At only 11 years old, Brooke Waters is already well on her way to becoming an accomplished baker.

“She’s been helping in the kitchen forever,” said her mother, Kellee Waters. “I’m the sous chef, but she does everything by herself.”

Brooke was born at only 27 weeks old, weighing two pounds and three ounces, and placed in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Baptist South where she stayed for nine weeks. While she was there, Footprints Ministry was established as a non-profit organization to assist families with children in the NICU.

“We were the first family they ministered to,” Kellee said. “Brooke is their first NICU baby.”

Brooke began crafting culinary delicacies in her family’s kitchen in second grade – by third grade, she was making cakes all on her own.

“I’ve really liked to bake since I was little,” Brooke said. “It just really makes me happy and I like being creative.”

Kellee admits that her daughter knows much more about baking than she does.

“She’s really taught me a lot,” Kellee said. “It seems like it’s a natural ability to be able to do it.”

Baking seems to be a bit of a tradition in the family, as Brooke’s grandmother introduced her to the craft at an early age. After getting a taste for baking, Brooke dove headfirst into baking tutorials and videos.

But her real inspiration was the Food Network show “Kid’s Baking Championship.”

“I think she tries to make it better than the ones she sees,” Kellee said.

Brooke’s first cake was a basketball cake she made for a friend’s birthday party. Since then, she’s designed and baked a wide-array of delicious desserts for family and friends alike. Her favorite is a unicorn cake of her own design, which she creates regularly for herself as well as friends’ birthday parties and other gatherings

But she didn’t stop with cakes. Along with making her own butter cream, which she resumed after the five-gallon buckets of buttercream the family purchased were not up to her standards, Brooke has tried her hand at macaroons, roll cakes, painted cookies, strawberry shortcake, eclairs and more.

For her part, Kellee’s favorite dish is her daughter’s blueberry lemon bundt cake.

One of Brooke’s favorite cake-inspired memories is a cake she made for her father, Terry.

“He is an LSU fan and my mama is sort of an Auburn fan,” Brooke said. “So when LSU played Auburn, we made a surprise cake for Daddy. It was LSU on the outside and when he cut into it during halftime he saw the cake was orange and blue on the inside. “

Brooke usually churns out a cake once a week, though her routine has slowed since school started back – the Morgan Academy fifth grader also plays basketball and softball, is a cheerleader and takes piano lessons.

“When I watch Brooke bake or play the piano or play a sport I think back to the days of our NICU journey and feel so completely blessed,” Kellee said.

Brooke’s ambition is to one day attend culinary school and open her own bakery, a prospect made even more vivid by the announcement that Auburn University may soon be opening its own culinary program.

And she would like the opportunity to compete on “Kid’s Baking Championship,” no doubt inspired by her meeting with “Iron Chef Showdown” winner Caleb Fischer, currently Executive Chef at “Bow & Arrow” in Auburn. Fischer won top honors at the cooking show alongside his teammates from Auburn before appearing on Season Four of Food Network’s “Spring Baking Challenge.”

One of Brooke’s cakes will be featured in an upcoming auction at Cornerstone Presbyterian Church to raise funds for families in need during the holiday season.

Brooke still remembers the help that Footprints Ministry provided her when she was too young to even acknowledge it. Her baking operation is called “Brooke’s Bountiful Blessings,” named in honor of the work the ministry did when she was a baby, and she regularly asks for donations to the organization in place of birthday gifts.

Recently, she sold baked goods at a motocross event and donated all her profits to the ministry.

Brooke is gearing up for the holidays as well. Each year since kindergarten, she and a couple of friends have gotten together for a cookie swap – each girl brings two dozen cookies to swap with the others. This year, they’ll be water-coloring iced sugar cookies while they indulge in each other’s creations.

While Brooke’s passion keeps her family busy, Kellee thinks children who invest in extracurricular activities are extremely fortunate.

“When you participate in extracurricular activities or hobbies, you get the opportunity to explore a range of interests and unlock passions you might never have known you had,” Kellee said. “The more you achieve success through these outlets you are passionate about the more your self-confidence will improve. So many essential life skills are gained through these activities and hobbies, like goal setting, teamwork, time management and problem solving.”

“When I’m baking it just makes me happy,” Brooke said. “I like to dance around while I’m working. I love to see the happiness it brings to other people when I give them slices of cake. “