Hey guys! Welcome back to my blog, it's been a while but I wanted to update you on some of the things that i’ve been up to in the last few months!
A little recap of my last few posts, if you read them and are familiar with me, you may have seen that I was on Disney’s Magic Bake Off! If you haven’t yet, you can watch it on Disney+, I was in the 3rd episode!
First of all, I’ve been in the kitchen A LOT improving my skills and practicing new, creative cake designs. Over this past summer, I had a total of 11 2 tiered cakes, so you can imagine how busy I was with other orders! I am really grateful for all of the orders this past summer because they really allowed me to learn and master 2 tiered cakes, a skill that i previo
usly was not too confident in! One of my favorite orders from this summer was my very first wedding cake! Since I started, it has been my goal to work my way up to making a wedding cake, so actually being able to say that i’ve created someone’s actual wedding cake is crazy to me! This was especially special because from the beginning my goal has been to one day be a wedding cake decorator for Disney Parks, like one of my biggest inspirations (and Disney’s Magic Bake Off host) - Gracie Gomez!
Another major thing that happened this summer is that my family and I moved out of the Bay Area (San Jose, CA), where my parents have spent for 22 years and the place which I was born and grew up in! We first visited Puerto Rico, where we moved, in February 2021, about a week after I was contacted to be on Disney’s Magic Bake Off. I first visited with my dad for 2 weeks, where we spent time visiting homes and exploring the island! From the moment we got there, my dad and I both knew that this is would be an AMAZING place to call home. We eventually visited again with my siblings and mom and finally found our new home, which is located directly on the ocean (literally our backyard!) and only 10 minutes away from the El Yunque National Rainforest, so basically paradise!
This past Christmas holiday, I had the pleasure of interning with a Puerto Rico based baker, @delightedbyyare on Instagram, and I got a lot of experience working in a commercial kitchen and getting to see how she runs it along with her few employees. One of the main things which I was made aware of, however, is that due to the humidity, buttercream doesn't last on the island and only white chocolate ganache is used to cover cakes, along with some fondant for decor. This was an important thing for me to learn about, and I am extremely grateful to Yare for teaching me now to use ganache and many cool decorating techniques during my time there.
Yare allowed me to come back this past July to work on my own birthday cake since we had arrived to Puerto Rico only a week before and working on that was a really amazing experience! I spent the whole day of my birthday doing the thing I love doing the most, decorating cakes, and I got to build and decorate my own square 2 tiered cake which came together really beautifully.
As I transition here and spend some time working on rebranding, I have decided that it may be a good idea to take a pause on cake decorating due to the complexity, but I will help out at Yare’s Bakery occasionally to work on decorating that way I get to keep doing one of my favorite things and get to keep on learning and expanding my knowledge. As for Baked By Nivaaz, I will still be continuing my business, however, I have a new vision in mind which is in the works and will hopefully be announced very soon! In the meantime, I will continue posting fun content and get to continue baking and try new recipes!