Kicking off our look at student start-ups is a multi-coloured baking project by Queen’s own amateur baker.

While the rest of us sit around watching Cupcake Wars on the Food Network and stalking pictures of cupcakes on Instagram, Brianne Moore, ArtSci ’17 is on her way to making a business out of baking.

Always having had a passion for baking, it started out as a hobby. Her friends would send her cakes from Instagram, asking if she could make them, so Moore started baking for friend’s birthdays and for fun.

Moore’s baking is both colourful and delicious. Options for cake and cupcake colours include vanilla, rainbow, pink, blue, yellow, green and purple with the same rainbow offerings for the frosting. From the BriBakesKitchen website you can currently order “funfetti” cookies, macarons, classic sprinkle cupcakes and “funfetti” cake. 

BriBakesKitchen’s Instagram boasts 857 followers. Following her recent website launch, she has begun to receive orders from people around campus. 

The orders aren’t as daunting as they may seem because making the cupcakes in bigger batches is actually easier. However, Moore does acknowledge that it can be a bit overwhelming.

Moore bakes everything at her house and all the recipes are from what her “nana” — who Moore credits for the recipes — taught her when they would bake together. 

The company has taken off so quickly after her official Instagram launched five weeks ago that Moore isn’t exactly sure what the future holds during her time left at Queen’s.

She loves doing it right now and plans to carry on baking until she graduates at the end of the semester. Because she has developed a following, she doesn’t necessarily want to just leave it and is considering moving the business back to Vancouver with her next year.

She’s adding a build-your-own-cake feature to the website so people have more chances to customize cakes and continue the giveaways she’s been doing on Instagram. 

Moore’s favorite thing to make is her sparkly-sprinkle cake. “They are so fun to make and people are so excited to see them! I usually do them layered rainbow in the inside, and people love when they cut into them because they are so surprised,” Moore said.

Moore’s one disappointment so far? The fact that she wishes she had started the business sooner.