Photo by Erin Nelson.
Catie Seale, owner of Crumbs by Catie, layers buttercream icing on a cake at her home.
Catie Seale still holds her breath every time she bakes macarons. She is not one to fail in the kitchen, but it took her around 20 tries before nailing down this complex French pastry for the first time.
Seale officially opened her in-home baking business, Crumbs by Catie, on May 24 with an Instagram and Facebook launch. She lives in Homewood right across from Edgewood Elementary School. She can bake anything for her customers, but the three things she advertises are cakes, cupcakes and macarons.
Macarons are not the only thing Seale strives to make perfect. Before opening, she worked on her logo for an entire month. She prepared for at least three months before her official launch date of Crumbs by Catie.
“I am a perfectionist through and through,” Seale said.
She has been baking for as long as she can remember. Both her grandmothers were bakers, and she was always in the kitchen with her mom growing up.
Crumbs by Catie
► PRICING: Six-inch cakes are $50, 8-inch cakes are $65. Macarons are $24 a dozen, and cupcakes are $30 a dozen.
► SOCIAL: facebook.com/crumbsbycatie, instagram.com/crumbsbycatie
► EMAIL: crumbsbycatie@gmail.com
However, Seale does not consider herself a creative person. She is logically-minded, with a Type A personality more suited to organizing than creating.
Before she started Crumbs by Catie, Seale was a registered dietician. She got her degree in food science and nutrition and worked as a clinical dietician in a hospital for 4½ years. Baking was her hobby, and it stopped when her daughter Anderson was born in 2014.
It wasn’t until this year that Seale felt a need to do something for herself again and turned back to the kitchen. She dedicates her business start-up and her reentry into the baking world to her “hype woman” and friend, Brynnan Muller, and to her husband, Andrew. They boosted her confidence and made her believe in her ability to make things her customers will want.
“Food and desserts bring people together. If I can help contribute to a happy memory, especially in these crazy times, then why not?” Seale said.
Her prices echo all the hard work she does. She named herself a “one-woman show,” in charge of the grocery shopping, baking, decorating and dish washing. In a day, she may wash the same mixing bowl five times to get it ready for each of her orders. Cakes can take up to two hours just to decorate. Unless her daughter, Anderson, is taste-testing or her husband is home doing dishes, Seale’s business is completely herself.
But she doesn’t plan to expand. She thinks the homemade element is what makes Crumbs by Catie stand out from bigger competitors.
So far, she has not run into any big problems. The learning curve is the logistics: ordering boxes, cake rings and labels is a new process. She is still figuring out her limits and how much she can do without it becoming stressful.
Regardless of possible limitations, Seale wants to leave her customers feeling the passion and heart she puts into her baking.
“I just want whatever I make to make people happy. This past year has been a crazy time, and if a slice of cake makes people forget for a second what’s going on, then that’s what I would love to be able to accomplish.”
