Icing the Detail: Where Every Layer Tells a Story

✨ Hello, I’m Fran, Your NLP & Business Coach. I’m exploring a wide range of business ideas and money-making paths, with practical takeaways you can apply.

In this episode, I'm interviewing Bianca Branche.

Bianca is a gifted wedding cake designer, a passionate tutor, and a mother of three. Since 2013, she has been baking and decorating unforgettable cakes with creativity, precision, and an eye for detail. She built a successful wedding cake business that blends artistry with reliable service, all while managing a busy family life.

In addition, Bianca launched a cake school for hobbyists, making expert techniques accessible to beginners and hobby bakers.

You can connect to Bianca in the following ways⬇️
https://www.instagram.com/beez_cakes/
https://www.instagram.com/beezcakeschool/
https://www.beezcakes.co.uk/
https://www.tiktok.com/@beez_cakes

Find me @ www.melancholymentor.com

As a coach, I listen without judgment, understanding that others views may differ from my own.

#nlpcoach #nlpcoaching #creativity #inspiration #transformation #bakingbusiness

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Fran 0:26

Hello and welcome to Melancholy Coaching Podcast, the show that highlights different business owners and ideas. I'm Fran, your NLP and business coach, and I'm pleased to introduce a motivational guest. Bianca is a dedicated wedding cake designer. Bit of a mouthful and cake tutor, you've got it all going on, who has been baking and decorating wedding cakes since 2013. She creates unforgettable desserts that honour memories and recently launched a cake school to mentor hobbyists who need a little extra guidance. As a wife and mum of three, she coordinates orders and school runs amid a lively, happy home. Bianca, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I think you're very welcome. Just for complete transparency, we met in person at an event and then I said, you know, I'm looking for people to interview on my podcast, and that's how we connected. Which is lovely. So you've got, so we've met and now we're online friends.

Bianca 1:31

Yeah.

Why Start A Cake School

Fran 1:32

Yeah. So firstly, I'm I've got a couple of questions for you, and we'll have a little chat around that if that's okay with you. And the first one I've got for you is what inspired you to start a cake school?

Bianca 1:44

Yeah, that's a good question because I started off as a self-taught hobby baker. So I was sort of unsure of my abilities. I didn't want to call myself like a wedding cake designer. I just loved desserts really. I wanted to enjoy them and allow other people to enjoy them as well. And looking back, my early cakes, they weren't, they weren't great. Some of them were like dense, domed tops and covered in ice and before they could cool down. So that happened. The curiosity didn't really leave. I always wanted to better myself, and I learned a lot through trial and error and a lot of persistence. And so I know how frustrating it is when your cakes don't turn out right. And I just remember be feeling unsure and overwhelmed, and I'm not gonna get this right. And and that, together with inquiries from people asking me, do I do classes? And at the time I was like, No, I don't, I don't, I'm just doing wedding cakes. But I thought I'm at a good place now, stable in my my wedding cake business, and I'm getting these inquiries about lessons. I know what it feels like to be a beginner, so I thought, why not? Let me just help other hobby bakers to you know be proud of their work, and even if if they want to look at selling cakes in the future, steps to go through and to things to avoid that I wish that I had at the time.

Learning Through Mistakes

Fran 3:21

That's that's the thing though, isn't it? Because when we learn something or we've got a particular skill set, it's all we need to be is a few steps ahead of somebody else to hold our hand out and help them along, you know. And you can also build that into a business. So that can be part of your your free offerings, your lead magnet, that can be part of your nurture, it can be part of like pro bono work that maybe you do. So many different avenues to go down with it. Um but basically it's about us learning skills and then use utilizing it to help others in whatever form that looks like. And the whole trial and error thing, don't we all know through life? Don't we all?

Bianca 3:59

Yeah. This might work, it might not. Okay.

