 Welcome to the journey. Today we're gonna bake an awesome cake and hang out with our friends from the All Purpose Cake Co which I'm super stoked about. They're in the very early stages of their business and not only are we gonna learn how to bake, but also we get to share some expertise with them and learn about their challenges which is awesome during these early stages and the creative stages of their business. Guys, I'm so stoked to dive into this, especially for the cake at the end. I'm here with Val from All Purpose Cake Co. Listen, I've been just dying to know, how did this all start? This is a recipe that my mom learned when she was young. It's called Sainte Valle and it means without arrival and it's layers of meringue filled with a French buttercream. Oh, sounds rich. Yeah, it's rich. I feel like you serve it in small slivers otherwise you get overwhelming. Like big chunks. If you're gonna go in, you're gonna go in big. Do well. So my mom had passed this recipe on to my sister and my sister made a little business out of this in Canada about five years ago. So earlier this year I said, I wanna do this business in the US but I'd like to take the sugar out and I'd like to take the lactose out and this is how we've been about to All Purpose Cake Co. So the first thing you do is you crack the eggs and try not to get shells in and separate. You don't want a little crunch in your cake? No. Oh, okay. So you want me to do this right now? Yeah. You say you have to separate. I'm just nervous. I was nervous about cracking an egg the whole flight here. Well, I can help. Okay, let's do this with the brown. Okay. Cool. Okay. All right, ready? Yeah. Just a little tap tapiru. It's like. And don't have spares so you can't. I'm not gonna mess up on this. No pressure, Val. Holy smokes. I sure have got extra. Okay. And then I'm gonna put a little bit of, oops, there's a, don't worry, I'll get it out. Okay, I've got some goop in my hand. Oh, it feels bloody. This is when you feel like you're really baking. So we want that in there. Yeah, that in there. And this over here. That's right. You got it. There you go. All right. I think you've passed that. There's still like a small shell in there. Can I pick it out with my finger? I think so, yeah. I got it. No one wants that in their cake. All right, so I gotta ask. Cause this obviously takes a lot of time. How are you selling your cakes yet? Cause you talked about doing it for friends and stuff. And, but are you actually making profit? Not yet. Okay. But this has gotta add up. It's expensive. You've got the fancy nuts. You've got the cool heritage eggs. It does. Quality comes at a price because even though there's only five ingredients by using locally sourced and small producers, we wanna pay them fairly. So in return, we're putting a fair price for our cake. Now we're gonna whip it up, right? We wanna whip it up. Is there any strategy there? There is. So this is what my mom's taught me. So I baked this cake with her and there's a timing thing that doesn't show up in the recipe. So you start with a number four for four minutes. You got a timer? Yeah. Cool. Let's set up the timer. Okay. Three, two, one. We're on four. So far, it's like you in laundry. Is this what you do day in and day out? Are you making five ingredient cakes? Sun up, sun down? Nope. I have a full-time job. I have a few kids at home. So you don't sleep? I'm not much of a sleeper. So this is your side hustle. So this is my side hustle. So you must be like, and you're not making money off of this yet. You must be collaborating with a lot of people, maybe friends and family. Tell me about that because that's fascinating to me. So what I'm finding in my industry, which has nothing to do with cake, I run into other people, clients, suppliers, customers. And when I tell them about my side hustle, they tell me about their side hustle. Everybody's got a side hustle. Everyone's got a side hustle. Other people that are doing like little things that have nothing to do with what they do in a day-to-day job. So what I'm on earth, in my world, in my work, are all the people that are side hustling and we're all kind of coming together and helping each other out. Oh, hang on. Okay. So we stop. And then we want to put the cream of tartar. Ooh. And then flip it up to eight. We've got the eight. Oh yeah, now we're moving. Yeah. Cool. Oh, now we start putting sugar. How about the sugar? So. So we want to put- While it's moving? Yeah. So just a little bit at a time. A little bit, like a little sprinkle. Okay. We'll do it together. Yeah. So this is teamwork. Since we're talking about teamwork. Yeah. Let's just start a village and start a startup. That's how I feel about it. It's looking good. I feel like there's some- What do you call them? Strong peaks? 30 peaks? Stiff peaks. Stiff peaks. I think there's some stiff peaks in there. Yeah, it's like it. That's where we want it to be. Okay. And when we get to the stiff peaks, then we'll fold in the cashews. What do you mean fold in? Use a spatula. Yeah. And well, first we have to turn this off. Okay. Off. Get that out. Okay. There we go. Looks great. What we want to do is, I usually want to try and get half of it out. And then just, it's one circular movement from the outside to the inside. Outside to the inside. So that we don't lose the air. Okay, I got that. Outside to the inside. Yeah. So that is- Now what? So we pour in pans. So these are greased and lined with parchment. These are nine inch, and I think they're a good height. They're about two inch. In the traditional pans are narrow, like are narrower in depth. Okay. They're usually about an inch. And they're hard to find here. So next time we have, I have family back in the Philippines to send them out to our hunt to look for these in the market. What are some of your mentors? Or have you? I mean, besides your mom, right? I mean, mom's huge. My mom's a mentor. We had to find resources in the city that helps small businesses through business coaching. So there's SBA, small- Oh, I love the SBA. It's fantastic. So I've done a few of the workshops. And are those free? They're free. They're at the local library where I live. Score is fantastic as well. I also love score. And what I love about score is it connected us with a business coach that has 16 years experience in the food industry. And she currently sells in 16 farmers market. Isn't it cool how you can have access to someone of so much experience and now they're like retired, right? So they're all chill and they want to give you all this great advice. I've hung out in some score offices. Yeah. What about like a local chamber of commerce who'd ever go to any of the networking events and meet with people there? I go to the Economic Development Office. I do it for work because it's part of what I do for my job. But also I talk to them about my cake. So they're both a collaborator for what I do for my job and for my cake. Oh, I know. I guess it's part of making a cake. It is. You know what? I've never made a cake. Really? Like this is my first... You're so not hired. I don't blame you. A little bit more on this one. Yeah, pour it in there. We're hoping to hire someone to actually bake cakes so we don't have to do it ourselves. Now, how will you find that? Because it's so specific what you're looking for. Is the SVA or score helping you with that? That's been a journey for us, like trying to find bakers because there isn't a pastry school here in Sao Paulo. Here on the journey? Here on the journey. A great resource for me is the kitchen supply store. There's one in our city. I pop in, he gives me contacts. He's actually connected me with other people, other restaurant owners, other food truck owners in the industry and tried to connect me with them. All right, so next up, we got a bake, right? That's right. How long do these take? One hour and then we sort of eyeball it. Okay. We have an extra five, 10 minutes. Everything is dependent on humidity. Okay. So stick it for an hour and see where it goes. All right, keep an eye on it. All right, so stick around. Next episode, episode two, we're actually gonna bring Nealey back. He's like somewhere eating cake or something, but we're gonna bring him back to actually make the buttercream, which is gonna hold it all together and add extra flavor, of course.