director
7:51
for all of the J.D. Byrider car dealerships
7:55
in West Virginia, and we had a few in Ohio
7:56
and Kentucky as well. - Okay.
7:59
- My boss, president of the company,
8:01
a guy named Mark Morris is one of your biggest fans,
8:03
I have to tell you.
8:05
When I first met you- - Hello, Mark,
8:07
"Love and Best Dishes." (Teri laughs)
8:09
- When I first met you,
8:10
you autographed a Christmas ornament for him.
8:13
- Oh. - It is still, to this day,
8:14
one of his prized possessions.
8:16
So I want you to know, goes on his tree every year.
8:18
But so customer service was a lot of what I did.
8:22
And I kept that job for the first year of the bakery.
8:25
- You did? - I did, I got no sleep.
8:29
And finally at the end of the year, my doctor said,
8:31
"You're gonna have to choose
8:32
'cause you're gonna, you know,
8:34
make your poor body wear out if you don't."
8:37
And so that's when I decided that the bakery
8:39
would have to become, you know?
8:41
- Yes, yes. - The priority.
8:42
And you also shared something with me back in 2013.
8:46
You asked me then if I wanted
8:48
to have a brick-and-mortar bakery.
8:50
- Mm-hmm. - And I said,
8:51
"You know, Paula, I do everything.
8:55
Everything that is baked, everything that's direct
8:57
or decorated, everything."
8:59
And you looked at me and said, "You know, Teri,
9:01
one of the hardest things I ever did
9:03
was to have to trust someone
9:05
to do what I had only done myself for so long,"
9:08
and I've never forgotten that
9:10
because when I opened the brick-and-mortar
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and I had a staff- - Mm-hmm.
9:14
- Trusting them to do those things has been,
9:19
and I hear your voice- - Aha.
9:20
- Reminding me. - It's so hard.
9:23
- It is.
9:24
- Because this child that you're raising up-
9:27
- Mm-hmm. - Nobody loves it like you do.
9:29
- Nope.
9:30
- And you feel like nobody will take care of it
9:33
like you will. - Yep.
9:34
- But in order to grow-
9:37
- Mm-hmm.
9:39
- You have to bring in good people that you can trust.
9:42
- And I have the most wonderful staff.
9:45
- That's right, how many staff members?
9:48
- Right now, currently, we have one, two,
9:52
three, four, five, six,
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and then we have two that are part-time.
9:57
So six, pretty much full-time and two that are part-time.
9:59
- That's a wonderful number to have to manage.
10:02
- It is, and you know, they work so hard.
10:06
They really do.
10:08
And we talk about the fact
10:10
customer service is a big thing for me.
10:12
- The biggest.
10:13
- It's the biggest thing for me.
10:14
- The biggest. - There is no option
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to do anything less. - That's right.
10:18
- And they step up to that every day.
10:21
And for my son and my daughter-in-law,
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I mean, you know, working for your mom
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and your mother-in-law every day, that's a challenge.
10:29
- Family businesses are such a challenge.
10:34
I felt like there were days where my sons loved me,
10:38
but they probably didn't like me.
10:39
- Oh, I, when I have to have very difficult conversations,
10:45
our rule of thumb is that they absolutely understand
10:49
that if I have to have a difficult conversation,
10:51
I will always be calm, I will always be respectful.
10:55
- Mm-hmm. - And they in turn understand
10:57
that they can have those conversations with me
10:59
'cause I'm here to tell you, they have to have 'em with me
11:01
probably more than I have to have 'em with them.
11:04
My poor son will come to me and be like, "Mom, seriously?
11:07
Did you mean to do,
11:09
did you mean to schedule nine cakes at 1:00 PM?
11:11
Like, what were you thinking?"
11:14
You know, but it's okay
11:15
because I trust them implicitly to be able to do that.
11:19
And of course, my husband is part of the bakery as well.
11:22
- He is now what? What is his function in it?
11:24
- Dan is more behind the scenes than anybody realizes.
11:28
You know, from the day we started,
11:30
he made all of our buttercream.
11:32
He took that on in 2013.
11:34
He left his job to help me at the bakery.
11:37
Now he makes all of our breads,
11:39
all of our pepperoni rolls. - Oh my goodness!
11:41
- Yeah, he does. - And was he a cook
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prior to this? (laughs) - Nope, nope.