Fran 4:03

I I feel I'm in my 50s now and I feel like I've lived a few different lifetimes already because it was just at different stages of my life and it was contextual to that time in my life as well. And I feel like it's not necessarily so much about us starting a game, we just learn and evolve. Yes, you have to make mistakes to learn, in my opinion. Like I believe that you that's what we're here for. We learn from things that didn't quite go right because you refine things, don't you? And that's what you've done with your wedding cake business. You've had to learn yourself, yes, and and get through those errors and those potential mistakes or you know, those learning curves.

Bianca 4:45

Exactly. That's what you yeah, exactly what you said, and taking those the errors and using them as knowledge, as research. Okay, that didn't work, so let's not do that. That did, let's do more of that, and I want to build that in the bakers that I teach. That yes, it might not go to plan, but use that information to help you with the next bake. Sometimes a lot of it is confidence, and I get that as well. Confidence can fluctuate, so really helping them to you know be a bit more give themselves some leeway, you know, be kind to yourself. It's not gonna be perfect all no one's perfect, it's not gonna be perfect every time, but you know, using that to better yourself in some way, yeah, for sure.

Who The Cake School Serves

Fran 5:30

Yeah, it's it's holding yourself to a certain standard, isn't it? Because there's there's a whole big old thing about perfectionism that we're not gonna get into right now. But it's you know, and uh and I do understand that it can hold people in fear and it can be something to stop people from from moving on, yeah. And this is just about holding yourself to a certain standard. If you want to achieve something, I believe it's achievable. You just gotta find the right mentor, the right tutor, you know, to help you get there. Yes, yeah. Just to throw a little bit extra in there to ask you, just to get a little bit more specific on who it is that you're helping as hobbyists. So I'll give you an example. I'm vegan, so I wouldn't bake with eggs or with with milk, with dairy milk. Is that something you could accommodate? Is it people generally that are either kind of omnis or vegetarians? Is it people that have baked before? You know, is it anyone with no experience? Like, whereabouts are you positioning your um your skull?

Bianca 6:32

That's a good question. It's hobby bakers that are already good at what they're doing, but need that a little bit more guidance. So they're sort of they're they're there with the baking, but sometimes it's the the decorating, the confidence with the decorating of the cake, the structure, what to do when things go wrong, how to manage frosting, because it can be temperamental if you're in the middle of a UK summer when we get it, it can kind of not go right. So hobby bakers and yes, some beginners as well, because I do have like tips and hacks for hot beginner bakers. You mentioned a good point about the if you've got dietary requirements, yeah. Some things can be you can find alternatives, but I hadn't really delved into that because um it's a it's a tricky one, isn't it?

Fran 7:31

So potentially something for the hobbyists themselves to figure out because some people generally would have maybe an allergy or an intolerance, or you know, can but potentially it could be that they know what ingredients they can use, yeah, already, and then you can get them to the next stage of well, this is how you can ice something, this is how you can frost it, this is how you can elaborate on the baking knowledge that you've got.

Bianca 7:59

Yeah, yeah, and that's a really good point because it in supermarkets is it's hard because I I did in the wedding cake side of my of my business, I did do I do gluten-free cakes, I did do vegan, but I wanted to find something really a good recipe to really kind of make it worthwhile. So I sort of stopped because I couldn't find one I was happy with for my clients.

Fran 8:26

It's interesting because my uh one of my daughters got married, and I think it was last year, and she she had a a non-dairy top tier of her cake that still had eggs, but it was it was non-dairy, and then my other daughter's getting married, and she's just having wedding cake how she wants it herself, and then she's organized kind of dairy-free cupcakes for anybody with potential allergies because she's got friends that have got got dairy allergies, yeah. Um, so there's other ways of going around it, isn't it? If you're creative, yeah, exactly.

Bianca 9:02

I do I can tweak things like that with the dairy, but the that complete vegan, I I'm always wanting to give the best, and I haven't working on the vegan side, but it's good for when people come to me and they want to learn how to bake, that they know what's going into their cake. So when they go to a supermarket, it's hard, isn't it? When you've got a little aisle just for free from, and then the cakes don't really taste that great, and they've got a whole load of other stuff in it, or it's super sweet. Yes. If you know how to the front the foundations of baking and how to do it well, then you can add your the ingredients that you like and know what you're putting in it and still have it taste nice. So hopefully it's given the foundation.

