My first Make & Bake House blog post

Hi - I’m Cheryl. As today is the day I have completed my first fairly large order for collection tomorrow, it seemed a good time to start my Make & Bake House blog - to celebrate just how proud I am of myself. I never think we celebrate our own achievements enough, but why not. We work so hard to get there.

In February I was made redundant. I knew it was coming - there aren't many small businesses that could survive 2020 and still be going strong in 2021. So I thought now was as good a time as any to throw myself into a passion of mine and turn it into a business... making and baking, and just generally being creative.

Straight away I put everything I had into getting as many orders as possible. I had little idea what I was doing. I created and made a variety of things, and posted them on every form of social media I could imagine, hoping for the best.

I was lucky that two big events - Mother’s Day and Easter - were coming up within a short space of time of each other. I quickly made some ‘treat boxes’ consisting of brownies, blondies, cupcakes and biscuits. I personalised them, took as many good pics as I could with an old iPhone with a broken screen and hoped that people would like what I was offering.

As well as the delicious Mother’s Day treat boxes, cupcakes, cake-filled hearts, cakesicles and biscuits, I made yummy brownie-filled Easter eggs covered with melted chocolate and offered them with whatever topping anyone wanted! Next year I will do this a little differently - I shall offer set options and stick with them. But starting out I just wanted to say ‘yes’ to whatever anyone was asking for.

“If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say ‘yes’ - then learn how to do it later,” Sir Richard Branson once famously said. This positive approach has worked for me initially, enabling me to get a number of orders in, but this is not really how I want to do things in the future. However, without abiding by that quote, I wouldn't have learnt as much as I have in just a few short weeks. Cheers Mr Branson, you’re ace!

From those Mother’s Day and Easter pics going online, I received other orders too - for birthdays and a very lovely ‘I Miss You’ treat box.

When Mother’s Day came, it proved really interesting. I already had a lot more orders than I expected, but figured I would order a few more boxes and make a few extra cakes than I needed. Thank goodness I did, because there are a lot of last-minute Larrys out there. And I’m so grateful to every single one of you, as nearly half my orders came in the day before Mother’s Day! To complete these orders in time, I was awake for 24 hours straight, and was strangely completely knackered but high on sugar at the same time! All I had eaten all day was bits of cake and icing.

I was grateful when the day finally ended but was also totally overwhelmed with everyone’s kind words over the coming days - but not only kind words, repeat orders too. People were loving my makes and bakes and I couldn’t quite believe it. I don’t think there is a baker out there who truly believes they are as good as they are until compliments start pouring in and tears start pouring down your face - tears of joy and happiness may I add.

Although Easter was equally as manic, I had learnt a few lessons from Mother’s Day. So it was slightly less stressful and my day was not as long.

This now brings me to my first big order - a birthday cake with a Prosecco bottle in it, 24 cupcakes and 24 biscuits. I am extremely proud of this and I really hope the customer coming to collect tomorrow loves it as much as I enjoyed making it.