Turning Baking Into a Business: From School Cupcakes to a New Chapter

Today was a bittersweet day for me.

My daughter finished school.

And with that came another ending I didn’t fully expect to feel so sharply: the last time I’ll make cupcakes for an entire class.

I’ve done it every year since nursery — birthdays, Christmas, end-of-term celebrations, teacher gifts. The lot.

It became one of those traditions that quietly embeds itself into family life.

But it didn’t start as a tradition.

It started as something else entirely.

How baking became part of survival, not just joy

Anyone who knows me knows I love baking.

What fewer people know is that it began, in part, from guilt.

I started motherhood as a single mum working full-time. No nearby family support. My parents lived over 100 miles away and were still working themselves.

My daughter went to nursery five days a week because that was the only way I could keep everything afloat.

And I struggled with that more than I ever admitted at the time.

So I baked.

Cupcakes for her class. Small edible gifts for teachers. Little gestures that said, “I’m here, even when I can’t physically be here.”

It was never about showing off.

It was about connection.

And about easing the weight of working-mum guilt in the only way I knew how.

The quiet beginnings of turning baking into a business

Over time, baking became something I leaned on.

It gave me something creative in the middle of corporate pressure, long projects, and the mental load of everyday life.

It became my escape. My reset button. My space to feel like myself again.

And then, slowly, something shifted.

With encouragement from friends and colleagues, what started as “just cakes for school” became a side business.

Not planned. Not strategic. Just… built in the margins of life.

A few years ago, I even started invoicing my now husband each time I baked school cakes (and other things he asked for to take in to his work).

Not because it was about the money, but because I needed to understand something important:

My time, skill, and creativity had value.

Time spent baking actually was time spent away from my daughter.

That was the beginning of me understanding what it really means to turn baking into a business.

The last school bake

And so today, we packed the car with boxes of cupcakes and edible gifts for the last time.

We drove to school.

Same corridors.

Same reception desk.

Different chapter.

As I stood there, one of the staff tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Congratulations.”

At first, I assumed it was for my daughter.

But it wasn’t.

It was for me.

And that landed in a way I wasn’t quite prepared for.

What this chapter has really been about

Because this isn’t just about school ending.

It’s about 15 years of juggling:

Working full-time

Raising a child

Carrying guilt I rarely voiced

And quietly building something on the side that kept me sane

It’s about all the late-night baking sessions after work.

All the invisible labour behind “just a hobby.”

All the moments where creativity had to fit around everything else.

And it’s about what happens when you finally stop and look at it honestly.

What comes next

This summer, I’m choosing something different.

More presence. Less pressure.

And a new chapter that brings together the two things I’ve always returned to:

Helping people become the very best version of themselves

And cake

Not as an afterthought.

Not squeezed into spare time.

But built intentionally.

Because at some point, what starts as coping becomes capability.

And what starts as a side hustle can become something much bigger — if you give it space to grow.

If you’re at the beginning of your own baking business journey

If this resonates — if you’re somewhere between “I just bake for friends” and “could this actually be a business?” — this is exactly the space I work in now.

Over at The Baking Business Hub, I help bakers turn what they love into something sustainable, structured, and real — without losing the joy that made them start in the first place.

You don’t need to figure it all out alone, and you don’t need to build it in the margins forever.

You can join me in the next chapter here:

The Baking Business Hub

Some of the cakes for the last day