Today we’d like to introduce you to Valerie Christensen.
Hi Valerie, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
When I was a little girl, my mother used to make the most beautiful cakes for friends and family. I would sit in the kitchen watching her create. I loved seeing the cakes come together. It was there I learned my love of baking and creating beautiful pieces of edible art. I always loved being artistic, I was a young master artist in high school and continued to expand my art into other art forms as I got older.
Doing cakes was something I had always wanted to do but never really thought I had the time for it. I was a wife and full-time employee for a local city in my area. I worked as an assistant to the Public Works and Engineering department. Although I loved my job and the people I worked with, it didn’t really offer a lot of the creative freedom I longed for. After my second son was born, I decided to quit my office job and be home with my kids. Once home I started creating birthday cakes for them, the kind of cakes my mother used to make for us when we were growing up.
After a few cakes, my family members and neighbors started asking if I would do cakes for them as well. After I had my 3rd son, I was dealing with horrible postpartum depression, I was in a dark place, and doing cakes seemed to be overwhelming and not the fun creative outlet it used to be. I realized I was at a point I needed to take care of myself and get help.
So in 2016 I decided to take a year off, and get myself to a healthy place. Once I felt better, I decided if I was going to do cakes again, it was time to make it official and make a business out of it, I took a bunch of courses to perfect some skills I had been wanting to learn, I got licensed and officially became Baking Memories Utah LLC. Since then, I have continued to learn and grow.
I found the best cake artist that I could find locally in the industry and learned from them. I took the skills I learned to create my own style of edible pieces of art. I love paintings and creating sugar flowers. I love watching something from a sketch come to life before me. Even now I find myself surprised when a cake comes together better than I had hoped. Each cake is unique and never the same. I love seeing the faces of the customers when they get their cake, and I love getting to be a small part of a memory for someone else’s special day.
Making memories is what life is about and being able to help create that memory is the best job in the world.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Anything good that happens along the way always comes with some struggle. When I started out, it was really difficult finding that balance between wanting to help and being taken advantage of. When you are the “cake lady” and people know you, it’s easy for friends and family to want to use that connection to their benefit even if they unintentionally use you in the process.
Wanting a quality custom product for a discount store price was hard to navigate, I felt like I should and always needed to say yes to people. When someone questioned what I asked for in price I would bow down to their wishes in an effort to be “nice & flexible.” Even now I still struggle. Pricing has always been hard. Finding the balance of being “fair” and still marketable is a constant juggle. Realizing that I have something to offer that’s unique, and valuing my work has been my biggest obstacle.
I had to learn that my skills or pricing isn’t for everyone and that’s okay. I needed to find my clientele and market to them. Having depression didn’t help with valuing my own work. That’s why taking some time off to find me and re-evaluate was so instrumental to my growth and the success of making my business work for me. I found amazing mentors and had friends and family that continued to support me and encourage me along the way.
Receiving criticism can be hard too. Particularly, when you put so much time and effort into making every little detail as perfect as you can and try to go above and beyond the expectation. It makes you question and re-question everything you do from your recipe, design, everything. I’ve had to learn that I’m not always going to please everyone but taking that criticism, making adjustments as needed only makes my products better in the long run.
So even though you want to hear how great things are all the time, it’s important that when you don’t, you use it as a growing tool. Talk to the customer, find out what wasn’t right, re-evaluate and grow.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
As a creator and someone who tends to get bored with the same thing, I love learning new techniques. Because of that, I tend to be a jack of all trades, so I’ve worked with a lot of different mediums, everything from Isomalt, sculpting, chocolate, fondant, gum paste, sugar sheets, and more.
However, my favorite things to create are sugar flowers and painting. It’s not something I feel everyone can do and I love the effect it can have. I really loved watercolor when I was younger and I love taking that kind of technique and applying it to cakes when I can. It’s still something I’m trying to market for myself but I feel like the effect is so beautiful and unique. If you can dream it I know I can create it one way or another.
I like to put that something extra into each order I am doing. I never want the client to feel like they paid for more than what they got. It’s all in the details. If I see something that I feel would make that cake better I will include it just because. Sometimes, it’s the littlest things that can make the biggest difference.
Risk-taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I like to think of myself as someone who takes risks. Even though taking on those kind of risk tend to stress me out more than other orders I take, I feel like taking those risk allows me to grow the most and push me to try something I might not normally do. I recently entered my first cake competition in the advanced/semi-pro sculpted division. 3D gravity-defying sculpted cakes are not my strong area of expertise.
Getting the structures built correctly and making sure it can manage the weight of the cake while making it look effortless can be challenging. Where I live, there is a TON of talent in the valley. Many are known for their amazing structurally 3D gravity-defying cakes. It can be a bit daunting and overwhelming being compared to people I see as cake legends and mentors. Knowing that these were the people I would be competing against I did not expect to do well but I wanted the challenge and wanted to take that risk to push myself.
I was completely surprised when my showpiece took runner-up/second overall in that division. It was not something I was expecting especially when that particular showpiece was severely damaged in transportation due to an almost car accident. Finding the time to create those risk-taking pieces can be the most rewarding. Many times it is my children who benefit from those risks because it’s usually their cakes that I try something new or take a risk to see how something will work out.
I guess I feel like if it ends up being a total flop my kids love me anyway and are just happy to have cake. Clients who trust my skill completely and allow for those risks are my favorite because they trust I can do it and it makes me trust myself and want to prove the trust in me was not wasted.
Contact Info:
- Email: bakingmemoriesutah@gmail.com
- Website: https://www.bakingmemoriesutah.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/bakingmemoriesutah
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/bakingmemoriesutah
