For her daughter’s first birthday, Nanette Shroff went to Costco to buy a cake and went online to see what other people were doing to decorate them. She wasn’t impressed. “You see what other people have done and go, ‘I could do that.’ My first goal was to be the mom who decorated her own cakes.” Starting about six months ago she started Halifaxcakes.com, her home-based business offering cakes with homemade flavour combinations, including chocolate pound, double chocolate, fluffy yellow, coconut cream and orange cream—and that isn’t even mentioning the fillings, which include ganache and buttercreams. “I think people are getting tired of the standard cakes,” says Shroff, who says she gets regular requests for unique ingredient combinations that look personalized or taste personalized. “I’m starting out small and I don’t want to take over Halifax or anything. If I can help people out and enjoy doing it, that’s where I am.”
This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2009.