Expressing Creativity With Carmencici’s Bakery

It takes a cup of creativity and a load of passion to continue doing more of what we love. DJ, fashion designer, creative, and baker Aaliyah of Carmencici’s Bakery, can do it all.

Carmencici’s has always been a staple for our all-rounder. She started baking as a hobby when she was young until her mom encouraged her to sell cookies in 2013, eventually pushing her to develop more recipes.

In the pandemic and with everyone cooped up at home, Aaliyah, now a fresh college graduate, had a handful of time to explore and experiment with her baking. She learned to create delicious banana bread, themed Ted Lasso cookies, and take on custom tres leches flavored cake orders.

“In the pandemic, I was able to experiment and be more creative in baking. I did a commission to make a frog bread family. I had more time to express my creativity through baking by trying different things. Now I feel freer trying new recipes since the pandemic broke that wall of fear,” Aaliyah said.

Most sellers only started to transition digitally during the pandemic, but Aaliyah was already one step ahead in promoting online. Thus, it was easier for her to promote her brand and reach more regular audiences online.

This also led to her realizing how she wanted to handle her social media engagements. She said that she used to feel insecure about her business and considered engagements as a measure of success, but now she wants to focus on retaining customers.

“Going viral is not my goal. It’s more important for people to know me by my brand and the products. I take care of those people and I appreciate the people who look for me when I’m on breaks,” Aaliyah said.

For 2023, Aaliyah said she is looking forward to doing more physical pop-ups since she had fun doing them last year and prefers the connections made in person.

“I want to do them at gigs – it was fun to sell cookies at gigs and bake them on the spot. It was also a different experience for customers to get fresh batches of cookies,” she said.

Aaliyah also continues to dream big and do all the things she’s passionate about in one moment.

“I dream of things like while I’m DJ-ing, I want to give out cookies. A crazy dream of mine is to have a small home bakery or cafe,” she shared.

Support our dreamer and all-around creative on Instagram (@carmencicisbakery) and her upcoming pop-ups this year!