Happy New Year!

Hi everyone! I know that I am a bit late, but Happy 2021! I hope that your new year has started off well and things are looking brighter for you already.

First off, I would like to thank all of you for your continuous support of my blog. I would also like to thank the many of you who purchased so many baked items these past couple of months! I guess the elephant in the room is why I haven’t updated my website with new items for purchase this new year. Long story short is that I had to close my cottage food operation (this is my license that allowed myself to sell my stuff to you guys). I started this blog in 2018 with the goals of writing, making and possibly selling food. I have achieved all of these three goals, which I am so proud of. But during my long days of making my beloved pastries, I came to the realization that I wasn’t making much of a profit.

Let me set this straight, in many respects my business was a total SUCCESS. I had more orders than I could take, in a short period of time I witnessed my sales go up, was getting positive feedback (along with constructive criticism which I so appreciate), and also had quite a few repeat customers. The problem lay within the business model. The CFO allows for me to make only certain items, and although I love making what is on my menu, it doesn’t allow me to also make higher priced items like buttercream cakes or fillings that have cream. So what happens is the diversity of options are diminished and also my potential profit is somewhat cut short. IF I had a brick and mortar with large ovens and mixers ( and a few employees too, lol) I would be able to increase production to a level where I could meet the demand while working more normal hours.

So this is where I am now.

Honestly I took the last week of December to just rest and sleep as I was averaging 12-16 hour shifts 6 days a week towards the end of the holiday season. I started teaching Pilates again late in December (for those of you who don’t know, I have been a pilates teacher and stretch coach for a long time now), and I am so grateful to have a job that I can fall back on during this pandemic! Sometimes I feel like a failure, but my husband reminds me that I gave it a good try and I couldn’t meet the demand which is a good problem to have. I still love cooking and baking more than ever, but sometimes this whole social media feels a bit saturated and superficial to me. I am finding myself trying to narrow down what is most important to me with food and just dedicate time to that.

So, in closing, I am going to keep this blog running. I love taking photos of food and creating dishes and having a catalog of my work. I also love writing and creating recipes, maybe I can write more recipes or collaborate with bigger name food companies? Who knows what the future holds but I truly believe I will find my place in food and will keep pushing forward.

Thanks for listening y’all.

xoxo,

Oni