11:46
- So you trained him? - I did.
11:48
And when I started doing custom cakes,
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I just couldn't do because we make everything.
11:52
So everything in our bakery that we sell, we make.
11:55
Literally from ingredients, we make it.
11:57
We don't buy anything pre-made.
11:59
- Mm-hmm.
12:00
- We don't, you know, we just don't do that.
12:02
And that is very important to me.
12:04
I've always said, "I close the door first."
12:07
- Yeah, a bakery, in order to enjoy success,
12:12
you gotta be the real deal.
12:14
- You do, and for us, there's so much pride in what we do,
12:18
and I think sometimes that gets lost.
12:20
- Mm-hmm.
12:21
- You have to feel good about what you're doing every day.
12:24
You really do.
12:25
And I always say food has been my love language.
12:27
- Yeah. - I know that you
12:28
understand that. - Absolutely.
12:29
- And the bakery is just a very large extension of that.
12:32
- Yes, and especially,
12:34
especially what you serve, sweets.
12:39
I mean, who doesn't love sweets?
12:40
(Teri laughs) Is there somebody out there
12:42
that doesn't love sweets? (Teri chuckles)
12:45
So I mean, that's a gift in itself
12:49
is giving somebody that, but
12:54
I'm just so happy that everybody is gonna get
12:58
to hear your story. - Thank you.
13:00
- Because it's important,
13:02
it's important to those of us
13:04
that really have beat the odds.
13:06
- Mm-hmm. - And I started with $200.
13:08
- Yep. - And it lasted me
13:10
for six years before I had to go borrow a penny.
13:14
So, you know, I think it's important
13:16
that we encourage others, you know,
13:20
to, you know, take a chance,
13:25
but make sure they're calculated risks that you take,
13:30
not just going out there willy-nilly.
13:32
- Yeah.
13:33
- But make sure it's a calculated risk.
13:36
- I always have friends who say, "You know, Teri,
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I wanna open a restaurant, you know, I wanna open a bakery,"
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I'm like, "Baby, I don't.
13:43
Sit down and talk to me first."
13:45
I always say, "You know, if all I had to do was bake
13:48
and decorate cakes all day,
13:50
oh, my life would be fabulous."
13:51
You know, just the joyous parts of that.
13:55
You have to be able, you know, to roll with that.
13:58
I've gotten to the point that I think my inability
14:02
to register stress is probably concerning
14:05
to the medical community. - Oh, yeah.
14:06
- 'Cause you just, you know, you have to be able
14:08
to function in very high-stress environments.
14:12
You do. - Yeah.
14:14
- But I think
14:16
for me, watching you coming up through,
14:21
and the things that inspired me the most about you
14:25
umpteen years ago are still the things
14:27
that inspire me the most about you now.
14:30
- Wonderful. - Which are just your love
14:32
of family and your love of people,
14:35
and you are so gracious,
14:38
and you're so appreciative and thankful for the support
14:42
that people give you.
14:44
And you have no idea
14:46
just by being on this earth,
14:49
what a gift you are.
14:53
- I'll pay her when we wrap up
14:55
this interview. (Teri laughs)
14:58
You are so, so sweet, Teri.
15:01
I, you know, I said when you look down the barrel
15:04
of that camera, you never know who's on the other side
15:09
watching. - It's true.
15:11
- And they may be in such a way that they just need a smile.
15:15
- Yeah.
15:16
- Or a laugh over something stupid that I've done.
15:19
(both laugh)
15:21
And there's been quite a few.
15:24
But I thank you so much for coming down here.
15:27
- Thank you for having me.
15:28
- And sharing some of your, a little bit of your talent
15:33
in the little while we had together.
15:35
- I will always come when you need me.
15:37
- And I want people to be aware of you.
15:40
So make sure you go to her website
15:43
and just see everything that this girl does,
15:47
and she does it in the name of love.
15:49
- Absolutely, thank you.
15:51
- "Love and Best Dishes," y'all.
15:57
Hey, y'all, it's Paula Deen.
15:59
Now, if you enjoyed this video, be sure to like it
16:02
and click the subscribe button as well as the notification
16:06
bell to be alerted when I post a video.
16:10
Love and Best Dishes Y'all.

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Love & Best Dishes: Meet Teri Blevins of Lil’ Bit of Heaven Cupcakes

Paula Deen