Big year for Kake Kreations founder

December 9, 2011, Whitby, ON – Karey Anne Large has had a busy few months, gearing up to open her very first retail store while preparing for an appearance on a televised cake competition. 

December 9, 2011, Whitby, ON – Karey Anne Large has had a busy few
months, gearing up to open her very first retail store while preparing
for an appearance on a televised cake competition. 

Large got her start six years ago, designing her son’s first birthday cake. Soon she was concocting beautiful creations for family and friends in the off hours from her full-time office job. Opening a retail location wasn’t part of the plan. Then life happened.

“We sold the house to move in with my mom to take care of her because she got sick,” said Large. “There was no more room for me to do cakes at her house, so it was a case of ‘let me look and see what’s out there’.”

Within a month of starting her search, Large found the perfect space – a café in an old Victorian building on a tree-lined street. The 20-seat space will house a café serving cookies, cupcakes, whoopie pies and cake pops, plus a variety of coffees, teas, lattes and espressos. Free Wi-Fi access will encourage customers to linger and enjoy the cozy, comfortable atmosphere.

A short walk down an antique staircase will lead to the kitchen where the cake magic will happen. Large is also planning to offer baking and decorating classes out of her new commercial kitchen.

“You have to pinch me sometimes because I think I’m still dreaming. I can’t believe it’s actually happening and that my husband really agreed to it,” Large said.

With Kake Kreations set to open on Dec. 12, she is busy preparing for what may just be the biggest challenge in transitioning into retail: surrendering some control over the business to her two-person staff.

“I want to do everything and I know I’m not going to be able to,” said Large. “The biggest challenge is going to be letting go a bit and trusting other people to help me because up until now it’s just been me, so I’ve had control over everything.”

Large got a taste of what it’s like to tackle baking as a team during her three-day stint filming an episode of Slice TV’s Cake Walk: Wedding Cake Edition in May. During her first live cake decorating competition, she and an assistant crafted an elaborate outdoors-themed cake in just seven hours.

“It was stressful leading up to it – doing all the work and the thought and the preparation ahead of time,” said Large. “I had done so much prep work and so much organization that everything went off without a glitch. It was perfect. Everything we planned to do on the cake, we did on the cake.”

The key to pulling off a strong performance was putting in lots of practice and preparation ahead of time. Large advises that anyone thinking about participating in a similar competition should be prepared to put in the prep work ahead of time.

“Go in very organized and expect that anything can happen because it really can. One of my competitors’ entire cake fell down and they ended up building it again. She wound up winning our episode so anything can happen.”

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Kake Kreations founder Karey Anne Large will celebrate the grand opening of her first retail location on Dec. 12.