Dietary Needs And Recipe Limits

Fran 9:47

This does lend itself to the fact that as business owners and business builders, you do you know, you create the business that you dream of and that you desire, and you attract the people for that. We don't have to be for everybody, we don't have to be for everybody, but potentially some of the skill sets that we've got, people can adapt it to their specific needs.

Bianca 10:10

Yeah, exactly that. Yeah.

Fran 10:13

Yeah. And also just out of interest, do you do uh tiered cakes?

Bianca 10:17

Yes.

Fran 10:18

Because I remember back in the day it was a big thing to put pillars, wasn't it? And then the next cake, and but they sink, don't they?

Bianca 10:25

That's yeah, that's to do with the structural engineering. Yes, it is a real thing. You do have to support the cake really well. So if there's no support on the from the tier below, the what it can't uh support the one above. So I do do tiered cakes, there is a whole structure that goes on, so each cake is on a board, so and then you have dowel that rest on it. So from looking at it, you can't obviously you can't see all that, but inside you've got a whole structure.

Fran 11:01

So there's a whole lot of other stuff going on, isn't there? Yeah, and that's that's where you've got the specialist knowledge, yes. Yes, you know, to to do this the orders of cakes that you do, but potentially build it into your cake school, maybe if people are, you know, you're gonna bring them along to that stage as well.

Bianca 11:19

Yeah, yeah. So I'm really like focused on once you've got the foundations, you're you're flying, you can move on to the next level of a tiered cake, maybe two start of two tiers, see how you get on. But definitely once you know how it all works, the sky's the limit. You can yeah, you can do anything.

Fran 11:42

See, I'm I'm all about helping people with limiting beliefs and you know the the labels that we give ourselves and the identities that that creates. However, I would just like to state that I'm a terrible baker. Terrible, terrible baker, and a lot of it is because I have no patience and I want to open that oven and everything just you know.

Bianca 12:03

Yeah, well, at least you've identified where you're going wrong.

Fran 12:10

But see, even the timing and the measurements, everything is such a skill, isn't it?

Cake Structure And Tiered Designs

Bianca 12:15

Yeah, yeah. People do say that to me, but it's so specific. It's this you got have this measurement. Whereas if you're cooking like something savory, or you can just I will add a little bit more of this or put a touch of that. Baking, there's a very fine lines. If you add too much or too little of something, I found I found that fine line.

Fran 12:39

Found it. So this leads me on to the next question that I've got for you. Yeah, balancing busy business with family life. So your your wife, your mom, so balancing that busy busy business with your family life can be challenging. Um what routines help you stay creative and organized?

Bianca 13:04

Yeah, I love being organized. I love me a to-do list, I like checking things. So being organized is my superpower anyway, I feel. But definitely with three children in the mix and being a wife, I need to time block. I've learned over the years that it's important to protect certain parts of my life and the my day, making sure I've got time for family. So definitely I I plan the week ahead to time block things out. I've got systems in place with my business to make things run smoother. So I outsource some things like my accounts because numbers, I don't enjoy working with numbers, so why not let somebody else do it? So that kind of eases a bit of pressure as well.

Fran 13:54

That's the thing, isn't it? Working out where your non-negotiables are. So, you know, you're protecting your time and the fact that you like to stay organized, but then outsourcing the things that would either take you longer or that you don't enjoy.

Bianca 14:07

Yeah, exactly.

Fran 14:08

And that's so we do we don't have to do everything, do we?

Bianca 14:11

Yeah, yeah. This is the mindset I had to get out of at the beginning. Oh, I have to do this because it's my business, and I've got to do that, and I gotta do that, and I've got but I don't. Yeah. So why not free it up for someone who's more experienced at that as me than me as well and can get it done quicker or no, that I don't enjoy, like you said. So that does leave more time for things I like, like designing cakes, designing content, or going on social media to help other people, so spending time doing the things that I enjoy.

