Baby Cakes' treats are small and sweet

The old saying that good things come in small packages could well be a marketing line for Baby Cakes, the Tuart Hill-based business of former pastry chef Sarah Brigden.

Ms Brigden started Baby Cakes, a retail and wholesale business, about a year ago with the view to making the very nicest of treats in small portions.

The business now supplies more than 30 cafes and restaurants around Perth.

Shop retail trade is also growing as Baby Cakes’ reputation for quality, innovative treats reaches a wider audience.

Soto Espresso, one of Baby Cakes’ first clients, has a new line of cakes that contains some serious chocolate.

“We’ve just done a new range of cakes for Soto that uses Valrhona chocolate. It’s $30 per kilo and comes from France,” Ms Brigden says.

“A lot of people go to places [suppliers] because they are cheap and they can get the best return on it.

“We don’t do that. We don’t use premixes and we use quality ingredients. We make everything here. We make our own ingredients, even the honeycomb, and we have someone who hand finishes all the cakes.”

Ms Brigden says many people in Perth prefer quality in small doses to a large piece of not-so-great cake.

“People can buy the huge cake for $25 but I want to promote our quality, and you don’t need big doses of it.”

Other cafes stocking a range of Baby Cakes’ products include Gino’s in Fremantle, Mille Café, Rosso Espresso, King Street Café, Food by Christopher Hillier, and Incontro.

Ms Brigden has been making sweet little treats for quite a while but turned it into a business after discovering a niche market.

“I moved over from England and I worked at King Street cafe as the head pastry Chef. I was there for about three and a half years and then worked at Cino to Go for a year,” she says.

“It really has just snowballed.

“I have had Tranby Tearooms in Maylands as a customer for a long time and supplied them while working.

“Then a friend of mine set up Soto in Highgate and he liked what I did and wanted me to do products for them.

“When they opened I set up my own company; that was in April last year.

“Since then it’s just escalated and built up over time.”

The Baby Cakes products range from a selection of tarts, cakes, including the popular death by chocolate, and biscuits.

And all the goodies come in baby-sized portions.

The name Baby Cakes has also created another income stream for Ms Brigden – making cakes for children’s parties.

“Because of the name people think we do cakes for babies and we have been doing quite a lot of that,” Ms Brigden says.

Baby Cakes has a retail outlet based in Tuart Hill.

“The retail is building up and that’s been from them seeing us at shows like the Burswood Wine and Food Festival.”