Pastry chef a master of her craft

Cake was the order of the day at Lillian Sibiya’s home in Limpopo while growing up.

Her aunt would be in charge of the baking during special occasions and Sibiya would be her little helper, who was fascinated by the alchemy of baking, and would soon take over the duties of making Christmas cake.    

“Every time I knew my aunt would be in the kitchen, I was always that child that is with her in the kitchen, seeing how she does it and that’s how it started. I was just inspired and I really enjoyed doing it.”

The Polokwane pastry chef says it took a while for her to realise that her love for making baked goods could be turned into a career. She took up the reins of baking for the family as a teenager when her aunt went off to work.  After graduating from high school she went to the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University to study office management.     

“In high school we did have home economics and stuff like that but my dad said that I had to do sciences. I never really felt the need to pursue [baking] as a career… at the time we didn’t have the internet, we didn’t have resources to research and find out how to go about it.”

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Sibiya took about six years to eventually enrol in a culinary school, after having worked a 9-5 job and as a call centre agent. After graduating from Capsicum Culinary Studio, Sibiya went to work as an intern at the One&Only in Cape Town.  As her internship ended, a permanent position as a commis chef opened up. She got that job and spent about five years in the position honing her craft.  

“I got pregnant and I was like, I don’t want to raise my child in Cape Town because I didn’t have much of a support structure there, my family is this side [Polokwane]. I tried to do the whole leaving her here [Polokwane] and going back to Cape Town and seeing her when I am on leave but it just wasn’t working for me, so I said, you know what? Let me just resign and go back home.”

The 36-year-old then decided to open two business, Beautiful Flower Cake, which focuses mainly on bespoke cakes and pastries, where she caters for parties, weddings and business functions. She also attends markets as The Belly Nice Chef, offering patrons a taste of her cooking under different menus.

“Balancing motherhood and having a business was the most challenging part, because most times I will be busy with an order, while she’s napping. When she wakes up I have to stop what I’m doing, which can be a problem because I am on a deadline. Another challenging thing is just capital, you know, capital to get a proper working space, where I can work properly.”

Sibiya currently works out of her home kitchen. She says this has its positives as well because she doesn’t have to worry about paying rent  for her two-year-old business. And the money saved is being kept aside so that she can finally afford a space.

Sibiya says pre-Covid she saw a great response from clients but things have understandably slowed down.  “Now that we’re back to level 1, I’m hoping things will change and get better.”

She also offers cake decorating classes, which are a hit, mainly with moms who want to learn the basics of baking. She charges R750 per day for these.

Sibiya says people in Polokwane don’t like change much but she feels that this can be changed with the right approach.

“I would like to have baking and cooking classes and teach people around here that baking is not only chocolate cake and vanilla cake. For me that would be a starting point to teach people, to show people what’s happening out there.”

Besides cake, Sibiya says the tried and tested custard and jelly is her favourite treat, and since the weather is getting warmer and she knows that people are gravitating towards sorbets and ice creams, she shared an ice cream recipe with us.

Lillian Sibiya’s three-Ingredient Ice Cream

1 can condensed milk

1 tsp vanilla essence

300ml fresh whipping cream

 Method

Add vanilla essence to the cream and whip till soft peaks form.

Fold in condensed milk till well combined.

Freeze overnight and enjoy.

Chef’s note: You can make different flavours by adding other ingredients such as chocolate, mixed berries, crushed Oreos, caramel, honeycomb etc.