Follow your Passion, It will lead you to Success!

 

Name: Bittu Jacob

Owner of Baked for you by Bittu

 

1. Why did you pursue baking as career?

 

During my school days I enjoyed baking with my ‘Amma’. After getting married I used to bake occasionally at home and when we had guests at home.

 

On my son’s 5^th  birthday, I decided to make a fire truck shaped fondant cake. It was my very first attempt baking a fondant cake from scratch. When my family saw the cake they were quite impressed. To be honest the cake tasted lovely but it was not like those very neat fondant cakes . My family encouraged me to level up my skill by attending cake décor classes.

 

    So I attended a class and learned the basics of cake decoration. Even at that point of time I never thought of taking this up professionally. That same year (2016) in the month of December my Appa asked me to bake 10 cakes to gift his friends. I was nervous about this but my Appa had full confidence in me. He convinced me to go ahead with it. And Guess what? It turned out to be a huge success. Appa gave me my first income from this. That was my first official sale.

 

As I became aware of my deep passion for baking, I started to bake more often at home. I sometimes shared my cakes with our neighbors in the apartment. Soon they all started asking me to bake for them. That's the beginning of my baking career and there is no looking back since then.

 

 

2.                    What skills are most important when it comes to baking?

 

Patience is the top most skill required for baking. This is especially true when it comes to cake décor.

 Nowadays people have switched to customized cakes for special occasions. This requires modelling skills. The Baking part is very easy but cake decoration requires hard work & patience. 

Every beginner who is reading this post my advice is that you should follow the recipe exactly as mentioned initially when you start out with baking. Once you master the recipe you can start modifying it as per your creativity.

 

 

3.                    How hard is it to get a FSSAI registration?

 

 It's very easy to get a FSSAI certification. You can either go to an Akshaya centre near you with your proof of Identity and photograph. You can easily get it done there. This can even be done online.

 

4.                   Which types of cakes sell out the most?

 

As a beginner I used to get more orders of regular frosted cakes which used to be chocolate cakes or buttercream cakes. 

Gradually it changed to designer cakes. Designer cakes includes customized birthday cakes/special occasion cakes or wedding cakes which has a theme around it.

The most selling flavors were always caramel buttercream and chocolate ganache cakes.

 

A few of the many creative designer cakes by Bittu

5.                    How did you market your brand?

I have not marketed my brand. By God’s Grace my business grew by word of mouth. Instagram also gave a good number of enquiries but mainly it grew by word of mouth.

6.                   Is it necessary to have a personal baking space in the house or will the kitchen be enough?

Your Kitchen is more than enough for home baking. A separate room or baking space is not required.

 

7. For an absolute newbie to baking which are the most essential baking equipment’s?

An Electric beater and an OTG/Cooking range is more than enough. If you don’t have an Oven a big sized pressure cooker is just enough to start off with.

 

8.                   How do you manage packing and logistics?

Boxes of all sizes are easily available in baking equipments shops / baking ingredients shops which can be used for packing. Transportation has risk involved in it. If you are doing the transportation part all by yourself then it is best to keep the cake in  the front foot rest area in the A/C car and remember to drive carefully.

9.                   Was the name and logo for “Baked for you by Bittu” created by you?

 

Logo was created by a designer. 

 

10.             What is the hardest thing about being a baker?

Being a Baker is not hard if it is passion driven. You need patience. Some designs will take many days to finish. Some cake toppers will take hours and many sleepless nights and some cakes may have many such toppers.

 

11.                How many recipes have you developed so far?

My best-selling recipes are my Amma’s recipes. I try out a lot of new recipes and modify it to my likes. Lots of trial and endless error till I perfect it out.

12.              Does your kids also join you while you bake?

 

My daughter likes to bake with me. She likes helping me and sometimes does it herself.

 

13.              While estimating the cost of the cake what are the various factors to consider?

 

In addition to the costs of the Ingredients, Electricity, Water, Packaging costs, Cleaning, your time, effort, transportation cost and fuel charges there will be many small expenses which we don’t notice much. I didn’t have a helper with baking so didn’t have to bear that expense.

 

14.              Describe your most challenging Baking Project. How did you overcome it?

 

Transporting cakes safely is the biggest challenge I have faced. This was a great learning experience.

 

Once a single tier tall cake which was transported quite far ended up looking like the leaning tower of Pisa when it reached the destination. Luckily as I had personally took the cake to the location, I could fix it up and place it on the stage.

 

There was another incident when a 2-tier cake got damaged in the transportation. They brought it back to me and by God's grace, within an hour I could redo the bottom tier and made alterations in the design. I was able to fix it an send it back to the location on time. 

One tip I have for the aspiring bakers out there is that it is best to chill the cake well if it is to be sent to a far location.

 

15.               What is your favorite part about Baking?

My favorite part is the cake décor. I like modelling toppers.

 

16.              Have you sacrificed your sleep for days to grow your business?

Yes. Lots and Lots of sleepless nights. As a parent I felt nights are the best time to work peacefully without any distractions. The kids will be asleep and I can fully concentrate on perfecting my work. I make the Cake toppers mostly at night.

 

17.               Any Advice for Aspiring Bakers.

 

        If you have a passion for baking then I would say go for it! You will enjoy every bit of the process if you are into baking!  

        You must have PATIENCE! PATIENCE and PATIENCE. Try to understand baking science. Try to understand why a particular ingredient is used or what is the property of every ingredient you use.

     Use natural and fresh ingredients as far as possible. It will give you good results. Follow the recipe to the core till you master it. 

    Help your fellow bakers by clearing their doubts and sharing your knowledge. Do everything that you do with love.