Hi everyone!
I’m really excited about my new blog, I first attempted to blog about my cakes, but I got carried away by all the goings-on around me and ended up sharing my other non-apologetic thoughts on issues (see www.julietaigbe.blogspot.com) . I still comment on social issues there, but I’ve always had this great urge to do one on cake decorating and now here’s my dream come true!
With the advent of search engines came too much information to sift from, you could almost suffocate from ‘information overdrive’, and so my intention is to do a compilation of invaluable information you could use to advance your purpose.
I also found out that a lot of people are not well informed about choosing a cake or even knowing the type of cake they like! They are usually carried away by the price rather than by what they really like.
You don’t have to rob a bank to have a delightful cake bite, with the right information you can eat your cake and have it back!
If you are a cake decorating buff, a beginner, keen enthusiast, or just a cake lover-eater-admirer, a bride/groom getting married, looking for cake decorating skills, whatever, so long as it has to do with cakes, this is the right place to be.
This blog would be a pot puree of delectable desserts, cake tips, special offers and other goodies.
Rules:
I promise to keep it short and concise because I personally get put off by all those lengthy articles and stuffs on the net.
If I can’t help it, I’ll break it up into parts so that whoever is keen will go on to the next part.
I’ll also post links of others if I find their information useful, so I won’t take credit for information that isn’t originally mine. Remember, this blog is like a ‘resource centre’ of some sort.
To spice it up, I’ll also include other related items like jam recipes and good books to read, kitchen details, crockery, anything ‘homely’ that would jazz up your repertoire of knowledge on the home front, because I’m yet to find that cake buff who isn’t into food and décor!
Keep your mind open and let’s see what ‘Julietbakes’ can do for us all!

So welcome once more to your ultimate resource centre for cake making information and many more…

My journey into cake making
I baked my first cake sometime in 1993, it was such a thrill! I grew up without an oven in our kitchen, so I still wonder where I got the passion from! I think the first time I really got fascinated by the magic of an oven was when I was in primary school (pry 4) I used to go with my mum to a bakery near our home way back in Ilorin (Agbo-oba precisely) to place our bread order for our grocery store (more commonly called ‘shop’ in Nigeria). I was a shy little girl back then, but I found the courage to ask one of the men off loading delicious smelling bread how bread is made so deliciously and the kind-hearted man showed me a double pan of sausage-shaped white substance (dough I later discovered!). He then said, ”if you put this pan of ‘bugon’ inside this ‘hot house’ (he meant the mud oven), after a while that fine bread is what you get”.

He was gracious enough to give me a small piece of dough to go and ‘bake’ at home! I got home so excited I just lit our kerosene stove, cut the dough into bottle caps and placed them around the stove. It was such a joy watching the dough lift off the caps and I shared ‘my bread’ with the neighbourhood kids. That was the closest I got to baking until 1993 when I lived off campus with a couple of my Sagamu friends living somewhere in Onike, Yaba. Aunty Tayo Adesanya was baking a cake and that was the first time I saw the entire process from start to finish. The aroma while the cake was baking was truly exhilarating!

I immediately got the recipe from her and as soon as I got home, we still didn’t have an oven in our kitchen, but I remember Tayo telling me about using sand, so off I went to look for sharp sand, I flavoured the sand so it doesn’t smell sandy, and that was my first cake, the entire Cinema Road (where we lived) could perceive the aroma of my first home- made cake! I shared it out with everyone that same day…
... But my sojourn into the world of sugarcrafting didn’t really start until I started working as a café administrator after my postgrad in computer science. Couldn’t pick up a job quickly and got a job offer by Dr Nwilo to run a café he jointly owned with Prof Eruvbetini (I hope I got the spelling correctly!)

I was paid a miserable 5K a month! This was in 2001! For a graduate, it was an insult, but for an active mind like mine seeking adventure and exposure, it didn’t matter, after all, I would be around computers and the internet round the clock, so I took up the job amidst advice from well-meaning friends not to stoop for such a job. The truth is I really loved the job, cuz I used that opportunity to learn how to surf and improve my knowledge of the internet and its capabilities.

It was at the café that one of my numerous customers came in with the story of how he misplaced his wallet but he needed to check his mails and I didn’t object to giving him ‘surf time’ so long as he promised to come back and pay the next day, it was this same man who gave me his card, that if I ever needed a job anywhere, I should give him a buzz, I was too skeptical to take it, but I simply told him, I was looking for a job and that if he could help I’d be delighted, to cut the long story short, he just gave me a note to someone who called a friend at a software company and was told I had to pass a test and and interview if I must get the job, I did.

I did my first wedding cake in fondant icing for my very good friend Sola Okunola, the fondant icing on that cake was a disaster! I worked a little longer on my IT job and the job is now history! But before I resigned I did a 3-day-turn-5-day crash course in sugarcrafting with a well-known cake maker (any serious baker knows this guy!) yes, a guy – Tosan Jemide, Im not careful to rave over his works, he is an absolute genius when it comes to decorating cakes I was really inspired by his works, however, it didn’t diminish the fact that there’s a mafia system operating in the Nigerian cake industry, everybody wants to shield their skills from anyone wanting to learn the tricks of the trade.

This is not the forum to share bitter diatribes, but I’ve had my fair share of the ‘cake mafiosos’ and I must say it’s disheartening to see very good hands tighten their fists all in the name of self-preservation.
So long as the recipient is an avid enthusiast, we all have that moral abligation to share knowledge, busy or not, it’s the most noble thing to do.

I won’t name names, rather, I set out to share knowledge as best I can…
…today I run Cakeflair located in Anthony Village, I’ve trained a couple of people and for some others for free just to encourage them that life is loaded with opportunities.
To make this blog run effectively, I hope to post items every weekend, Saturday or Sunday and if you have any questions or’ comments don’t hesitate to share it with me, let’s make this as interactive as possible, ok?...

I look for to posting some basic cake recipes and show you some tricks in my next article,

Cheers,

Juliet