Don't Tell Me I Can't… Make A Living Out Of Cake

Owner of The Velvet Cake Co., Jandri Van Zyl, embraced the sweet life by turning her love for baking into a thriving business.

- Pascale Bakos

Can you just imagine being surrounded by delicious cakes and tempting, sugary icing all day, almost every day, and being able to call it ‘work’? Well, I can – and I do! My first memory of creating something deliciously sweet was at the tender age of seven. A few years later, when I was given a cookbook of my own, the first recipe I tackled was for simple vanilla cupcakes with decadent buttercream frosting – and I’ve been baking ever since. My late grandmother was a master baker and my mother is a chef, so the kitchen has always been a place where we spend time together as a family. I have no doubt it was all these childhood memories that steered me in this sweet direction.

It took me a while to find my chosen career path – I chopped and changed between a few creative fields like photography and fashion before I decided to pursue what came most naturally to me: making cake.