Entrepreneurship
Rafia’s homemade bakery sells like hot cakes
A baked food shouldn’t be only mouth-watering but must be a treat for the eyes and heart, as the famous adage goes, ‘we eat with the eyes first’.
Keeping this in mind, self-taught baker Rafia Manzoor has created a niche for herself. She has become a popular name in the Chatabal area of the city when it comes to homemade bakery be it birthday cakes or any other confectionary required for special occasions.
Though becoming a professional baker was never on Rafia’s mind who completed her journalism degree in 2019 from the University of Kashmir, the COVID19 pandemic became a reason to hone her skills in bread making. Always passionate to do something, she could not stay idle at home. So, with the help of the internet, she started experimenting with the dough and soon turned into a cake specialist, who could make a variety of cakes and other bakery items.
Never an easy job, Rafia has learned all the art and science of baking and makes tasty varieties of designer cakes, cupcakes, croissants, muffins and other such items.
She handles her business online on the Instagram handle by the name ‘Sweet Craving Bakery’ under the tagline ‘You Crave, We Bake’ and delivers her clients specialised bakery as per their will.
She also handles the packaging and delivery herself.
“I do everything myself, from baking to packaging, everything is done by me,” Rafia said.
The idea came to her in 2020, during the COVID19 lockdown.
“It has been a slow process for me, initially everything was spun around my passion, but by then friends and family encouraged me to change this into a business,” she said.
“I wanted to earn money and wanted to do something, since jobs are hardly available and it’s hard times for journalists, I decided to follow my hobby and turned this into a successful business.”
The clients are growing bit by bit, in the early stages it was essentially confined to her friends and relatives only, as of now the graph of her customers is growing. The logo was designed by artist Sadia Mir, who is friends with Rafia.
“My friend, Sadia made the logo, she was among the first ones to encourage me to acknowledge this as a business,” she said.
Rafia has always been enthusiastic about achieving something all through their regular day-to-day life, being the most energetic one she was continuously encouraged and asked to do what her heart wanted to do.
Rafia is a self-made and well-trained professional baker. She gained all that without assistance from any other person, except for the occasional help from Youtube.
Rafia says the graph of her clients is going up, and people demand again from her after ordering the first time. The quality is amazing, as per client reviews.
“I serve quality Bakery, it tastes best and I get positive responses, for the most part, I haven’t got a lone negative feedback on my food quality or packaging right now,” she said.
Family support for a younger child in her twenties is grateful to see, and a change of calling with a positive system is barely seen nowadays.
“Friends and family have always been major areas of strength for me,” she said.
“Notwithstanding, in case lockdown is set up again, I’ve my client base at this point,” she added.
Sweet craving bakery, at this point, is not on the web but instead using virtual media, Instagram and Facebook at present. The orders are mostly received on Instagram.
“I have no inspiration as such, I wanted to follow my dreams,” she said.
She encourages everyone to follow their dreams and don’t keep away from things which they like.
“Baking is no rocket science, if one wishes and is determined to follow passion one can do it, if one has a goal, patience is the way to everything. Nothing happens in one day,” said Rafia.
The orders can range from as little as Rs 200 onwards.
Some reviews on Rafia’s Instagram handle:
“Delicious cake, one of the best,” reads one of the comments
“Keep the good work up, the doughnuts are tasty,” reads another comment.