Today we’d like to introduce you to Raffaella Gutermann.
Raffaella, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My story begins when I was a young girl. I used watching my mother and my grandmother spend uncountable hours in the kitchen cooking and baking. I have transformed those memorable moments into my own unexpected dream.
Coming from a Sicilian family it is tradition to spend many hours of your day in the kitchen. Anything can be done… it is where the magic happens and even the most simpler recipe becomes a wonder of smells and flavors. I left Sicily more than a decade ago, but I have brought with me the intangible gift of smells and flavors of my island, a place in the middle of the Mediterranean sea where dishes and desserts are still made from scratch and where the quality of the ingredients is essential to the final outcome.
My heritage has defines who I am as a baker, giving me the opportunity to introduce new flavors to other communities and to share what I love the most: baking. I started my baking career in Cyprus, a small island in the mediterranean sea. I started for fun and for the love of baking. I baked a few cupcakes here and there and a few cakes mostly for my children and friends. I was just intrigued by creating sweets.. forget dinner! There was dessert ready before dinner was on the table!
Then one day I prepared a flyer. It was a marketing flyer informing people that I was available to bake cakes and desserts for their parties. A couple of weeks went by and I received a phone call from a small coffee shop: they were interested in my cupcakes but in small quantities. I baked for them, deliver them 2 dozen freshly made cupcakes and took the order to be delivered the next week. After a few hours I received a phone call from the same coffee shop: the cupcakes sold out.
This is truly how it all started. It catapulted from there and I began working out of my home in Cyprus baking for many people. After almost a decade of living in Cyprus, we move to the United States, my husband and I with our two little girls. It was certainly a change for us as a family. It took me a year or so to get familiar with our new life but I always found time to bake. I baked for my family and for those who lived near me. I searched recipes, wrote methods, watched baking videos, and mostly practice my technique with sugar paste.
See, passion and patience are two different things. Many of my customers used to say I needed lots of patience to do the decorations I did on my cake. I have always believed that mine was more of a passion. My passion for baking has allowed me to grow and to achieve things that I could have never imagine to reach. Today I find myself in a world of baking passion. I have continued to bake and have challenged myself in undertaking projects that required lots of planning and thinking. I have met wonderful chefs, loving and supporting people that have inspired and encouraged me to keep moving forward. I did.
My latest accomplishment was to be published in The Boston Magazine. I will remember that day for the rest of my life. Seeing my cake being professionally photographed with all the care and attention gave me an immense sense of pride. That was the moment when I understood something in my career had really changed. I wasn’t any more an amateur baker but rather a professional one whose work was going to be seen by thousands of people.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The road to your success cannot and should not be easy. Easy doesn’t teach you much. Easy doesn’t show you the sense of gratitude.
My road has had many struggles, pains, tears, doubts, disappointment and collapses, but without all these stages of my life and my career would have not been what it is now. I used to doubt my self, my capabilities and my belonging to the baking world. It was through the struggles and the pain, through the tears and the doubts that I grew as a person and as a baker. I have found my passion in life, I have found an inner force that gives me an immense motivation to keep going. Baking has changed my life.
I have learned to never give up even in those down moments when everything has no meaning anymore. I have learned that if you really put your heart and soul into something you undoubtedly love it will really blossom and you will live in an eternal spring.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Dolce Amar Sweets To Love – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Dolce Amar Sweets To Love is the name of my company. I am located in Groton Ma and I specialize in custom designer cakes and Italian desserts. I am known for my simple baking method (all from scratch), for my handmade sugar figurines and flowers and for the best cannoli!
I am proud of bringing quality and style on my baking journey and to those around me. I strive to meet the customer’s vision and make sure the cake is not only delicious but simply and elegantly decorated. From a visual point of view, details in a cake are essential, but I profoundly believe that a good quality cake, baked from scratch and paired with the most luscious European buttercreams, is what sets me apart from others.
I love to introduce customers to new flavors. I love to hear how much they have enjoyed the cake. That love transforms into action and then the next cake is baked.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
Yes! Big changes are happening right now!
It took me a while to decide if this was the right decision to make. It is not easy when you have a family with two young girls. As a mother and wife, I knew I had an eternal responsibility toward the member of my family, but I also knew that I was at my best when my passion was alive within myself.
I am planning to open my first bake shop in a few months. It will be located in Groton Ma. The shop is going through a renovation right now but it will look absolutely incredible! I can’t wait to have the shop ready just before the holiday season and bake beautiful apple and pecan pies!
Contact Info:
- Address: 497 Main Street Groton MA 01450
- Website: WWW.DOLCEAMAR.COM
- Phone: 978-3999547
- Email: dolceamarsweetstolove@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dolceamar_
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dolceamarsweetstolove
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/dolce-amar-groton
Image Credit:
Q Hegarty Photography, Mat Tam Photography
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