Newcastle mum launches cupcake business

Nov 9 2009 by Chris Knox, The Journal

A NEW mother has left her job as a high flying solicitor to follow her passion for baking and is hoping to tap into the growing popularity of cupcakes to help grow her new business.

Newcastle-based Lydia McCaslin has set up the Jesmond Cupcake Company and is now working in her kitchen seven days a week making and selling hundreds of celebration cupcakes for weddings, birthdays, anniversaries and other important events.

She left her career as a solicitor at Newcastle-based practice Hay & Kilner after giving birth to her son Joseph last year and is now enjoying instant success with the new business.

A range of the cupcakes are currently on sale at Café Antipasto on Jesmond Road, and Mrs McCaslin is also offering a tasting service for wedding organisers. As well as using locally sourced ingredients, she bakes her cupcakes on the range oven at her home and adds buttercream and decorates the cakes by hand.

Lydia, 31, who comes from Manchester, studied at Newcastle University, where she met her husband James, a surgeon. Her market research found boutique bakeries specialising only in cupcakes were successful in New York and London.

“The business is going extremely well,” she said. “The cakes are proving very popular among those planning weddings and I have been rushed off my feet keeping up with orders.

“I don’t miss being a solicitor. I miss the salary, but I don’t miss the job.”