By Mindy Wang, Staff Reporter
Hippie Chic Cakes was born as a hobby and transformed into a livelihood for Cara Wiechecki, mother of Conestoga junior Olivia Wiechecki. Hippie Chic Cakes is a home-based bakery that offers custom cakes, pies, seasonal items and baking classes. Hippie Chic Cakes was created in 2013 because of owner Cara Wiechecki’s love for baking.
Running the bakery from home does have its negatives, but it allows for more flexibility for Cara Wiechecki. Starting out with baking cakes for close friends and family, the bakery has expanded to delivering goods to surrounding areas, such as West Chester, Gladwyne and Villanova. Although Cara Wiechecki considers herself to be more a cook, she taught herself to bake by making cakes for her children.
“I basically taught myself, and I taught myself how to do it (baking) all by practicing and watching a lot of YouTube videos or looking online,” Cara Wiechecki said.
Cara Wiechecki started baking her children’s birthday cakes each year and eventually friends and family would ask her for cakes. By teaching herself and regularly making cakes for family and friends, Cara Wiechecki was able to start her own small business. She named it after the childhood nickname “Hippie Chick,” making Hippie Chic Cakes.
The bakery sells cakes, custom cakes, pies and seasonal items. Cara Wiechecki’s specialty is hand painting her cakes or painting designs on her pies. Cara Wiechecki also follows cake trends on instagram such as the recent addition of hot chocolate bombs to her products.
“I think (baking) is a creative outlet for me,” Cara Wiechecki said.
She has also sold cupcake decorating boxes that customers can take home and use. They have been especially popular during the pandemic. According to Cara Wiechecki, cake orders have gone up exponentially since the start of the pandemic because more people are ordering cakes from home.
Cara Wiechecki also started baking classes for 10-12 children in her home for about four to five years before COVID-19 put the classes on hold. Each class would have a theme and participants would do most of the baking themselves. In the end, they were able to take home a box full of their creations. She would also hold birthday parties along with classes. Cara Wiechecki has not had classes for about a year and is eager to start them again.
“My baking classes and birthday parties are the two things that I miss a lot,” Cara Wiechecki said.
Hippie Chic Cakes has also made a lot of progress with their reach and the amount of products that they offer. They have expanded from just cakes to a variety of pies, cookies, and cupcakes. Over the eight years of activity, Hippie Chic Cakes has also expanded in terms of where their orders come from. Orders can come from as far as an hour away from her house. Olivia Wiechecki has seen the immense progress that the bakery has made over the years.
“My mom’s delivering cakes an hour away to all the people and there’s people all over asking for cakes and she has the classes, she’s doing all sorts of things,” Olivia Wiechecki said.
Because Hippie Chic Cakes is a home-run bakery and all products are made at Cara Wiechecki’s home, it can sometimes get messy and overwhelming. However, being home-run creates a special niche that eliminates most competition. It also allows for flexibility in Cara Wiechecki’s schedule.
“It works well with my life, you know, so I can do it from home. I can still do all the stuff I need to do with my kids and take them everywhere,” Cara Wiechecki said.
Cara Wiechecki delivers all of her cakes without charge to customers.
“That’s something I try and do; I just think it’s a nice thing to do,” said Cara Wiechecki.
In the future Cara Wiechecki plans on continuing to host baking classes and birthday parties. She is satisfied with the progress of the shop, and plans to continue baking for customers.
“I really like her business,” Olivia Wiechecki said, “She created her own business and I’m really proud of her.”
