Nathalie Guerra used to help out her mother in her bakery business when she was a child. She didn’t like doing it.
“It was annoying. I said, ‘I’m never going to bake,'” she said.
Well, Nathalie is much older now. She’s a senior at Apopka High School. And, she’s about to open her own bakery, 3 Leches Sweets, in Apopka.
Her mother, Marta Alcantar, is co-owner and she’ll be around to help when the bakery opens in January 2022 but she is busy managing her husband’s business, Nathalie said.
What would prompt a 17-year-old confirmed non-baker open up her own shop? She said that last year a friend was looking for someone to bake a cake.
“I can do it,” Nathalie told her. And, off she went. Just like her mother who had a busy word-of-mouth business for about 10 years. She quit baking in 2018, Nathalie said. Helping with her husband’s business left her no time.
After Nathalie — her friends call her Nate — baked that cake for a friend, others started asking. She bakes custom cakes for weddings, for quinceañeras, for any special occasion. And, she delivers them. A delivery van is on her wish list. “My car is kind of small,” she said.
Kind of small like her kitchen became. She said she bakes five to eight custom cakes a week. She just started running out of room in the house. That is what led her to look for a storefront. In the store, she will also be able to sell slices of tres leches and other cakes as well as homemade fruit ice cream, popsicles and waters al fresca, which are sweet rice water drinks.
The expansion and renovation project is being done by BDM Construction of Orlando, which is owned by David Aurelio.
