Sisters turn side gig into sweet job
Scarborough bakery specializes in custom cakes and other baked goods
Who says you can’t turn a passion into a profession?
That’s what West Rouge sisters Vanessa and Enza Abate did. The pair owns Simply Frosted Cupcakery, at Centennial Plaza in east-end Scarborough. They opened the store seven years ago.
The passion for cakes was actually Vanessa’s. The women come from a large family, so they were frequently at celebrations, such as birthdays, and constantly having cake. The cakes, Vanessa said, were costly and often not that good, so she started making her own for the family.
Then she started taking cakes and cupcakes to treat co-workers — as did her family members — and soon she started getting orders for cakes. She kept her job, and on weekends she was making custom cakes for people willing to pay for them. When she got more orders than she could handle, she roped her sister Enza — who was working in the design industry — into helping out, particularly with designing cakes.
Soon after, the orders surpassed what the pair could bake alone, on weekends and evenings.
“One night it was 2 a.m. and we were still over at the house and we were working on orders and we were a bit behind schedule because we had taken more orders than we probably should have,” Vanessa recalls. “We were kind of just laughing at the table and we thought this is crazy.”
Enza told Vanessa she had to decide what she wanted to do, either keep her full-time corporate job or go into the cake business. Enza had just had her second child and was working fulltime herself. The sisters decided to open the store.
“We love our clients and we love making new things and seeing how people enjoy it and people’s faces when they pick up their order,” Vanessa said.
“We get a lot of really nice emails from people after the fact,” Enza added.
“I think that’s the nicest part of job, seeing that it was appreciated beyond the design. Constantly, we’re being told how great it tastes.”
The sisters say they have a lot of regular customers, some of whom come from as far away as Oshawa and Hamilton, plus a steady flow of one-off clients who place orders for special occasions.
The store, which operates with a small staff, specializes in custom cakes, from wedding to birthday cakes, cupcakes, cake pops and other sweets.
The cakes, because they’re custom, need to be ordered at least two weeks ahead of time. Cupcakes come in a variety of flavours, plus seasonal flavours are constantly switching up. Pumpkin flavour cupcakes, for example, are a huge hit, the sisters say, but are available only in the fall.
The store also hosts children’s cupcake decorating classes during school holidays and for birthday parties on weekends.