How I turned my single room into a bakery

Grace Wambui shows her baked and enhanced bread in her house. (George Njunge / standard)

“I used to cook very tasty food and baked my first cake on my fourteenth birthday,” the former student of Gathirimu Girls told CityBiz.

Since then, her love for cooking  rose to another level and while in she was high school, Wambui (pictured) studied home science where her cooking  skills were honed by her teachers.

She later enrolled at Limuru School of Catering to study food production, bakery and hospitality.

Wambui, currently an employee at a Limuru hotel, has grown from being waitstaff and now is in food production department.

To make extra coin, Wambui bakes flavoured bread in her house using a small gas oven with a capacity of five loaves at once.

Wambui says the enjoys her baking business because she already has the knowledge and also the ingredients are not expensive.

“I bought moulded sheets, a bale of flour, margarine, cooking oil, eggs, cinnamon and vanilla extract and I was good to go,” Wambui said.

After baking for the first time, Wambui treated a few friends to a bread-tasting party where she was banking on them to not only sample the flavours but also market the product.

And as they say that good bread is fundamentally the most satisfying food, word quickly spread and soon the orders started coming.

“My bread stands out  because they weigh 1kg, contain additives like cinnamon  powder, vanilla essence , eggs and ripe bananas,” Wambui told CityBiz.

Wambui also bakes zucchini bread which is made with shredded zucchini and other ingredients that provide a sweet flavour.  She says her master piece is the carrot bread in which she infuses grated carrots into the pastry and follows the ordinary baking procedure.

 Parents with young school-going kids are her biggest clients.

“People here do not mind the cost as they understand the value of the bread,” she said.

Every morning, bodaboda operators flock to Wambui’s house to cart away orders from specific parents around Limuru.

 On a good day Wambui  can sell up to 20 loaves.

Wambui mostly uses Facebook to market her side hustle, word of mouth also helps. She is also trying to use social media influencers.

“I take advantage of Limuru notice board which has over 46,476 followers to showcase my work,” she said.

Her main challenge is not having a big oven. Packaging is also a headache since the government banned polythene bags which were popular in bread packaging.

Wambui is looking forward to owning a catering company.