Sweet sprinkles of joy
- Francie Healy
- 2 hours ago
- 2 min read
If you ask Priya Randev where she loves to be, she’ll tell you it’s her kitchen.
This is where she bakes gorgeous and elaborate cakes or exquisite melt-in-your-mouth cookies for her Sweet Pearl Bake Shop.
It’s her happy place.
“This is my freedom to be creative,” she says, “to put sprinkles on things, to make everything colourful.”
She has many delighted customers who tend to hear about her by word of mouth: Someone is at a party and tastes one of her birthday cakes; someone is offered one of her cookies – and they want more.
Her creations are not only beautiful and delicious. They’re also almost impossibly fresh, like the cookies she baked the other day at 9:30 in the morning and were in her customer’s hands two hours later. (The customer ate the cookies right then and there.)
Sweet Pearl Bake Shop is not a retail shop where you can wander in, pick something from the shelf and take it home. Everything is custom-made, so you need to arrange it beforehand.
“As long as you pre-plan a little,” Priya says, “you can get exactly what you want.” That means custom colours, flavours, sizes, decorations, messages ‒ and even special cake and cupcake toppers.
Priya has always loved baking. It started in a simple way, with grocery store ingredients and cookbooks. She would bake just for the fun of it.
Then, three years ago, she was overseas on vacation. She had time to think and dream. She decided she loved baking so much she was going to turn it into a business.
She started simply with an Instagram account where she shared photographs of her tasty concoctions. (It probably helped that her other passion is photography.)
She also created a website, designed a logo, had stickers printed and boxes ordered. By the time she arrived home from vacation she had an order waiting.
Priya keeps her menu focused with simple categories – on purpose. She feels if you expand products too widely you run the risk of compromising quality. And Priya insists on perfection.
“I wouldn’t change anything,” she says. “My cakes are moist and perfectly balanced.”
They’re also a feast for the eyes. Priya might start with a basic recipe, but that’s where it ends and becomes creative. She changes things, enhances them, adds elements like pistachio or lemon or strawberry. Or whipped cream. Or buttercream, perhaps modified to suit her customers’ tastes.
She also creates specialty cakes with more expensive ingredients such as mascarpone cheese or fresh fruit.
“When you have a passion for something,” she says, “it doesn’t feel like work.”
Ordering something from the Sweet Pearl Bake Shop is simple. There’s a contact form on the website where you can enter an order or ask questions. You can also send her an email at sweetpearlottawa@gmail.com, or text her at 343-999-9870. Priya checks her messages frequently so no one has to wait long.
“It’s pretty easy to reach me,” she says.
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