16/12/2024
Ever wonder why a person with a high-paying job and a secure role in the corporate world (I guess not all roles are secured now) is willing to leave all this behind to lead a peaceful life? I used to wonder why or rather how someone could even possibly think about it.
Then reality hit me ; my 9-5 job as an account manager was gone in a split second due to overstaffing. This leaves me blank as I will need to start from fresh ; be it looking for job or starting up a business.
While working my 9-5 job I used to run a baking business previously with the help of an assistant as I mainly worked on bringing the order while my helper did the cake. This was indeed doing well for us as a side hustle as we started getting more orders every week and bigger orders catering bigger events. However, everything was slowly slowing down due to :
my marriage
helper moving to greater heights in life
Both of which I cannot control but only move forward with adjusting baking without a helper. I still took orders, occasionally baked for my family and friends. slowly as life started blooming with kids in the picture, I could not manage orders and slowly the momentum of my baking passion reduced.
Today, when I am being jobless, this passion for baking that I built earlier shone brighter than a diamond to me as I learned that skills are there to stay but not a job. That was when I understood my true calling and decided to work on re-building my baking empire. even I personally could not stand the taste of other bakers cake since I know how a quality cake will taste like.
Looking back at my journey in this baking line, it definitely started from my mom as when i was a kid, she used to bake all our birthday cakes and decorate them herself. She was good at preparing desserts as well. i guess this was my starting point to baking since my mom can just throw in he main ingredients and walla a cake is produced and not just any cake but a yummy one.
Remembering my first cake order, it was ordered by my best friend to be cut during her brother's wedding reception, imagine the pressure on me as i had to make sure it is perfect. The cake turned out superb with a stethoscope and some pills on it (she is a Doctor by the way). We layered it with jam in the middle and since it was our first time i hold the cake all the time and there was a see through hole on the box which i can see the cake was just fine during the journey.
However when we tried to unbox it my fear unboxed as well where the cake kinda slide off with the cream messed up at the side. I definitely went into panic mode and kept apologizing to my friend and she being herself said it's okay. Then my strongest pillar my mom, dad and helper helped mend the cake with bare hands and made it look almost like how we first decorated it.
Definitely learnt some lessons here which are :
ALWAYS put a dowel in the cake to ensure the cake is secured as we do not know how the journey is going to be like
to bring my baking TOOLS whenever i deliver my cakes
learn to overcome my panic and try to find solutions.
The rest was history as i manage to navigate the fear of cake falling or breaking as we learned a lot from videos and tips from other baker's. Implemented and created an SOP for our future baking. If i were to continue my baking from back then i could have been a top baker in town right now looking at how some other bakers progressed.
Nevertheless it is definitely not too late to start doing anything. Just need to start something viral and there you have it a major breakthrough.
For now, i am the Golden Classic Baker should you need any cake for your occassions do reach out to me.
