We were lucky to catch up with Alison Phelps recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alison, appreciate you joining us today. The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.

My first client was a friend, believe it or not! I had just graduated college and had no idea how I’d get the ball rolling with this business. I made myself a birthday cake and shared it on social media. Days after my birthday was hers and she asked if I could make her a chocolate cake with Irish cream buttercream. My excitement was over the top! How is this possible in just a few days of creating my own cake that people are wanting me to bake for them!?

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

From a young age my mom had me in the kitchen baking, that’s where my love for sweets started. In my early 30’s I was at a pivotal point in life and decided to go to college. There I earned my associates degree in culinary arts. After I graduated I began to make custom cakes for family, friends and strangers! This allowed me to hone in on my skills and the direction I wanted to go with the business. Making fun flavors was the best part of the job and custom cakes took a back seat as I focused on cupcakes then later cookies.

What sets Big Tasty Bakery apart is that we offer 82 flavors of gourmet cookies, 54 flavors of cupcakes, custom cakes and hands on cake decorating classes. All our baked goods are made from scratch with no preservatives and the freshest ingredients.

We love to help our clients achieve their perfect party goodies. Whether that’s cake, cookies or cupcakes we customize to fit their theme and they’re able to say goodbye to grocery store sheet cakes.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A lesson I had to learn is that my product is not for everyone. When I was first getting started and experimenting with cake flavors I had two separate women give me ugly words of encouragement about the cakes they received. There is a big difference in flavor and texture between box cake mix and a scratch made cake that some are not used to. Lady one ordered a white cake that doesn’t have much fat in it which can make it a little drier so I took that off the menu and no longer offer it. Lady two had a vanilla cake so I reevaluated my vanilla cake to improve it. Both I offered a refund to, both declined. Their words hurt more than anything, so I fixed what I could and had to learn to let their words go.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I was half way done with college when I learned I was expecting my second child. I was loving school and learning but didn’t know if I could continue given the circumstances. I wasn’t sure how I’d balance a newborn, a 6 year old and keeping up with the curriculum. My professor was a tremendous encouragement in pushing me forward to finish, as well as my mother.

I wanted to finish college as fast as I could, so I took what summer and night classes I could on top of my all day classes. With only 5 months left of college my youngest was born. My professor was so kind in letting me have a few weeks off to recover. I still kept up with all my school work so I wouldn’t be behind.

I’m thankful for those who stepped up and helped me help myself so I could finish college.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.bigtastybakery.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigtastybakery
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Bigtastybakery/

Image Credits
I take all my images with my iPhone!