Published: Monday, 30th November, 2009 6:55pm

From corporate life to cakes

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BAKING cakes used to be a hobby for Catherine Scott and when she gave up work to have a family, it even earned her a few pounds.

But soon demand was so high her husband, Robin, packed in his job to join her and now they deal with 700 orders a year.

Catherine, 42, who has a degree in business, worked for a tour operator in London for 17 years, mostly as a business analyst.

She stepped down from her job in 2005 while Robin, 49, left his job as an independent financial adviser in 2006 to set up Catherine's Cakes.

The couple, from Montpelier Drive in Caversham Park Village, have two children and share childcare duties while running the business from home and from business premises in Moulsford.

Catherine said: "I always had a creative side to me but to be honest I didn't think I would ever make a living at this. I have to pinch myself sometimes."

The crunch came when she was unable to cope with the amount of work she was getting and the couple had to decide whether Robin should join the business or stay in his job.

She said: "I was turning down more work than I was taking. The financial climate was not good even then and between us we decided if we are going to try to do this at all it had better be now.

"He gave his job up and we worked from home, then we took on another person and it snowballed from there."

Catherine puts their success down to having a commercial head but admits the first five years were almost an accident. A more strategic approach is planned for the next five and the wedding favours market will be tackled next.

She said: "We haven't noticed the recession at all. The business has grown significantly in both of the last two years. I don't know if that was less than it would have grown if we had not had the recession, but I am not bothered about that.

"Eighty per cent of our business is weddings and that hasn't been affected at all. I am fifteen per cent up on the weddings I have done this year. I am doing two hundred wedding cakes a year."