The bake off

Due to Covid, my hospitality recruiting business, in South Africa, had died and I had to rely on my previous caring experience to earn foreign currency. As I boarded the plane for my new job in the UK , I wondered how my daughter would be. At 23, she was still living at home, had 7 months previously had a child and now was going to be on her own.

We had not been apart at all for more than 12 weeks; I am a single parent, and we have a beautiful bond. We are the kind of mother and daughter, that despite the huge gap in ages are friends too.

I knew it was time to loosen the reigns completely, for her and for me.

She had trained as a chef , and found her niche and talent. When I left, she held a great job as a pastry chef for a 5* hotel. She was too shy to enter competitions despite her Executive Chef encouraging her. She was part of a team but never stuck head above the parapit.

A very capable pastry chef but she showed no leadership skills at the time.

I could not be prouder but as mum’s do, I worried about leaving her .

I need not have worried at all, to my delight and surprise my daughter coped incredibly well . She took voluntary retrenchment from her job, one in which she had not been happy for a long while, since her favourite Head Chef had left , and using the retrenchment pay out she received, opened a small bakery business from home.

I did not take the news well, I had sleepless nights .

She began slowly with a small order for a friend of hers, she very nervously took her cakes to the friend’s grandmother’s 70^th Birthday . To her embarrasment they asked her to stay and share in the celebrations. She put the three tiers of the cake out and made sure it looked perfect,The family was thrilled. Within weeks they placed another couple of orders. They posted wonderful pictures of her cakes too. Then my book club ladies supported her and little by little the sales grew. She made sure everything was as fresh as could be and decorated appropriately for each occasion .

She had the idea to promote herself on Facebook , just on the local foru. Believe it or not, in the middle of the pandemic she flourished, delivering sweet treats and after supper desserts in the neighbourhood. People stuck in their homes due to lockdown loved it, and slowly the business grew on her baking reputation . The orders came at odd times, but she had made up her mind she would deliver! As she grew, she put in a few rules about orderng and everyone was happy .

She did her own online promoting and ran specials for events and special days like Easter . I was impressed with ability to design posters and adverts on her phone , so much so that she is doing it for my small business now.

As Lockdown began to ease , she went to markets selling cupcakes at some and delicious pies at another . She sold out each time, and she got orders for birthdays, christenings, etc. She had designed a flyer which she attached to the bottom of each cake box so they would not get lost.

Her coupe came when an ex-client of mine asked her to supply his coffee shop with cakes and pies each week. He has helped promote her private catering too , so each day the orders keep coming in.

I was so impressed with her ability to stand on her own feet . She managed to budget. source and buy product really well . She designed her own invoices . She is keeping a proper set of books.

She even made her first wedding cake recently . It was beautiful and the couple absolutely loved how it looked and tasted.

She managed to move to a newly rented house in the middle of last year too. She decided the kitchen in the house I left her in, was simply not suitable . At the time she was very stressed , needing to find a place by a deadline as she had given notice. She had found a place, but the estate agent did not approve her application because her income was not yet stable! She was so worried that she would never find a place .

The house she loved came on the market again , advertised directly by the owner this time, she called him and told him the agent had rejected her, she asked if she could come and see him . my shy daughter was becoming incredibly determined.

He loved her , liked her honesty and her drive to find the right kitchen. So long as I guaranteed the rent too , he wanted to give her a chance . He bought a cake for his wedding anniversary from her too.

The kitchen space gave her a way to be properly organised .She could store equipment properly and keep the place so clean. She applied to the Department of health for a license to trade and with a few tweaks they accepted the kitchen .

She is living her small dream and loving it .Her daughter goes to school, but she has the time to fetch her earlier in the afternoons sometimes and spend precious time with her. She knows exactly how big she wants to get, mostly working on her own. She does not want full time staff, just the occasional help and she uses a delivery guy now .

She has had the odd disaster , she once for got 100 cupcakes for a birthday order until the client rang the evening before to confirm a pickup time . That night she baked through to give the client the freshest batch of cupcakes ever . She completed the decorating and packed them up about 15 minutes before her client arrived .

She has now registered as a sole proprietor and gets wonderful advice from her bank . She is running a very stable little business. I am so immensely proud

I recently returned to our home, which smells divine every day , confident that I could start something new, while my daughter took care of our rent etc. I had so missed her and my grand daughter but could not afford to come home for over a year