Why I’m Scaling Down From Full-Time to Part-Time Home Baking

Hey baking friends 🙂

This post has been on the back-burner for quite some time. I’ve felt so unsure about sharing this important update with you, but I’ve decided to finally post it.

For 6 years I baked out my heart and soul – and my body as well as it turned out!

It’s hard to believe how much I was baking every week from Jan 2013 – Dec 2018. At one point I was baking for 7 Different Coffee shops AND all my direct clients. There was even a time when I was fully booked for up to 3 months in advance!

I’m extremely grateful for my entire Home Bakery Business journey… It’s grown me into the person I am today. Starting my Home Bakery has been one of the most incredible adventures of my life.

However, over the past 2 years things have been changing in my business. That’s what today’s post is about.

I really want to be honest with you about the reality of my baking business. I’ve been so hesitant to share these things with you because I’ve been afraid.

There’s a fear inside me that you’ll think I’m not a “legit home bakery owner” if I don’t bake full-time anymore. And that you therefor won’t be open to anything I want to teach you about the business of home baking anymore.

But despite these fears I still desire to be honest with you, because that’s what friends do.

So here goes…

Here are all the reasons why I’ve decided to scale down from full-time home baking to part-time home baking.

1. My ankle (and the rest of my body) is annnnngggrrrry

If you’ve been following me on Instagram you’ll know that my right ankle started giving major trouble in August 2019.

I was just wrapping up a day of baking and suddenly felt quite a lot of pain in my right ankle. With every step the pain escalated severely.

I knew something was VERY wrong.

Less than a minute after the pain started I couldn’t put any weight on my foot at all anymore. I couldn’t even put my foot on the floor.

I went to a physio and apparently my walking action has been wrong for the past 19 years. This made me overuse a certain tendon in my leg & ankle.

For 2 weeks I couldn’t stand or walk. I had to cancel all my clients’ orders and take a month off from baking.

Despite exercises and stretching my ankle still isn’t doing that great. I can literally only bake 1 day per week otherwise my ankle freaks out.

Now please don’t worry that something like this will happen to you if you stand and bake a lot!

You’ll be just fine!

This is just happening because my body is FAR from normal.

Long story short I had a tumour in my spinal cord and brain as a baby. The doctor surgically removed half of it. The Lord Jesus Christ made the other half disappear. The doctor even wrote “miracle” on my file.

I still can’t believe this really happened, but it did. All glory to Father God.

The tumour had grown inside me for more than a year though and in that time it caused a lot of damage to my nervous system.

My entire right side of my body is smaller and weaker than my left side. My right side also has quite a lot less functionality. This is a photo of my feet and ankles.

When I was 12 I also had to undergo surgery on my right leg to make it straight because it was completely skew. During this massive operation the doctors also operated on my foot and ankle.

So with all these operations and permanent nerve damage and scoliosis – it’s safe to say that my body is FAR from normal.

I’ve been trying to ignore this fact my entire life.

All my life I’ve tried with every ounce of will power in me to look normal. All my life I’ve been trying to PROVE to other people (and myself) that I’m normal. And in the process I’ve totally overextended myself.

I’ve been pushing my body to do MORE than it’s able to… For YEARS now.

The TRUTH is that I’m NOT normal.

And I’m starting to realize that that’s okay.

My body is different. It’s weak and limited. And it’s not a reflection on who I am as a person. My body IS just different.

So I’m deciding to finally cut my body some slack. It’s been going along with all the crazy amounts of work I’ve forced it to do.

Now it’s my turn to go along with what my body really needs.

And that’s physical rest.

Over the past few months I’ve figured out that my limit is baking 1 day per week. If I bake more than that my ankle just starts hurting again.

I’m EXTREMELY grateful that I CAN at least bake for 1 day per week. It could just as well have been the end of my Home Bakery Business, but thankfully it’s not.

2. Right now, my help is needed more elsewhere

Philosophy of Yum was originally just the name of my Home Bakery Business. I never thought I’d start a blog.

