The Sugar Cove is delighted to welcome Jessy Robinson from Rising Flours, in Peterborough, Ontario. Jessy's passion for all things sugar began as a child, evolving into a fully fledged business as an adult. Always up for a challenge, Jessy readily treads along the cake frontier, exploring new avenues and paths with sugar as her medium. So strap on your cake shoes and get ready to do some walkin', as Jessy shares with us what ignited her passion for all things sugar.
I've been baking in some form since I was too short to see the counter top. My grandfather actually had to set up a stool for me to stand on. I'm not sure how much help I was, but I had a great time, and that was really the start of a hobby that I've slowly been working on and building into a career and a business. As I got older, my dad encouraged me to bake because he liked to eat what I made. All I had to do was pick a recipe, and he provided me with everything I would need. I look back on that time now, with envy and appreciation, at how easy it was.
When I got older, my sister-in-law needed a wedding cake on a budget and I volunteered to make it for her. With all of my experience at baking simple cakes, how hard could it be to stack a few on top of each other? This experiment went well, and I started to research more techniques to use for future cakes and projects. I finally felt like I had found a creative way to meld my love for all things food, and my desire to make everything look great.I went on to study graphic design in Toronto, and when I finished my college internship at a graphic design studio in
the city, I thanked them by baking a cake. I didn't have a recipe, so I went from memory, and seriously botched my shortbread crust, not knowing this until my boss went to slice it. I served it up proud as punch as this beautiful work of art I had made for them. A simple knife, however, would not slice through that shortbread. It was rock hard. He went next door to the hardware store to buy something more heavy duty, but still could not get through that crust. As far as cakes go, this one went down in the huge fail column, and yet I found myself asking why I finished my internship by baking. It was really a turning point, and the literal beginning of Rising Flours.
Nevertheless, I always try to do something new with sugar. With every cake, there are different challenges, and different techniques that can be used. While I think that the most important thing to conisder is what will work best, sometimes I try to pick something that I haven't done before. If I use a method that does not necessarily work well, I don't give up on it. I put a lot of effort into trying to find what I did wrong, and making it work better for the next attempt. As Thomas Edison said, "Sometimes it's about finding 1,000 ways how not to make something".I also try to experiment with all different sugar mediums, but apart from that, I try not to
be restricted by the limitations of sugar. Knowing how to sew, use wood and metal, power tools, some construction and electrical know-how and engineering basics, can be really helpful to making unique designs. If I ever feel discouraged, I think about what it's like to have a real job, and work for someone doing something that doesn't really interest me very much. It always perks me up some to remember that even a bad day doing this is better than a great day doing something I don't love.In this business, not everything is going to go well, and that's a face. What's important to remember
is that this is meant to be fun. If you're baking a cake for someone, it's a temporary piece of art. No one needs to live in it, it doesn't keep people warm and it won't be immortalized in a Parisian Art Museum. Ultimately, it will be eaten --- so if there are few little lumps or bumps that you don't like, sometimes those are OK. Every cake has a back.The main directive that I live by is this: some rules in baking can't be broken, but the rest can and probrably should be from time to time. The trick is learning the difference between the two.
Jessy Robinson
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