My Cake Decorating Journey

My name is Leslie Bruckman, I am 31 years old and I have two incredible children. My daughter is 13 and my son is 3. I own my business Nom Nom Sweeties and operate in my home under the Cottage Food Law.
My whole life I loved art. I’m sure that’s the case for almost all of us here on this site, making these lovely cakes. I painted and drew and took several art classes. In my last year of high school I had 5 hours of different art classes and I couldn’t be more happy.
In college I started with a background in the Fine Arts but couldn’t make a living. Shortly after that, I met a friend in the Pharmacy program. With the wages, I could work part time and enjoy my hobbies in all my free time. I switched.
I worked in pharmacy for 3 years and felt like it was killing me… I hated my job, I could never feel creative and I didn’t pick up a pencil to draw for the entire time.
When I got pregnant with my son in 2010… it was the peak of cake decorating tv bliss. I loved watching Cake Boss and Ace of Cakes. I already baked and made candies (especially chocolate truffles) as a hobby for several years at that point. Once I had my son, I spent my days cuddling him and reading about how to start a business making truffles and candy (at that point, I hadn’t even considered cakes). I kept extending my maternity leave until I had none left and I was forced to resign my position. I did it gladly.
I decided to give my own candy business a try. Michigan has a Cottage Food Law, so I did lots of research. By May 2011 I had a business name, a DBA, my first order for a dozen chocolate truffles and a spot at the local Artisan Market. Me, my truffles and candy were a hit around town and soon everyone was talking.
In June, just after I started I found out my mom had stage 4 lung cancer. She started radiation and chemo right away and I became her caretaker with my 6 month old son in tow. She encouraged my business, like she had in everything else I’d ever done my whole life and told me to go to the market and sell my truffles. She’d even come down and buy some candy.
I loved the business, but wasn’t making much money for the work I was doing. The more I read into it… the more I knew that making wedding cakes was where the better money was. I started to practice making better cakes. From scratch, sometimes with fondant, sometimes with flowers. It was hit or miss… I would have an amazing cake experience and then I’d have a terrible one. I delved into research… trying to figure out why one thing would work and one wouldn’t. Rookie mistakes… but mistakes I learned from.
By October, I had my pricing set and was advertising for cakes but at the end of November, we found out my mom was terminal and had about 3 weeks to live. I put the business on hold, and we spent almost every day with her. In the weeks that came, we made some tough choices. It would suddenly become obvious that her situation was even more dire than before. On my son’s 1st birthday we admitted her to a Hospice House and two days after Christmas (about a week later) she passed away with me and my brother, my then spouse and my life long friend on her side. It was very surreal.
Shortly after my mom passed away, a friend she worked with who was a wedding decorator started to poke and prod me to come to a local Bridal Show. I just kept putting it off, until just a few days before. I’d been her state appointed caretaker and was supposed to be paid a little bit of money from her insurance for it. We thought at that point (nearly 7 months since I was appointed) that the money was just never coming and then bam… Suddenly it came. I couldn’t think of anything else to do but use it to fund my business… so I spent it on start up costs, supplies, advertising, a website and the bridal show. Within 3 days I threw together my display cakes, designed my booth with the help of a friend and did the show.
I got up running and have never looked back. I know my mom wouldn’t want me to. Watching her reminisce and lament in her final days about the things she missed out on was heartbreaking, and I have learned from her that life IS short. It’s too short to spend wasting on things you don’t love. She was 54 when she died and had SO much life to live still…
I LOVE decorating cakes. I love making delicious candies and other sweet treats, too. Soon I hope to open a cake studio attached to my home with a licensed kitchen and all my goodies to sell. The lifelong dream though, is to have a retail family bakery where everyone in town comes for their cakes, cookies, pastries and candy.