For the Love of Baking.

20/7/2018

Nydia pictured with her girls.

Many people swear that if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. That seems to be a sentiment that fits perfectly with local Samoan baker and owner of ‘Crazy Cakes’, Nydia Aloaina.

The 36 year old is raising three daughters, owns and operates a home based cakery, and has now taken on the role of marketing consultant at Vailima Breweries. Despite having major health issues in the past, Nydia has juggled all of her responsibilities like a pro, making hard work look like a breeze.

The reason for this becomes apparent as she talks about the lessons she hopes her children will learn through her work ethic. “I just want my kids to work as hard as they can, but not forget to enjoy what they do. Have passion and love for everything they do, because without it – the end product isn’t as great as it should be” Aloaina says.

Aloaina applies this to her own work, especially her baking. Despite being self taught, her cakes are in high demand, as she has been able to successfully refine her skills over the years.

Aloaina also revealed that she has strong support at home, “My kids help out a lot, because I’m a single Mum. The kids are also quite good at baking, they’ve basically memorised all the recipes. Sometimes, I’m so tired so they’ll do the mixing for me and wash all the dishes.
“As for balancing work and baking, I try and make sure that I take all of my orders for the weekends, rather than week days, so I don’t burn out.”

Despite having a huge customer base with frequent orders, Aloaina is humble when speaking about her baking skills. “It took me years to perfect cake decorating and I am still terrible at it, but I am much better than where I was.

“I am wistful of people who have had the opportunity to go to cake making school and learn all the different techniques for baking and decorating. I basically have Google and a picture in my mind.”

While she may not have professional training, she has serious creativity and determination – and her own ‘secret weapon’, “My middle daughter is my quality control. She will tell me if the cake is crooked, if the colours don’t match, and if it tastes yucky.”

Crazy Cakes was officially established before Mother’s Day, 2013, after Aloaina’s friends convinced her to sell her delectable cakes to the public. Before that, she had been providing her friends with baked goods for a long time.

5 years later, Crazy Cakes has become a household name on the Island. Aloaina says that feedback from her customers has been great over the years, “I have a huge following of loyal customers. Every now and then I’ll get the odd bad review, but I just take it with a grain of salt and just keep trying to improve, and create something that everyone likes.”

As for future plans, Aloaina hopes to one day move into a shop, “I’ve planned that for a long time but something always comes up and I put that idea to the side. But hopefully, eventually – I’ll open up a bakery, but – money talks!”

As to what’s consistently hot on her menu amongst customers, she said, “You can’t go wrong with chocolate cake, that’s what everyone loves. That’s my best seller and next would be red velvet.”

To order a cake for your next event, or just to treat yourself, you can find out how through the Crazy Cakes facebook page! - Crazy Cakes Samoa