More than just a baker

Rina Nzuve, the proprietor of Rina’s House, is a former travel consultant who found her niche in sugar crafting and artful cake making

“One cold July evening five years ago, I was feeding my then five-year-old daughter. Deciding that she’d had enough of the food, she took her plate and emptied it into the dustbin.

I spanked her and in anger she told me that she was going to report me to her mother, meaning her nanny. This was the wake-up call I needed to walk out of my nine-year travel career.

“I grew up seeing an uncle who worked with an airline always come home with cakes and chocolate. An aunt who worked for another airline loved to bring photos of the amazing places she visited at work and these fascinated me.

A career in travel came naturally for me. I did not even hunt for a job; an internship at a local airline birthed a career that had me working for four international airlines.

I could just hop onto a plane and go to any destination I chose on my off days and I got to meet interesting people.

For a young person, this was a lot of fun – until that July evening. It had bothered me that I had barely seen my daughter over the years but that evening simply broke my heart. I knew that I couldn’t live with myself if my son, who was just a few months old at the time, called me ‘auntie’.

The following morning I returned my laptop to the office and resigned from my job. I just quit. I didn’t even wait for my severance pay. I didn’t know what I was going to do with myself. I just knew that I needed to rest.

OFFERED DOUBLE PAY

“I was a valuable ticketing agent at the time and my employer offered me double my pay to go back to work but my mind was made up.

My siblings who are all in the travel industry couldn’t understand where I was coming from.

However, my husband, Abraham, who had seen me stay up all night working understood and he was very supportive to the point of giving me money for my chama (welfare group) in the subsequent months.

“I conceived my third child soon after and for the next 18 months, I was happy at home raising my children. With a lot of free time on my hands, I rekindled my childhood passion of baking and took a short baking course. I would bake cakes for my family and friends.

Then, in December 2011, I baked a cake for my second born’s birthday and it turned out so well that I knew there was no going back for me after that.

“At the start of the next year, through word of mouth, I went commercial, working from my kitchen. Luckily, I did not need a lot of cash to start off because ideally, a cake deposit should cover the cost of ingredients.

For the first time, my obsessive compulsive disorder became a problem because I wanted to do everything myself which resulted in burn out just a few weeks in. At this point, I hired an extra hand. Over the next few months, I discovered that my forte was sugar crafting and I hired a few more people to help with the baking while I concentrated with the art part of it.

“Two years in, Rina’s House has grown to a staff of six permanent employees, a number which sometimes doubles depending on the season.

I love baking cakes for children but before I set off to work, I insist on speaking with the child to get the details of what he or she wants.

The other day, I baked a Dora the Explorer cake for a child only for her mother to call me a few hours later asking for another cake as the child had refused to cut this one! That was a good day at work.

The best days are when someone challenges me to do something that I haven’t done before and I ace it.

“There are still days when I need to work nights as not all the cakes can be done way in advance but I have enough time to bond with my children and I am sure that none of my children will call me ‘auntie’ ever again.

I even get five hours each week to teach baking to women at Lang’ata Women’s Prison. Sharing my passion with people who can’t pay for it and not feeling like I am giving away valuable parts of myself is how I know that I made the right decision quitting my job.”

How she did it

• I am a spiritual person and it was vital during this transition that I believed in something.

• I leaned heavily on my family, my spouse especially, for support.

• I did some research and took note of where there were gaps in the market. Then I carved out my niche.