Today we’d like to introduce you to Nikki Winters.
Hi Nikki, so excited to have you on the platform. So, before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Hello and thank you for this opportunity! My name is Nikki and I’m the CEO and owner of Soft ‘n Sticky Sweets by Nikki. My story begins with my grandmother waking me up early on Saturday mornings to the smell of cinnamon and apples. I would come running downstairs, climb up on the stool and watch my grandmother cooking homemade applesauce. She saw my curious nature for being in the kitchen and took it upon herself to pass down the lessons that had been taught to her.
My great-great-grandfather William Sidney Hawkes was a chef on the B & O railroad. He along with his wife Mary Viola Hawkes (my great-great-grandmother) also owned 2 locations of their restaurant Joe’s Lunch in Buffalo, NY. Pa as he was passionately known taught his daughter Genevieve (my grandmother) everything he knew about cooking and baking. She in turn passed all she learned down to me.
I’ve been baking since I was 6. My grandmother taught me the ins and outs around the kitchen. She taught me what pans to use, how long to bake and when to check on things in the oven. The part I remember most is how she NEVER used measuring spoons. She would put a dash of this or a scant of that in the batter. I said grandma how am I supposed to know how much that is? She took my tiny face into her wrinkled hands and said someday you will. Well, grandma was right! Sometimes I can still hear her talking me through things when I’m baking. The love she shared for baking was definitely ingrained in me.
Baking has always been therapeutic for me. I LOVE BEING IN THE KITCHEN! I continued to bake for my family and friends and would sometimes take my baked goods into work. It was my family and co-workers who said I should sell my cakes and cupcakes, and that’s where it began.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Definitely not smooth! Having a full-time job, trying to balance life, and running my own business can be exhausting, and rewarding at the same time.
Some of my challenges are finding shipping boxes and cake containers with the right fit for the product. That has to be researched and tested, which takes time and money. I won’t put a product on my website until I’m sure I’m able to ship it without it being damaged in transit. Another challenge is finding time to make my extracts. I make homemade extracts and they need time to develop. Technically I could use them after 8 weeks, but I let my extracts fuse for one year. This makes them more potent and flavorful in my recipes. I found it was easier and CHEAPER to make my own instead of buying it from the store. This also allows me to experiment with different flavors.
I want to expand and have local pickup in multiple counties in Maryland, but I haven’t been able to find the right method to do so. I’m currently researching businesses to share “shelf space” to allow for sales of my products and/or customer pickup. So, if there are any restaurants, diners or cafes who are looking to partner with a baker, please contact me. (Shameless plug, lol)
I’ve learned (the hard way) that I have to slow down. I had to learn how to balance running my business and not allowing it to run me. What I mean by that is, I have a ton of ideas on expanding and improving and I’ll get so overwhelmed and frustrated that I can’t implicate them all.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
When I first started Soft ‘n Sticky Sweets by Nikki I specialized in custom cakes. My thought was it should look as good as it tastes. While this was fun and people loved my work, some weren’t willing to pay what my cakes were worth. The most common line I heard was ” it’s just cake”. My response was this is true, but it’s also a specialized custom cake. As with anything if it’s custom it’s going to cost more. For example, if you wanted hydraulics added to your car, you don’t go to Nissian or Kia. You’d find a place that specializes in hydraulics. The same goes with custom cakes, if you wanted a cake shaped like Sonic the Hedgehog, you wouldn’t go to Safeway or Giant. You would find someone who specializes in custom cakes. As artists, we know people don’t know the true value of our work and I tried my best to explain it to potential customers. I had customers who wanted a $600 cake, but only had the budget for a $200 cake. So, I split the baby and would take pieces of what they imagined and designed a cake to fit their budget. Doing business this way made me feel like I was compromising my worth. I got discouraged, so I stopped making custom cakes.
Funny thing about passion is even when you think you’re done, you’re just getting started. While I wasn’t doing anything custom, I would bake from time to time. Making pound cakes and cupcakes for family, friends and co-workers. I found myself selling more of these than the custom ones. That’s when I had my epiphany moment. I changed the direction of my business, and decided to focus on my pound and cupcakes. These are my specialities.
I’m most proud of not giving up. Running and managing your own business is hard enough, but when you feel like you’ve lost your customer base it’s easy to want to throw in the towel. My parents didn’t raise a quitter and I didn’t want to let my grandmother down. After all, I wouldn’t be the baker I am today if it wasn’t for her. Sometimes in business we have to change our focus to find our calling. With the new direction, I found my niche in pound and cupcakes. My baked goods are made with organic, fresh, and gourmet ingredients. All of my cakes and icings are made from scratch. I also make my own extracts and sugars.
My customers are my focus. They are more than patrons, they’re family. Customer service is extremely important to me. I bake with love so I want that to show in every aspect of my customer’s experience. My tagline is “A Taste of Love in Every Bite”.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
After the last two years we’ve had with all the loss, family is the most important thing to me. My family means the world to me. My grandmother who taught me everything has passed on, but she’s still with me in spirit. I can feel her when I bake and hear her encouraging me when I get down or feel like giving up. I started my business to honor her and my family before her. Our families are our backbone. They support, love, invest, uplift, and inspire us. To quote Michael J. Fox, “Family is not an important thing, It’s everything.”
Contact Info:
- Email: softstickysweets@gmail.
com - Website: www.
softandstickysweets.com - Instagram: www.instagram.com/
softnstickysweets - Facebook: www.facebook.com/
SoftStickySweetsByNikki - Twitter: www.twitter.com/
softstickysweet - Other: linktr.ee/
softandstickysweets
Image Credits
Carlyn Winters
