Erinn Walker
- Gabrielle Vincent
- Sep 18, 2017
- 4 min read
Erinn Walker is an incredible baker and will definitely give you a sweet tooth. She’s sweet, detail oriented and somehow she can conceptualize exactly what you really want.
She pays grand attention to detail when it comes to her cakes, both in their taste and decoration.
So let’s eat cake everyday, because it’s someone’s birthday out there.
At a younger age, Erinn thought she would be like her grandma an elementary teacher, or a nurse like her mom, or a scientist like her dad.
She quickly realized art was her favorite thing to do. She was Miss Crafty. She also had a strong interest of what was happening in the kitchen, where delicious meals were made and also be able to sneak in a second desert once everyone was asleep.
Once it was time to think about college, she envisioned herself turning her hobby into an actual career and enrolled at “Le Cordon Bleu”.
While she was in the learning process, making fondant, buttercream, edible cake decorations, it was a firm confirmation she wanted to own a bakery someday.
A year later, she got her certificate in pastries and learned a few tricks that could be done with pastries and cakes.
After working in several bakeries and a few restaurants, as a bread maker and pastry chef, she discovered her true passion, creating wedding cakes, which entails planning, focus and patience.
She originally wanted to open a bakery as soon as possible, filling it in with all types of delicious goodies. Though, Erinn is notorious for moving around quite a bit and has lived in 6 different locations.
One of the memorable locations was Holland, Michigan; she worked at a restaurant and found another true love, her husband Nathan.
At this time, she is currently baking out of Edge of Sweetness in Edgewater, Chicago, a shared kitchen and bakery, along with her own business as a cake decorator and kitchen manager.
A typical work day usually entails a 9 to 12 hour day, where she usually works on schedules, filling orders, writing cake quotes, answering emails, placing orders, taking inventory, making lists of what needs to be made and the priority of that item, or making cake batter, baking, leveling, assembling and decorating cakes - she even timed herself stacking and decorating a wedding cake, which took her 6 hours to put together!
Once she’s done with all that, she cleans up the mess, dishes, scrubs down the tables, sweep and mops the floors and gets things ready for the next day.
As there are many amazing cake decorators, pastry chefs and business owners out there, Erinn Walker can’t pinpoint a specific role model, but she enjoys learning about them in person, in books or on the Internet.
As for the most influential factor to her success are her own desires to succeed and blossom, but also her husband’s support for her long days and nights.
This goes without saying; her family is both her first and most loyal customers.
At this time, Erinn and her husband haven’t decided yet on where to set in their roots, as they would love to raise a family someday and both have their business blossom. Though her business can easily travel wherever they decide to go.
She smartly markets her business through social media platforms, being referred and at every delicious delivery her business cards travel around amongst the guests.
Her business is fairly competitive, though unlike every other baker out there, she becomes the clients’ advocate and makes sure every bite tastes like a little piece of heaven. Aside from deliciousness, she likes to give each order the adequate attention to not fail a detail.
To figure out the perfect ratios, she chats with the client to figure out what they need, number of guest attending the event and budget. If time allows, she likes to set up cake tastings for the client, in order to facilitate the decision on the flavors desired.
Her idea of success is being able to do what she loves, with the people she loves besides her.
Her successful feelings are when she applies the finishing touches, where it all comes together, after countless hours of preparing, baking, assembling and the stress of delivering.
In some cases during a delivery little mishaps can happen, no panic, she comes prepared with extra buttercream on hand and other supplies to fix anything that can happen.
At the end of it all, what brings her on cloud nine is seeing the clients’ true emotions when they see the finished (edible) work of art or read a beautifully written review at a later time.
The things she attributes to her success are her dedication and passion to create the best cakes she can.
Additionally, she never stops from learning and trying new techniques.
Last, but not least, her husband, who loves her and makes dinner when she gets a little cake-crazy.
Her shared words of wisdom, “Be Patient and humble. Don’t forget to be willing to learn from your mistakes and other people”
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