Rolling in the dough! - BAKE OFF STAR'S BIG CHALLENGE

Sure to rise! The cake star quits her job to follow her passion

-  Elise Cacace

A dramatic career change is exciting under the best of circumstances and for cupcake queen Wendy Banks, the transition from traffic management to owning a bakery could not have been sweeter.

Compared to most bakers Wendy, 45, considers herself rather late to the party, only picking up a bowl and whisk after the birth of her first child when she was 29.

Now, after coming fifth in 2021's The Great Kiwi Bake Off, she's opened the doors to her very own bakery in the heart of Queenstown.

Wendy admits the change in career was somewhat strange because she'd been a traffic engineer since she graduated university in 1999. Suddenly, she was her own boss needing to learn the ropes of the retail and hospitality industries.

"It's been weird because with my old job, I used to arrive in the morning and be done at the end of the day. But now, as a baker, it's pretty much 24/7. I've never had to deal with things like payroll, staffing and project management before. Even working out how to use the tills is new to me!"

Still, the change is a positive one, fuelling Wendy's creative side that she felt had been neglected.