I adore baking. I always have and it is all down to my beautiful and talented mum. I remember being young and spending many a day "helping" her bake and decorate cakes for her customer's when she had her own cake business. I especially remember the time I burnt my lips on a baking tray whilst up on tiptoes trying to get a glance and a sniff of those freshly baked chocolate chip cookies!
At the age of 16 I decided that I was going to make my little sister a birthday cake. She was a huge fan of Miffy and at that time it wasn't all that popular. Mum had given up cake decorating due to stress and all the supermarkets had to offer were their bog-standard chocolate tray bakes. That was the day I realised that not only was I pretty good at cake decorating, but I also enjoyed it.
At 19 I saved up and paid for myself to do a Cake Decorating & Sugarcraft course at Brooklands College. Although mum had taught me everything I needed to know and I have always had a strong belief that the level of someone's skills is proved in the cakes they create, I still wanted that formal qualification to my name.
After successfully completing college with distinctions, I began baking cakes for family and friends and my business soon evolved. Cakes by Abby was the original name, but it wasn't long before I sought after a more intriguing, professional and well, less boring name. A few week's of brainstorming with mum and together we finally came up with BakeAbella.
Abella is a combination of my name "Abby" and my sister's name "Ella" - we added "Bake" to the beginning because it was a baking business.
I ran BakeAbella for almost 5 years and in that time baked and decorated a lot of cakes. I supplied cupcakes to AXA and Swift Cover Insurance to celebrate their millionth milestone, cute boxes of leopard print cupcakes for plus-size fashion designer Anna Scholz which she sent out alongside her press packages to companies including Vogue and Cosmopolitan. I also helped out local businesses in my area including SJB High School on many occasions, The St John Scouts, local doctor surgeries and more. I also became good friends with Dominique, the owner of Guildford's renowned music venue The Boileroom. I supplied cakes for all their big events and was even asked to make Dominique's very own wedding cake.
I have no doubts that I would still be running BakeAbella to this very day if it hadn't been for the rapid interest and new found passion for baking. Thanks to Mary Berry and The Great British Bake Off, everyone seems to have discovered their love for baking and would much rather have a go themselves than pay for a professionally decorated cake.
On the plus side, being employed as a baker means I no longer need to worry. I'm incredibly lucky to have pretty much free reign of what I bake for Season's Coffee Shop and am blessed that the owner, Victoria, has huge confidence in my abilities. No more pulling my hair out because I can't get my model of Peppa Pig just right, no more last minute dashes to Sainsburys because I've run out of icing sugar, and the most important thing of all; my mum finally has her dining room back!
