For The Love Of Baking

chron:

A lot of little girls had Easy-Bake Ovens. But not many of them turned that initial interest in concocting tiny cakes into a full-fledged baking career.

Adria Carter is one of those whose early adventures with batter eventually led to a grown-up desire to create cookies, brownies and cakes.

“From the time I was a little kid, I wanted to bake. I think it was in my DNA. I remember my first Easy-Bake Oven,” she said. “My mom said I made the best mud pies on the block.”

Today, Carter has her own baking enterprise, the Brownie Pan Fine Desserts & Gifts, but hers was not a direct path from childhood treats to adult sweets. In between there was a career in banking and wealth management. But while working for UBS Financial Services, her baking dreams kept calling. In 2005 she began her business part-time, baking cheesecakes and birthday and wedding cakes for co-workers and friends. As her sideline business grew, so did her dream of baking full-time. In 2008, she left the corporate world and took the plunge as a full-time dessert caterer, baking out of a rented commercial space to supply her customers.

Hers is a one-woman operation: “I’m the accountant, the bookkeeper, the bottle washer, the baker and the deliverer,” she says with an unwaveringly optimistic tone. “When I look back at the end of the day and see what I’ve done by myself, it’s amazing.”

Although she refers to herself as a “struggling entrepreneur,” Carter has managed to build a base of private and corporate clients, including Ikea Trading Services. Her goal is to acquire more corporate accounts and eventually get her own storefront business for retail sales.

Photo from The Brownie Pan

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