Why mom wakes up at 2am to bake scones, cakes

For almost a decade, Phillipine Ngwakwane has started her day at 2am.

That is when the 39-year-old mother of three starts mixing her baking ingredients to bake scones, muffins, and cakes.

At 5.30am she packs her baked goodies, leaves her house in Atteridgeville, west of Pretoria, and catches a taxi to the Pretoria CBD, where she positions herself at the corners of Paul Kruger and Visagie streets.

Her spot is a few metres away from Bosman station, where trains ferry thousands of people into the city daily, including some who had not had time to eat breakfast before setting off for work or school.

“Most of my customers are people who are going to work, and some are college students and children who are heading to school,” she said.

On weekends she does special orders and deliveries.

To an outsider, the process of finding the perfect spot for people like Ngwakwane to ply their trade may come across as simple: just stand where there is a lot of foot traffic.

However, there are many other factors to consider, with safety being one of them.

“I used to sell at the taxi rank in Atteridgeville, but due to safety concerns I changed my spot. There were a number of shooting incidents at the rank, so I have decided to now sell in town because it is safer here,” she said.

On a good day, “usually at month end”, she finishes selling at around 8am, and that is because she does not carry a lot of stock, as she does not want to get into trouble with the municipality over by-law infringements.

“Once I have more stock and other items, it would mean that it is a shop, and the metro [police] will confiscate my items, as I don’t have a permit to open a shop there.

“I will apply for a permit once I have money because the ingredients take most of the money that I make here.

“For example, I make around R400 on a good day, and I spend almost R200 for my ingredients, plus I spend R50 for transport,” she said.

Ngwakwane said she started her business using her children’s grant money.

Baking is something she always had a passion for and started doing from an early age.

“I dropped out of school in grade 11 because I was sick and then became a domestic worker in 2017.

“I left that work, and that’s when I started this business of selling scones, muffins and cakes.”

In 2024, Ngwakwane took a short course to enhance her baking skills, and she hopes to secure funding so that she can open a bakery in Atteridgeville.

“The aim is to make sure my children are well taken care of and also to employ more people so that I contribute to the fight against unemployment,” she said.

On May 1, she wrapped up a year at her new spot and considers it a blessing because she gets a lot of customers.

Once she is done selling her stock, Ngwakwane goes home to spend time with her children – the eldest is 21 and the youngest three – and then prepares her ingredients for a fresh start the next day.