No Limits Ladies.com

I am admittedly no master baker. I make a mean (and inexpensive) chocolate brownie. The recipe to be found here (I omit the costly walnuts and bake them in mini muffin tins for easy eating). But that’s about the extent of my baking abilities.

Most of my friends are in the same non-cooking boat. One of my buddies has yet to successfully make poptarts (he keeps trying, stubborn man). Despite all this, we get asked often to bring food to potlucks, work functions, church functions, even family reunions (family should know better especially after my famed macaroni and cheese disaster…who knew I had to boil the water first?).

So where do we turn?

One place is to baking blessed friends. One of my male friends (yes, male) makes cakes to live for. They are so sinfully yummy that people started to pay him for his baking time. He baked as “favors” for others and they kicked in a little something extra for his effort. Eventually, he turned legit, getting the business registered and satisfying the health officials.

But his first foray was really unintentional. He baked for friends and family. Then he was asked to participate in a charity bake sale. Attendees asked him if he made cakes. He said privately and gave them his personal business card (personal business cards are a must have especially for people like me always looking for new opportunities). He shamelessly handwrote “bakes first rate cakes” on it so they’d remember.

My buddy told interested parties that he would bake a cake for them for x dollars (a reasonable wage for his time, factoring in a small fee for use of his pans and oven) plus the cost of ingredients. He made it clear that it wasn’t a business, more like a favor (which it was…to begin with). Clients picked the cakes up.

It was so lucrative that now he has his own restaurant featuring…yes, his cakes.