He used to be a chemical engineer, but these days Aaron Lee, 39, is a professional home baker. Four months ago, he started an Instagram cake business with his wife Elaine Lee, 38, a dentist. They offer three types of chocolate cakes — a classic choc flavour, and funky Mao Shan Wang durian and salted egg yolk versions, which have since attracted a devoted following of over 6,000 IG fans. The couple, who has “never attended an official culinary school”, came up with their own recipes through “trial and error, Instagram, Google and YouTube”.

Before Upcakes came along, they were just baking birthday cakes at home in Bukit Timah for their two kids: son Andrew, “four plus” and daughter Essa Grace, who is six. But their cakes were so well-received by their friends that Aaron and Elaine decided to sell them to customers. While Elaine focuses on her full-time dentistry job, Aaron bakes the cakes and handles Upcakes’ day-to-day operations.

He had left chemical engineering after a decade, when jobs in the industry started drying up. But since then, he has flourished as a “creative”. Other than cakes, he also founded three other businesses; a carpentry practice, a home decor brand called PeggyBoard, and a children’s luxury furniture line named after his daughter Essa Grace (one of Aaron’s projects was a kids’ playground at Jewel Changi Airport).

And Upcakes’ moniker is similarly sweet. It was named for Andrew, who was born with Down Syndrome (DS). According to Aaron, “Up is a contrast to being down.” He muses, “I was thinking of something for my son to do. As [kids with DS] can get more dependent when they grow older, I wanted to be around him more. I want to have a sustainable business that I can pass to him, so that he can be a part of it and eventually oversee and manage it.”

Little Andrew is now helping his dad by trotting cakes to the door for their customers. “The rest [of the baking] is a bit too dangerous for him,” laughs Aaron. “He’s four plus now, but his mentality is about that of a two-year-old.” Husband-and-wife hope that Andrew will be a “role model” to encourage other parents with DS children, which is why they run Upcakes like a “social enterprise” which is in “the business of giving and uplifting people”. Aaron explains, “We’re with a group of parents who have babies and kids with DS, and these parents counsel other parents who have just discovered that their kids have DS. We want to paint a success story, that their kids have a future and they can be successful.”

As Aaron observed that some individuals with DS are usually “at home with nothing to do”, he reckons that providing them with employment will imbue them with a sense of purpose”. He is currently in talks with the Down Syndrome Association (DSA) to offer jobs to people with special needs and their caregivers. He happily shares, “They can be paired with delivery drivers to do deliveries and bring orders to the door. I can’t wait to give them employment contracts and CPF.”

The only limitation is that Upcakes is currently still a home-based biz, and can’t legally hire employees. To start hiring staff, Aaron hopes to reach a stage “where there’s a bigger volume of business”. He reveals, “Our orders have spiked, though I’m not sure if it’s just ’cos of Covid-19.” He plans to eventually open a shop, and is currently working with two real estate agents to scout for a location. Meanwhile, he is paying people ad-hoc at the DSA to fold boxes for his cakes and do artwork for customers for special occasions, like the upcoming Father’s Day.

While Upcakes was created to help Andrew, Aaron hopes his daughter will take over his other creative businesses in the future. He says, “She can help out with the cake business too. I think she’s gravitating towards that now. But I hope she will come to see what I’ve done for her (laughs).”

Upcakes’ classic Chocolate Cake (from $36 for a six-inch cake) is similar to Lana Cakes’ old-school choc fudge cake. Aaron says he uses “a mixture of cocoa powder, real chocolate and another chocolate infusion, which is a trade secret”.

He also offers a MSW Durian Chocolate Cake (from $86 for a six-inch cake) with fresh MSW pulp scraped from the seed, where “the durian is [bittersweet], the chocolate is bitter and the cake is moist”. It sounds like an acquired taste, but Aaron avers it’s “very addictive”. He adds, “It makes up 90 per cent of our sales.”

If you are adventurous enough, there’s a Salted Egg Chocolate Cake ($68 for a six-inch cake) with ganache and a salted egg filling like “liu sha bao”.

Aaron is planning to take Upcakes upwards. He says, “My business is running in an ever-ready mode. I’ve an engineering mind, so I have been focusing on how to improve things.” As he juggles four businesses (other than Upcakes, the rest are currently closed for circuit breaker), he starts his day at 6am and usually ends only at 1am. “We stop for meals and family time from 6pm to 10pm, but it’s constant working through the day,” he shares. While his wife Elaine had considered leaving her job as a dentist at a practice to help her husband, the couple decided she should stay. “It’s a bit sad to have someone in a vocation suddenly leave it. And it's more of a security for our family. If this business fails, we won’t lose everything,” explains Aaron.

He also admits that he and Elaine had found it “challenging” when Andrew was first born. He reflects, “There were of course some health scares, especially for his first five years. But our healthcare system is good. And as the years go by, [kids with Down Syndrome] are very fun-loving. They’re just like any other child!”

To order cakes, go to www.upcakes.sg. At least five days’ advance notice required.

PHOTOS: AARON LEE/ UPCAKES.SG

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