By Madelyn Curtis

Charlotte Smith’s (‘22) journey to baking stardom started out simply: with an Easy-Bake Oven. When she was younger, Smith played with this traditional childhood toy, like many of her friends. It was nothing special.

As she got older, Smith would watch her mom bake cakes for birthdays or other occasions. “I would always help her crack the eggs,” she explained. But Smith was never consistent or serious about baking. She played with the Easy-Bake Oven when she was little, and she gradually started to use the real kitchen as she got older. “I would just bake here and there,” she said. 

This all changed in the summer of 2018. “Over the summer going into freshman year, I just got the sudden urge to make a super cool cake,” Smith said. She then went all in on making this cake, buying all of the supplies and ingredients. In the end, “[the cake] turned out so much better than I expected,” she noticed. 

Smith started to realize that she had a special talent for baking and decorating cakes. She learned more about baking and taught herself new techniques through websites and videos on Instagram. Smith just baked for fun and personal enjoyment, making a few cakes for some of her friends’ or family members’ birthdays. It did not occur to her that this hobby could turn into a business until one of her friends asked to buy a cake from her. She recalls being confused as to why her friend would buy it, but then it dawned on her, and she thought, “This could be something here; I could make some money!”

Smith started to sell a few more cakes to her friends. Then, when COVID-19 hit and the whole country was in lockdown a year ago, she found that she had “so much time to bake.” Smith posted pictures of her beautifully decorated cakes on Instagram, and the popularity of her cakes grew. “I now make six cakes minimum a week, and it just kind of escalated so quickly,” she said.

Soon enough, Smith’s cake business, named Cakes to Char, took off. She coined the company name from her clever slogan: “Cakes to Share, Cakes to Char!” Her carefree hobby turned into a real job with expectations and plenty of orders to fulfill. She created a website that explains the different cake and frosting flavors.

Cakes to Char offers five different cake flavors: Classic Vanilla, Cookies N’ Cream, Chocolate, Confetti, and Chocolate Peanut Butter. Each cake comes with a default buttercream frosting flavor, but there is the option to customize the combination. Smith’s range of buttercream frosting flavors is wide, including vanilla, chocolate, peanut butter, and many others. She also sells cupcakes and cake pops, in addition to traditional cakes. Around holidays, Smith will offer specialty options. Some examples include hot chocolate bombs in December and cake gems for Valentine’s Day.

The Cakes to Char website also outlines pricing and gives customers a place to order where they have the option to request custom decorations or special cake and frosting decorations. Smith also includes a gallery page of many of her past cake creations to inspire new customers. 

An important part of Cakes to Char’s publicity is the company’s Instagram account. Smith will post a picture of one of her recent cake orders a few times a week. The cakes are amazingly decorated with small, intricate details and mesmerizing colors and designs. Her Instagram account is extremely popular, as so many people are continuously shocked by the beauty and perfection of the cakes. 

Eliza Stone (‘22) said “I look forward to seeing Charlotte’s Instagram posts of her decorated cakes, and they make my day every time! She’s so talented, and not only do they look amazing, but they’re delicious too.”

Smith really channels her artistic creativity when making cakes, even though she was never an artist, she told me. Customers often ask for specific designs or describe certain details they want on their cakes. But Smith is able to have the most control when the customers just give a few ideas. She takes those ideas and turns them into a coordinated cake.

Smith’s cake for her sister’s birthday.

Smith said her favorite cake she made was the one for her sister’s birthday. She called it “so fun” to bake and decorate. “When people order cakes from me, I feel like I need to make them perfect and fit their vision… but when it’s my birthday, my close friend’s birthday, or my sister’s birthday, I can make [the cake] whatever I want, and my creativity can come out,” Smith explained.

A lot of Cakes to Char’s business comes from the Collegiate community. The word of Smith’s delicious cakes spread quickly around campus, and it seems like everyone has tried one of her cakes. 

Lucy Barnes (‘22) got one of Smith’s cakes for her birthday this year. “My vanilla cake with a strawberry icing filling was the best cake I have ever had! And it’s multicolor stripe decoration on the outside with pink chocolate bars was gorgeous,” she commented.

For the junior class’s spikeball tournament at the Junior Field Day, Smith provided two cakes for the winners. She also baked cupcakes for the “Cake Walk,” another event at the Field Day. I tried one of her vanilla cake cupcakes with green, vanilla-flavored buttercream frosting. The cake was fluffy and delicious, and the frosting was so decadent, yet not too sweet. The cupcake was mouthwatering. Everyone could not stop complimenting Smith on her baking skills at the tournament. 

Tucker Walker (‘22) is an avid supporter of Cakes to Char. “Cakes to Char never fails to amaze me with her attention to detail in her decorations, and the amazing flavor of her cakes! It’s hard to believe that someone my own age is making such beautiful cakes,” Walker said.

Clearly, owning Cakes to Char is almost like a full time job for Smith. She said that on average she makes about eight cakes per week. Smith also participates in track and field in both the winter and the spring seasons, so, combined with her homework, there are some very late nights. Nevertheless, she enjoys baking, and it is important to her. 

When explaining the reason she runs such a time-consuming business, she started by saying that “before quarantine, I never thought I had the time to make cakes… so I would just make them here and there and sell them here and there too.” Then, Smith recounted her parent conference last spring with advisor, Associate Athletic Director Andrew Stanley, and how she talked about all of her time spent baking cakes. “[Stanley] said that when we eventually went back to school, I needed to make time to continue doing that, because it made me happy. I totally brushed off his comment, because I was thinking to myself that there was no way for me to make time to make cakes,” she told me. Luckily, for Smith and all of her customers, Stanley’s comment “stuck with” her. “I took his advice to make the time to do the things that I love on the school nights… Now, I make cakes on a weekly basis,” Smith said. 

As for her parents’ opinion of her business, Smith described them as “very supportive” of Cakes to Char. “They like to sit in the kitchen and talk to me while I decorate to watch the process,” she commented. Smith also said that her parents are really helpful with picking up a last-minute ingredient, and her dad helps with cake pick-ups during the day, since he has been working from home due to COVID-19. “Their only rule throughout has been that when I am finished, I need to clean the kitchen and do my own dishes,” she said.

Smith has learned so much in her time baking cakes, something that switched from just a regular hobby to a profitable one. Her passion for baking, along with stellar time management skills, has made her feel happy in doing what she does every day. Smith said, “I found that there is always room to make time for what you want to do.”

All photos by Charlotte Smith.