Sugar and spice and all things nice, that’s what we want our cupcakes to be made of. If a girl tells you that she loves you more than her red velvet cupcakes, you are a lucky man! The Doha Diaries team loves their cupcakes and we've tasted many around the world. We even have a resident professional baker in our team! Recently, we decided to try out the cupcakes from Neenu’s Cakery. We were intrigued by the photos on their facebook page that we decided to find out more about the people (and the cakes!) behind this delicious delivery service. We had the opportunity to meet the dessert duo and asked them a couple of questions. Here is what they had to say:
Q: When did you start baking? Where did you learn to bake?
Neenu's Cakery (NC): I’ve always been into baking, but took it up more seriously only very recently. To be very precise, in January, 2013. Due to some personal reasons, I decided to stay home with my two-year-old son. I was looking for options of ‘do-it-from-home’ businesses. My husband knew my love for baking and casually suggested that I should take it up a little more seriously. That’s how it all began.Before we knew it, we were sitting down and working out the costs of starting a home business. Surprisingly, we found we could afford it. From there, it was a whirlwind of activity – researching on cupcake recipes, purchasing a new cooking range and cake-making accessories, trying out new flavours and the like. Three months have passed and I couldn’t have been happier.
Q: When and why did you decide to start the cakery?
NC: There arose a situation when I had to stay at home with my son for the foreseeable future. That was what solidified the idea of a home-based business. We had several options, but we zeroed in on cupcake business. Making the first decision was the tough part. Once that happened, everything else neatly fell into place. With all the initial expenses, we went through a mini financial crunch, but it was all well worth it.
3. What are the difficulties you face in running the cakery?
So we decided to focus on our strengths and expand gradually. We decided to start out by making cupcakes and then branch out to cakes. The reason was that we couldn’t get cake boxes printed at less than 500 numbers. It was beyond our means, so we did the wise thing, keep it for later.
Another area of concern was effective advertising using our limited resources. Thankfully, social media came to our rescue. Facebook alone has provided most of our customers. We recently started a Twitter account and will be starting an Instagram handle soon. These mediums are a boon for prospective small-time businesses.
4. What would you like your customers to know about you? What is your Unique Selling Proposition?
NC: Our USP is that we’re a small husband-wife team, and there aren’t many of them around. :-) I’m the research and development specialist while my husband is the ‘glorified delivery boy’ (in his own words).
Our cupcakes are very nominally priced and we’ve a lot of varieties on offer. We charge QR50 for a dozen cakes, which works out to be much cheaper than anything else on offer anywhere else. Also, we deliver free of charge!
5. What do you visualize for Neenu's Cakery?
The first dream is to break even, but that’s still a little time away. And from there, we’ll take it step by step. We are dreamers alright, with a tinge of realism added to it. At the same time, we’re also very aware of the strengths that come with being small. We succeeded in turning customers into friends and that has done us a world of good. Our new friends are our biggest assets. Good word of mouth has helped a lot.
To sign off, we quote our favourite line from history. “The history of the world is the history of a few who had faith in themselves. Strong you think, strong you’ll be. Weak you think, weak you’ll be. Strength is life, weakness is death.”
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Doha Diaries loves how they have turned this cupcake size idea into a sustainable business. Also, extra props for their enticing Facebook page. For all you guys who have a seed of a business idea, or plan on doing something but never really got on to it, we think this interview should motivate you enough, just like how it pumped us up!
Tasting Session
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| Keep Calm and eat a Cupcake |
Doha Diaries reviewed the cupcakes at Neenu's Cakery and we tasted the recommended carrot walnut, chocolate and red velvet cupcakes. The cupcakes are well priced. All the cupcakes were perfectly decorated, looked delicious and well packed.
Carrot Walnut cupcake – Beautifully made, the cake itself was moist and well balanced. It was not too sweet which we loved and was covered with a butter cream frosting. This cupcake filled with joy was definitely our favorite. A new flavor and a huge hit with us, and we are definitely ordering it again.
Chocolate cupcake – The chocolate cake was nicely done with a hard chocolate topping. We were however secretly hoping for a moist chocolate frosting which would impart the moistness to the cake as well. The chocolate in the cake was definitely yummilicous. Decorated with little pink hearts, we can visualize these pretty little things perfectly sitting on a girl's dessert table.
Red Velvet cupcake – The resident baker at Doha Diaries sorely missed the cream cheese frosting that usually adorns a classic red velvet. We did, however, marvel at the beautiful redness of this cupcake that was set off by the butter cream frosting on it, similar to the one on the carrot walnut cake.
Cupcakes are charged at QR 50 per dozen. You can place orders on their facebook page.
While we make plans to order another batch of carrot walnut cupcakes, we leave you with this contemplative cupcake thought:
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| Ain't that right? |
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