Fran 14:46

So that inspires your creativity as such, because you're building in those blocks of time within within your week, and you're making your to-do lists, and and that helps you know your your brain get into the creative space that you choose to be in.

Bianca 15:01

Exactly, yeah.

Fran 15:02

That doesn't involve accounts.

Bianca 15:04

Yeah, don't ask me about numbers. Although I need maps for baking, so I'm sort of I don't know what I'm saying.

Baking Precision And Patience

Fran 15:11

You know what? That's somebody else's creative space, though, isn't it? You know, accountancy, that's a whole different thing. But yeah, you must do numbers. See, I I struggle with numbers. I've got dyscalculia, so I kind of I start off like with really good intentions and then make the rest up, and you know, I'd be I'd be doing all sorts of things, so yeah, so definitely protecting my time and and not feeling pressured to do things outside of that.

Bianca 15:40

If I've set myself, this is my working hours, then not replying to emails in the middle of the night because that's not protecting my time, my energy, my space. So that's how I manage. Yeah, amazing.

Fran 15:54

Right, thank you so much. Just gonna ask you what's next for you?

Bianca 16:01

Oh, what is next? So I'm excited about expanding the cake school. I want to add decorating courses that complement the one, the current one that I've got, which is the entry-level baking course, and that I can reach more hobby bakers that feel a little bit intimidated by cake decorating. Because I when I do here, what I do here online is a lot to do with cake decorating and feeling proud of their work and wanting to sell. So that's what I want to focus on, and also just explore my creative side as well, even more in my own work. So hoping that it will inspire the students to push their own boundaries. So, yeah, excited about what's coming up.

Balancing Business And Family

Fran 16:50

All right, but anybody who this this goes out in video format as well, and anybody watching on video, I've just been delving under my desk and doing something. So apologies for that. Um, because you can find this as an actual podcast, the record the audio, and then it also goes out in video format on YouTube as well. So um, you know, is what it is there. Um I like it, I like it though that you're you're building something that you kind of learn about, you know, with your cakes and everything, and then you're building in the school as well, and then how to do other things with it, and that's the thing, it's having that room for growth, yes, yeah.

Bianca 17:29

It's important, especially well, in in anything but growth in creative your creative styling because I feel like what I started out with has sort of evolved, and I like I know more of what I like, and I like to do this sort of thing, but there's like you said, there's room to grow, room to experiment. Okay, I tried that. Maybe I'll do this different. So I I like all of that aspect of it. Definitely important for all of us to focus on.

Fran 17:59

All right, so thank you for sharing your journey and your um, I'm gonna say delicious insights with us today. Yes. I hope so. Yeah, good. For those of you interested to find out more, you can find Bianca at Beescakes. Now, this is this is BWZ underscore cakes. Yes. So on Instagram, and on Instagram you're also there as Bees Cakes School. Yes, yeah, and your website is www.beescakes.co.uk and that's bees bwz. Yes. You did mention TikTok as well.

Bianca 18:42

I am TikTok, yay. Do you share do you share any um cake making on there or I do, I do, and this year I'm gonna I did start last year with some lives, so showing how I'm making my actual wedding cakes and tips and things like that. So definitely this year I'm gonna be doing more of the same thing, helping people see getting you know behind the scenes of kitchen and baking. So, yes, definitely on TikTok if anyone wants to join me there.

Systems, Outsourcing And Boundaries

Host CTA And Closing

Fran 19:12

Oh, I'm gonna come find you everywhere. Please do if you if you're interested in more content like this, be sure to visit www.melancolymentor.com. That's me. And I'm not always like, you know, this disorganised with my desk and stuff like that. You know, it ebbs and flows. Ebbs and flows. Follow us for the latest updates because the latest podcast goes on there as well. Until next time, stay curious, keep it night in your creative potential, and go and find the anchor at Bees Bakes. Thank you. Thank you for listening. I'd love for you to subscribe and visit www.milempolementor.com for the latest updates. Until next time, stay curious and keep ignited for creative textbooks.