CLARE
As you may have guessed, my name is Clare.
As far as I can remember, I’ve always enjoyed baking, learning many techniques and recipes from my Mum.
I carried this through to university – baking caramel shortbread is a great way to make friends in halls. A few friends and I set up the baking society, mostly to get funding for ingredients, but it ended up becoming much bigger than we ever expected with over 250 members and twice weekly bakes.
Apparently, not enough for me, I launched Clare’s Squares in the summer of 2014, between my second and third year of university.
After university, I continued with Clare’s Squares and worked in cake shop for a few months until I got what my mother deemed a “real job”.
Right now I am working full-time, studying part-time for a Masters degree and baking when I can. As you can imagine, I’m very busy! So for the time being, I’m restricting my time to bake orders to Fridays, meaning a trip to the post office Saturday morning. Please bear this in mind if ordering for a particular date!
The Journey
Clare’s Squares began whilst I was still at university, after my flatmates complained my constant baking was making them fat (it wasn’t!) , at their suggested I started selling my baked goods.
I launched on Etsy in 2014 and have mostly kept going ever since with little breaks here and there when life gets in the way.