The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Lockdown learning has led to a nine-year-old with autism setting up a successful baking business.
Oscar Shaw loves creating his own delicious goodies and to help him with his own learning during lockdown, mum Fern set up what was initially a play business.
But after family and friends tasted the Spalding youngster’s creations word of mouth turned into a number of orders.
Now Blasting Bakes is a real, certified business and Oscar’s orders are booked up for weeks.
“He’s always loved food and creating new things,” Fern said. “When lockdown came I struggled to get him involved with his school work, he found it really hard.
“To help him we started a fake business with the baking.
“As well as the baking he practiced maths, dealing with customers and writing by doing the recipes.
“He was baking so much I had to find people to sell it too.
“We’ve taken it on properly now and it’s just been fantastic.
“What Oscar has been doing is wonderful and we’re so very proud of him.
“With his autism I’ve always worried about him getting on with life skills, but this has shown us he absolutely already has what it takes to do something like this.”
Fern has renewed a food hygiene certificate she had and Oscar sat in with many of the sessions to learn about it all himself.
A teaching assistant and holisitic therapist by trade, she’s also taken on a cleaning job to help support Oscar’s endeavours while dad Stuart and younger brother William (7) have been supporting the pair.
The name Blasting Bakes was also the Gosberton Clough and Risegate Primary School pupil’s idea.
“The only way to describe our kitchen is as a baking eruption,” Fern continued. “So Oscar wanted a name along those lines but wanted something that was cool and trendy, so went for Blasting Bakes.
“It’s also blown up. We started off with just family and friends but now we’ve got the ok from the council it’s got really busy and he’s booked up for weeks. He’s got a couple of events he’s working on.
“The best sellers are the big cookies which can be personalised.”
You can take a look at Oscar’s tasty treats and make enquiries by searching for the Blasting Bakes page on Facebook.
