We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Joel Basco. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Joel below.

Joel, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

J&D Cakes is a partnership between me and Daniela Borquez. I’m the J and Daniela is the D, hence J&D was born

Joel, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I was always amazed watching my aunt make wedding cakes when I was a young boy growing up in the Philippines. What people don’t know about me is that I used to be an accountant and always had a corporate career in New York City. I found my passion for making cakes when I took baking classes at the Institute of Culinary Education. In the process of taking these classes, I wanted my cakes to also look good so I signed up for cake decorating classes at The New School Culinary Arts.

In 2005, I started a part-time business in NYC called JPB Cakes and then relocated to Fort Lauderdale in 2014. In 2015 I met Daniela, formed a business partnership with her and opened J&D Cakes in Septmber 2016. We are mostly known for our custom designed wedding cakes, sculpture cake and special occassion cakes. We’ve made replicas of sports cars, yachts and structures such as the Boca Raton Historical Society building.

What sets us apart from other bakeshops is that we provide personal service. We are always available via phone, text, email, FB messenger and WhatsApp. We make sure that we create the most beautiful and best tasting cake for our customers.

We are most proud of winning on the Food Network’s Cake Wars Season 3 (Paddington Bear episode) in 2016. It was really a rewarding experience that we will never forget. We were called back for the All-Stars season on Food Network’s Cake Wars Champs (Shrek episode) in 2018. Sadly we didn’t win but I love competing because it pushes me to go beyond my limits. Win or lose, it doesn’t matter, as long as you do your best!!

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

We were able to open our storefront using personal capital and the prize money from the Cake Wars show. Due to limited resources, we had to do most of the remodeling such as painting, putting down the floors and other cosmetic enhancements. We are proud to say that we don’t have any loans! Any extra profits go back to the business for improvements and capital expenditures.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Just like any small business, we were hit hard by the pandemic. We had lots of cancellations and the phones stopped ringing! We really thought that we were going to close our business. In order to survive, we had to give up our store extension where we do our parties, classes and camps to save on rent. We watched every penny that we spent. We also pivoted to making regular cakes by creating a cake catalog where customers can choose pre-designed cakes. It was really a challenge but thanks to our loyal customers and family/friends support, we were able to ride that wave and come out stronger!!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jdcakesonline.com
• Instagram: @jdcakesonline
• Facebook: facebook.com/jdcakesonline
• Twitter: twitter.com/jdcakesonline