14-year-old author and bakery owner highlights the Ennis Junior Farmer’s Market

When the Ennis Junior Farmer’s Market expanded to a monthly event for the 2025 season after a successful launch in 2024, no one was better prepared to take advantage of it than author and serial entrepreneur Ethan Hadley. He’d already started a bakery, developed a menu, hired his family to help, built a website and on top of it all and self published a book all before he turned 14 years old.  

“When I was 10, my mom was homeschooling me and teaching me a lot about entrepreneurships,” explained Hadley. “I really wanted to start making some money and she helped me think of ways I could do that. She suggested brownies or baked goods because that seemed pretty easy to do and people love baked goods. So I started Ethan‘s amazing brownies on June 25, 2021.”

After receiving his cottage food license, Hadley began the difficult work of developing a product line. 

“I try to choose products that I think people will like and that are not too complicated to make. I started with brownies because they were easy. And then my mom suggested banana bread because my grandma always has bananas that we can use,” he said. 

“Sometimes I get ideas from my customers,” he continued. “One time the neighbor suggested lemon bars and that’s how they got added to the list. That’s also how I’ve added some of my gluten-free products because of customer requests.”

Hadley’s baked goods are available for events and for special order from his website ethansamazingbakery.com. While developing and executing a business plan before becoming a teenager may seem like a big accomplishment for most kids, it was just the beginning for Hadley, who added author to his resume in 2023 when he self published his book The Adventure of Fire. 

“My book is about two novice wizards and a Phoenix who have to save their world from a dark enchanted octopus,” said Hadley. “They travel across their realm in order to confront and defeat the octopus having adventures along the way.”

“I got the idea when I was with a homeschool book club group. We were drawing our own type of monsters and I ended up drawing an evil octopus. I then wanted to write a story about my octopus. So I basically started with a picture of my villain, and came up with my story from there,” he continued. 

While many young imaginations find inspiration, following through to complete a book brings a set of challenges and experiences that many young authors don’t make it through. 

“The hardest part about writing my book was figuring out my plot and how it would all flow,” said Hadley, explaining that his mom helped with the typing and plot development while he dictated the story. 

“Anytime I said something that gave her pause because she didn’t understand she would ask me questions and I would have a chance to figure out a better way to say it or how to adjust,” he said. 

“My other challenge was remembering small facts or details that would happen to my characters at one part of the book and keep that throughout in the later part,” he continued. “For instance, one of my characters hurt his arm early on in the book and this has an impact later in the book that I had to remember.”

Even with these accomplishments under his belt, Hadley continues to innovate and find new products. His latest venture is with 3-D printing. 

“In addition to my bakery items, a few years ago I decided to add some 3-D print designs for some diversity. I try to focus on things that are easy to make and fun to play with like my infinity cubes or gear fidget spinners. I also really like the fish bones design I have that is movable. Most of my designs come from open source and a little tweaking,” he adds. 

Ethan and the rest of the young entrepreneurs who make up the Ennis Junior Farmer’s Market will be at Lion’s Club Park showcasing their wares on June 28, July 26, August 23 and Sept 27 from 9 a.m. to noon.