Love for Baking Becoming a Business

Love for Baking Becoming a Business

Amara

Where to start…..

Baking has always been in my life..When I was a kid my mom would let me choose what we should bake and together we would! My grandmas were a big part of it as well. I can remember Christmas filled with cookies on both side of the family, chocolate Crinkles for the Ramsbottom’s and ginger snaps in the Yavis side. As I became older I didn’t bake as much aside from ginger snaps for my dad at Christmas it was something left in the past.

However, one year in my late teens I decided I would make goodies for all the regulars at yavis’…. as I made this list I realized this wasn’t a small job…. for 5 years every Christmas I made 100 plates of treats for all our loyal customers as a sign of our appreciation!  And every year after I was done baking, a satisfied me wouldn’t want to look at any ingredients for another 365 days!!…

2018 was a summer I will never forget… it was crazy busy at our restaurant and I found myself slowly becoming unhappy as the days of work became longer and longer… that’s when I knew I needed to fill what down time I had with something that brought me joy… so I began baking.. I made my co workers all sorts of treat… it started with cupcakes and cookies then I asked the girls what they were craving and I made pies and squares and asked for honest feed back which they gave me without hesitation haha but it made me try harder and the challenge of something new lit a fire under me and all of a sudden the summer for the first time in a long time became fun for me!

“I had my first sale…”

In early August 2018 I had my first sale.. miss Stephanie Price had gave me a challenge… dairy free John Deere cupcakes for her sons birthday… to this day I still have that first $40 my “business” ever made… shortly after my next challenge arose … Jordyn Dewsbury asked me to make her a smash cake for her twin sons first birthday…. I had never even attempted to make a cake before but I was ready to try and the outcome had me thinking maybe I could really do this!

My sister (Sara) and I have always dreamt of different business we could start and often would come up with new business ideas and  names of the company’s …years ago before I had begun selling my baking while conversing with her while I walked the track at the gym (she was living away at the time and we often talked for hours on end dreaming away) we decided one day we would open a bakery and after going back and forth on names we cane to the decision our bakery would be called Amara Pastries (Amara for Amy and Sara)…
Naturally when I made the decision to start my business after a few successful cakes, the name was a no brainer!

Christmas 2018 was the big one for me.. Amara had it debut at the local Christmas market I made 500 cupcakes and 700 cookies and to my surprise I only had 36 cupcakes left and a maybe 15 cookies…. that night I can remember just how excited I was that people actually enjoyed the things that I made! That for me was and continues to be the most rewarding part of this whole Thing.:: people tell me their ideas and I get to turn them into reality with my own personal touch…. surprising my customers (and sometimes myself haha) with how perfect some items come out!

“The decision to start this business was not easy.”

The decision to start this business was not easy.. the idea that someone was going to judge me based on something I made was very hard to get over and honestly to this day it’s still tough… I’m very hard on myself when it come to what comes out of the kitchen… if I don’t think it’s perfect I beat myself up for days and have a tight circle of people who I demand honesty from in terms of letting me know if I could have done a better job and/or if I should change something, start again , etc………running a business is scary but at the same time one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had..

I’m so grateful to everyone who has supported me in the early stages of this part of my life and can not wait to see what the future has in store for Amara Pastries!!

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