Meet Alicia Goguen of Sweet Cakes by A in Southern NH

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alicia Goguen.

Alicia, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I started out baking cakes from a box for family and friends, I would add a little of my own twists, and ‘doctor up’ the mixes. I watched Food Network baking shows and was in awe of their creativity and talents and started trying to learn decorating techniques from the shows and what I could find online. My skills got better over the years and I began experimenting with ‘from scratch’ recipes and continued to test my decorating skills. About three years ago, I had been working for a company for a few years and was feeling overwhelmed, overworked and underappreciated. I had a beautiful three-year-old daughter at home, and was struggling with my feelings of why it was worth it for me to be leaving her to go to a place that was making me so miserable, I sat and thought about what my ‘dream job’ would be, and I decided to take a chance and I blindly emailed some area bakeries with my completely non-bakery related resume, and pictures of my amateur cakes. I told no one, I feared rejection but felt if no one knew, I wouldn’t feel bad if no one got back to me. Surprisingly enough, two businesses responded and asked me to come in for interviews.

At this point, I told my husband and mother and both were incredibly supportive and encouraging. I was terrified, but I ended up taking the job at the cutest bakery in a small town in MA and worked there for about a year. In that year, I learned so much, my technique improved, my confidence grew, and it was amazing to be able to go to work each day and be creative and work with these wonderful people, and do something I truly enjoyed. Fast forward a bit and my husband, daughter and I moved to Merrimack, NH, I decided, after much encouragement from my family, to advertise my cakes to the public. I started by posting in my local town Facebook Group and received my first order from a ‘stranger.’ I was nervous, to say the least, but she LOVED the final product and I have now done two more of her daughters birthday cakes and just completed her sons first birthday cake.

I now have a business Facebook page, with just over 500 ‘likes’ and Instagram account and average anywhere between two and six orders per week. My business has grown by word of mouth and referrals from friends, strangers, and strangers that have become friends… and I couldn’t be more grateful for all of them.

Has it been a smooth road?
I think as any mom does, I struggle with balance. I now have two beautiful girls that I am lucky enough to stay home with, one is almost six and the other just turned 1. It’s hard sometimes to set limits on the number of orders I take so that I am not overwhelmed and stressed and taking away from the time I should be spending with them in order to fulfill the orders. I truly love what I do and am always so flattered when someone chooses me over the many other bakeries in the area. When an order request comes through I never want to turn it down, but taking the order means taking away precious hours that could be spent with my girls. It takes time to communicate with the client, go to the store and purchase the ingredients and supplies, to research design ideas and techniques, to prep decorations and ingredients, to bake the cakes, to decorate the cakes, and to clean up the (typically catastrophic) messes that I make. I often times go with incredibly minimal sleep on the weekends, and can be found baking cakes at 4 a.m. before the rest of the house wakes up, or mixing up frosting while my oldest is at school and my one-year-old is on my hip or at my feet tearing through the cabinets, banging on the pots and pans and making messes of her own. I’m still working on saying yes and no at the right times, as well as acknowledging that my hobby has turned into a real live business. My 2 jobs are both inside my home and sometimes feel like neither have ‘business hours’, sometimes it’s hard juggling the 2 at literally the same time.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Sweet Cakes by A story. Tell us more about the business.
My company is home-based, and mostly Facebook generated. I am mostly self-taught, everything that I bake/make is from scratch and I pride myself on my attention to detail in my decorations. I would say that a majority of my orders are birthday cakes, and of those more than half are children’s cakes. I think that birthdays are a magical wonderful thing for people of all ages, no matter how old you get. A special cake can bring just a bit more excitement to a special day and I am always so excited to bring a clients vision to ‘life.’ I like to think that all of my cakes have a little bit of ‘personality’, and I know that each one is baked and created with passion, and a true desire to bring a smile to the faces of all those who see and taste it.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I feel like the cake industry is one that is always changing and growing. It’s interesting to see how many people are looking for that custom cake for their party, more people are now looking for more than the grocery store Birthday cake. The ‘trendy’ themes and decorating techniques are always changing and new and fun designs are popping up every day on my Instagram feed. It’s an industry that never stops giving us as decorators and bakers opportunities to learn and expand our creativity.

Contact Info:

• Email: sweetcakesbya@gmail.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/sweetcakes_by_a
• Facebook: facebook.com/sweetcakesbya