Grade 11 Riverside student Mikyla Nance has started her very own cake business. Her Business account on Instagram can be found at @mikyla.bakes, and she is always accepting orders through her DM’s.
Ever since she was young, Nance has been interested in baking. She started by baking with her grandma and later began experimenting with the tips she found online. According to Nance Baking shows and influencers were all sources for her initial interest in cake decorating as well as her skill. “… Especially cake decorating, aspect of it, pretty much all the stuff I know I’ve just learned from watching videos and getting tips from other people who do it,” said Nance. Sally’s Baking Addiction and Handle The Heat are two websites/ social media platforms Nance follows. The monthly baking challenges on these platforms are another source for her skills. According to Nance, she had discovered her favorite flavor of cake though these challenges; “Honestly, I’ve learned so much from doing those challenges and tried a lot of new things…I would have never tried vanilla cake if it weren’t for these challenges”
After a lot of practice and advertising through her family and friends, Nance got her very first cake order. This order was a custom chocolate peanut-peanut butter cake, made for her friend’s birthday. An interesting fact about Nance is that she does not like the taste of cake. Nance explained that her favorite part of the process of baking is, unlike for most people, the construction part rather than the eating one; “This is kind of a silly comparison but when I was little, I did the same with ‘Lego’. I liked building ‘Lego’, but I did not like playing with them.”
A signature aspect of hers we can see in all that she creates is sprinkles. Her deep love for them comes from her initial interest in bright, detailed, and colorful cakes. “I really like sprinkles; I just really like what they add, and it just adds a little color to the cake,” said Nance. This preference is shown clearly in many of her posts on her Instagram: @mikyla.bakes
Nance shared exactly why she enjoys baking as well as why she prefers it over cooking. She explains that she feels like she has a lot more creative freedom when it comes to baking. “It is therapeutic for me. I know people say that they usually like cooking better because they feel they have more freedom. To me, it is like you have more freedom in baking because not only do you get the science and flavors aspect, but you also get the creative and decorating aspect … I just really like that and that’s kind of what made me do it more seriously.”
Show some support for Riverside student Mikyla Nance’s small baking business. Find her on her Instagram page @mikyla.bakes.
