Business Profile: Cakes By Angela, Brewster
DAVID PROPPER PHOTO
Several years ago, the extent of Angela Maass’ interest in baking and dessert decorating was watching shows on television about it like Cake Boss. But when someone she knew needed a birthday cake, the crafty and creative Maass gave it a try and baked and dressed up a “not so bad” cake.
She’s been doing it ever since.
Now, for the past six years, Maass has been cooking away, baking custom designed cakes, cupcakes, and cookies for all different occasions. The more she cooks, the more popular and in demand she’s become, even to the point where she has had to turn down orders.
Maass bakes for birthday parties, bar/bat mitzvah, groomsmen parties, graduation parties, communions and even weddings.
Even more impressively, Maass does all the cooking in her own kitchen and has little to no formal training. As she likes to put it, she has a “YouTube degree.” She doesn’t consider herself an expert baker, but she does insist to be a proven “cake decorator.”
“Little by little I learned more skills and I just realized I had some sort of talent with it that I could build on,” Maass said.
When Maass, a Brewster resident, first started, she recalls being in “complete panic mode” if she had to bake and decorate two cakes in a weekend. Now, when she has as many as eight cakes in one weekend, she doesn’t blink twice.
Even if that means working throughout the night, mentioning she’s gone 36 hours straight decorating. She said the power of social media, and specifically Facebook has allowed her to spread the word and reel customers in a dizzying rate.
After making a post on a Putnam Facebook page about six months ago, Maass placed 45 orders in the next few days, making her booked solid until this June. And the product is always perfect because Maass won’t settle for less.
“I’m such a perfectionist,” she said. “I would never send work out the door unless I was completely and utterly happy with it.”
She can spend about 24 hours from start to finish on a cake. Typically, it takes roughly 15 hours.
The most impressive cake Maass has ever constructed is a life-size Gibson Guitar replica for a young musician’s bar mitzvah. Everything except the guitar strings was edible.
“What people are really looking for is something they’re not going to get at a grocery store, they’re not going to get at your typical bakery,” Maass.
While most of her business comes from Putnam residents, with a splash of neighboring counties, one woman all the way from the Bronx came to pick up a cake she ordered.
Maass, who is a single mom to a two-year-old daughter, also babysits and does part-time work for PARC to provide for her family. Her daughter, Harper, is her special assistant and taste-tester. Harper even has own play cooking set.
And while Maass continues to grow her brand, her daughter is still her number one customer.
“She just turned two in January, we had 100 people over,” Maass said. “She had a big, beautiful cake, any little girl’s dream.”
Customers can call Cakes by Angela at 845-821-3687.
