‘We’ve found a recipe for success!’
Annabel Lui, 29, from north London, and her sister Emily, 36, have created a sweet treat that keeps customers coming back for more.
‘Emily and I love watching people stop and stare at the display of cakes in our shop window. One attracts more interest than most, our very own biscuit-meets-cake creation – a “biskie”!
We’ve always loved baking. Our mum Alison used to make wedding cakes, and one of my earliest memories is standing on tiptoes in the kitchen and licking buttercream off a spoon. That passion never faded. Despite both of us having busy jobs – I worked in finance and Emily was a lawyer – we’d often whip up cakes for friends from the flat we shared. We never thought about selling our creations – that is, until people started raving about these new strawberry-flavoured cakes. We tried them and couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. “Surely we can make something better?” I asked myself.
For weeks, Emily and I experimented. We wanted to use natural ingredients to create a healthier treat, so Emily worked on making a buttercream with half the usual butter and sugar, while I focused on the rest. Not all of our concoctions were a success – apple and salted caramel tastes awful – but eventually we created our biskie: light buttercream sandwiched together by light sponge.
After testing out the biskie on our family and friends, we took some to a local food market to sell and hired a kitchen for £200 so we could make a big batch. It was a disaster. We weren’t used to the ovens, and our biskies came out hard. We were up all night trying to salvage them and arrived at the market tired. Come lunchtime, our free samples had done the trick, however, and people queued to buy our biskies for £2.50.
After that, word spread and we began to go along to markets every weekend. Three months later, Selfridges asked us to supply them with 400 biskies a day – turns out one of their buyers had visited our stall! Faced with setting up a proper kitchen, passing health and safety regulations and hiring staff, we realised one of us needed to run the business full time. So I left my job and we set up Cutter & Squidge – a name we came up with as I’d always cut the shells and Emily squidged the buttercream!
Putting in £70,000 from our combined savings was daunting, but soon Selfridges gave us our own concession, and, by the summer, Harrods had put in orders, too. When a shop space opened up in central London on a six-month lease, we decided to go for it. We put in more of our savings to cover the rent and our dad gave it a lick of paint. Six days later, we opened our doors. Now we’ve moved into a permanent location nearby.
It’s been a steep learning curve, but our profits are tripling year on year and, although I’m not drawing a salary yet, we’re debt-free and have recouped our investment. The highlight has been seeing people in our shop eating, smiling and celebrating the good times.’
cutterandsquidge.com