My name is Renelle (but everyone calls me Nell, hence Nellie Cakes) and this is my blog! Welcome!

When I started baking, I did it for one reason: my daughter. I wasn’t satisfied with the birthday cakes I saw at the store because they didn’t capture the importance of my little girls birthday. She deserved the very best on her big day, the anniversary of her very existence, so I decided to teach myself how to give her that. I’ve learned a lot along the way, but I still have a way to go. Her smile is worth the work, and her birthday means more than her turning a year older. It’s a reminder of how lucky my husband and I are to have her in our lives and a celebration of us getting the greatest gift we could have ever asked for. Maybe one day I’ll have the opportunity to make her graduation cake, her wedding cake and her children’s cakes too.

I started Nellie Cakes because I like to bake (duh) and because I needed a portfolio of sorts to send people when they asked for photos of my work. I didn’t really see a need for such a place originally, but my family and friends insisted on it. I guess they thought I was pretty descent at baking/decorating, and they wanted to show people the things I’d made. (This still strikes me as a little silly because I don’t think anything I make is all that amazing. Anyone can create these things, with a little time and patience.)

Slowly, Nellie Cakes turned into what it is today: a place where I (still) post photos of my work, the tricks I’ve found along the way and the recipes that I use to create it all.

I live with my wonderful husband (Eric) and my beautiful daughter (Evie) in Buffalo, New York, where the summers are perfect and the winters are cold and snowy.

I also enjoy fancy tea, my puffer fish (Pickles), my cat (Kitty), tattoos, crafting of any kind, photography, reading and anything french.