As I kept baking the same things over and over and over again for my wholesale and direct clients I began to discover some fascinating baking tips & tricks!

Baking tips like:
How to bake perfect cupcakes.
How to get a shiny crust on your brownies.
The EASIEST way in the world to temper chocolate.
How to fix split chocolate ganache.
And so many more!

I figured that this info will be helpful to other home bakers out there and a blog seemed like the best way to share this info.

Eventually people started asking me questions about my Home Bakery Business and reaching out to me for help in starting their own.

I then realized that it might be a good idea to show people how to start & grow their own Home Bakery. Online courses seemed like a great way to help home bakers right around the world!

In August 2017 took an online course to help me create my own online courses. And the feedback has been INCREDIBLE!

Like Cameron’s story:

“In the course I felt empowered to just keep moving forward and not to be afraid even if I don’t have everything figured out and don’t feel ready. Then I decided on a date and launched my business. Week 1 – I sold out! Week 2 I’ve sold out again!”

And Angie Watts’s story:

“Since I’ve started working with Aurelia, I haven’t had one week go by without an order! It’s the best investment in myself & my business I’ve made. THANK YOU! I feel more confident in myself as a baker and moving forward in my home bakery business!”

>> I never thought that I’d be a teacher or coach. And never in my wildest dreams did I think my little life would help bakers around the world to believe in themselves and start their own businesses.

What’s happened in the process is that the more students enroll, the more time I need to invest in supporting them. My students have become my top priority. Their success is my priority. Once they’re part of my programs, they have my support 100%.

There aren’t many people online who help home bakers to build successful businesses. There’s help for cake decorators yes, but for humble home bakers like you and me – not so much.

Look, I know that cake decorators have taken over the baking scene. There’s a time and place for cake decorating, but you and I both know that tasteless decorations can’t comfort people and connect families like DELICIOUS home baking can.

So it’s my mission to help flavour-obsessed home bakers to get the confidence and business skills they need so they don’t feel intimidated to share their irreplaceable gift of comforting home baking with people who need it.

These amazing home bakers deserve to get the help they need. Their community, the world, NEEDS their delicious home baking. And if I can show bakers how to reach those people, it would be wrong to just keep my head down and do nothing to help them.

Baking is still super important to me.

But helping other flavour-obsessed bakers to reach more people with their baking is now MORE important to me in this season of my life.

May I just say that I’m extremely grateful to the Father for TIMING everything so… so… perfectly (which seems like a total understatement).

He knew all along that my body would get to a point where it can no longer bake full-time.

He knew.

And He started carving out a new way for me 2 whole years before it happened… I’m just beyond humbled by His faithfulness.

If I’m totally honest I still would’ve preferred to have a stronger, normal body that could bake all day long. That would’ve been AWESOME.

That would’ve been a lot simpler.

I wouldn’t have needed to learn so many new things about blogging, online business, creating courses, optimizing my SEO (aka getting found on Google) and so many other complicated things.

I could’ve stayed in my comfort zone – my tiny kitchen – keeping to myself and never needing to put myself out there.

BUT…

I also wouldn’t have met YOU.

Or any of the other gold-hearted home bakers I’m blessed enough to support in their journey to confidence and success.

God’s way is BETTER.

It’s not easier.

And it’s not un-complicated.

It requires us to stop hiding and step into who He has MADE us to be.

It requires us to open up to letting mountains go and open up to His healing, Lordship and restoration.

His ways are higher than our ways.

And I’ve come to see that the more I look to Him and His ways, the more I become exactly who I REALLY am.

I hope this post encourages you to also open up to who God has REALLY made YOU to be. That you’ll stop fighting Him.

That you’ll stop running away.

That you’ll join me in surrendering to our glorious Father. And surrender to who He has made you to be; therein lies so much freedom.

We were made for Him.

And a kinder, more loving or patient being than Him has never existed.

Join me in continually hearing from Him who we REALLY are and not what the world tells us we’re “supposed to be”.

Lots of love

Aurelia

Got a question? Something to add? Let’s chat in the comments section down below! (I respond to every single comment)