Bank takes the ache out of making cake

From midnight baking to overseas expansion plans, young entrepreneur's determination to turn passion into business pays off

- JEREMY THESEIRA

In the early hours of most mornings in 2013, Ms Ethel Tan would often be found hard at work in a rental kitchen in Tai Seng.

Between midnight and 4 am, the 33-year-old would toil away with her business partner and husband, Mr Shaun Ong, 36, creating custom cakes for her young baking business.

The days weren't much easier. After deliveries to customers across Singapore, the couple would handle new orders over email and WhatsApp, gather ingredients and prepare for the next night's baking.

Sleep, says Ms Tan, was a luxury. The law graduate recalls: "There was a bean bag in the waiting area of the building and we used to just sleep on that." The grueling schedule, peppered with moments of self-doubt, marked Edith Patisserie's first year of operations.

Despite meeting about 100 orders per week, the couple was not making significant profit.

Was it worth it? Yes, says Ms Tan. "One of our main visions was to keep our cakes affordable, and that is what we've always focused on." Today, Edith Patisserie has its own centralised kitchen in Harper Road, along with three outlets in Singapore - a bakery in Outram Road, a cake bar in Penang Road, and an outlet within the Cold Storage supermarket in Holland Road.

Once a two-man team, Edith Patisserie now has 35 employees - 20 full-time and 15 parttime to run the bakery's daily operations, consisting of kitchen and service staff, to delivery drivers.