Katie Calhoun knows what’s involved in turning a hobby into a business.
For the past three years, Calhoun has been operating Katie’s Kakes, a business in which she bakes and decorates cakes in her home kitchen.
Calhoun said she likes working with customers to fulfill their requests for customized cake designs.
Katie’s Kakes also prepares sweet treats such as cookies, cupcakes and brownies.
“I’m a home baker, so everything is done fresh,” said Calhoun, who lives in Madison Township. “It is done either the day before or day of (pickup or delivery). There’s no freezing involved.”
Katie’s Kakes follows all Ohio regulations for producing food from home that is sold to the public.
Calhoun started Katie’s Kakes after she gained a reputation for designing creative and attractive cakes for friends and family members.
Her path to becoming a professional cake designer began with a casual project.
“I wanted to make a fun cake for my mom,” Calhoun said. “Her favorite flower is a hydrangea. So I went on YouTube and looked to see how to make a hydrangea cake, and then I made it.”
Calhoun said she enjoyed that project and felt inspired to design more cakes.
“So I started just doing it for my family,” she said.
She began posting photos of the cakes on Facebook, which attracted the attention of friends. It didn’t take long for some of those people to begin requesting cakes decorated by Calhoun.
“And at first, I just charged the cost of ingredients, because cake decorating was still something new to me,” she said.
As more people began sharing pictures of Calhoun’s decorated cakes, her talent was getting noticed by a wider audience.
“And it just kind of snowballed into the business it is today,” she said.
Calhoun got ready to launch Katie’s Kakes as a formal business by purchasing insurance, taking legal steps to establish a limited liability company and creating a Facebook page to promote her new commercial venture.
Calhoun operates Katie’s Kakes as a sideline business. She works full-time as a chef at Vincent William Wine, a winery in Madison Township.
Before starting her job at the winery in August, Calhoun was employed for 12 years in a human resources position at the Target store in Mentor. Prior to her employment at Target, Calhoun gained experience in food preparation by working for 13 years as a kitchen helper, cook and kitchen manager at Capp’s Pizza in Leroy Township.
Calhoun said she can create up to three or four custom-designed cakes each week at Katie’s Kakes, given her current full-time work schedule.
“I don’t get that many orders every week, but that’s what I would probably cap myself off at,” she said.
Her goal is to produce at least one wedding cake per month. But she admits that most of those cakes are made during the summer and fall.
Birthday cakes are the most popular types of cakes produced by Katie’s Kakes.
“I do a lot of kids’ cakes,” Calhoun said.
Some of the birthday cakes she’s created have been decorated with images of sharks; the character Stitch, from the Disney animated movie and TV series “Lilo and Stitch”; and Barbie the fashion doll.
Besides cakes, another popular item offered by Katie’s Kakes is cupcake bouquets.
These are cupcakes, each topped by frosting that is applied to resemble a flower, which are placed into colorful pieces of paper.
The cupcakes, after being nestled into the pieces of paper, are then grouped together in a baked-goods box, and when it is opened, the ensemble looks like a bouquet of flowers.
“Valentine’s Day is huge for cupcake bouquets,” Calhoun said. “So I’ll probably be doing that again this year.”
The top-selling cookies at Katie’s Kakes are chocolate chip and decorated sugar cookies.
Calhoun also has an edible ink printer — known by the brand name of Eddie — which she uses to secure prints of pictures that can be placed on cookies.
“The ink cartridge is United States Department of Agriculture food-approved,” she said.
Calhoun said she is pleased with the decision she made to establish Katie’s Kakes.
“There is so much more that I want to do,” she said. “With my current space, it does kind of restrict me. So I’m hoping one day I can open a brick-and-mortar shop.”
She also would like to eventually make Katie’s Kakes her full-time job.
“That would be amazing,” she said.
For more information on Katie’s Kakes, visit the business’s Facebook page; send an email to katieskakes7@yahoo.com; or call 440-413-1290.