By Jennifer Wing
Growing up in Ohio, Cynthia Kelder probably couldn’t have predicted where she would be today. In fact, the owner of Mrs. Kelder’s Cakes in Manlius got her start locally as an athletic trainer in the FM School District, providing medical care to student athletes.
Her bakery, located 137 E. Seneca St., is known for its cupcakes, mini cupcakes, chocolate chip cookies, hand-decorated sugar cookies and custom cakes as well as what Kelder calls “the best chocolate chip cookie cake you’ll find.”
After graduating from Boston University, the mother of three – Mackenzie,14, Morgan, 12, and Max, 8, worked in schools around Boston before moving to the Manlius area, where her husband, Derek, grew up.
So, how did she become the Mrs.Kelder whose goodies are raved about on social media?
She credits, in part, the athletes at Fayetteville-Manlius School District for being among her first taste testers as well as the inspiration for her company’s name.
“I think I was always the person to bake the office birthday cake,” Kelder said. “But I never got too fancy until it was time to make my first daughter’s first birthday cake. I was making it rather large and out of my comfort zone, so I decided to do a test run a few days before the party.” She brought that first practice cake in after school for the athletes to taste.
She then made a few more cakes and started doing cakes for some close friends, always baking a practice cake, always bringing it in to work for the student athletes to sample.
“They used to say ‘Mrs. Kelder brought another cake,’” Kelder said. “When I opened up shop, it felt like my stuff was already known as ‘Mrs. Kelder’s Cakes,’ so I might as well make it official.”
The business began with Kelder taking orders from her Facebook page and baking out of her house, but “as the business grew, so did the baking clutter across the kitchen,” she said.
And then, the “most perfect” location became available.
“It most certainly wasn’t the right time [to open a store] as I was settled in my career and had just had my third child, and [the building had] peeling paint outside, blocked off windows and dirty cement floors with boxes stacked floor to ceiling, [but] when I walked in and saw it for the first time I didn’t see any of that, just the space, and it was amazing!”
Calling her landlord “a dream,” she worked with Ed Chase Construction to design and make her vision a reality, complete with furniture bought on craigslist and restaurant resale warehouses.
She had other help: Her friend and local artist Katy Streeter hand-painted the tables and walls and the sign for the front and Streeter’s husband custom built cabinets and counters to fit the space. “Finally, the most amazing group of friends came in at night to paint the walls and ceilings with me and we made it a party,” she said. “I could never have done all of that by myself.”
Kelder also had the full support of her husband, whom she calls “my hero.”
“He works a full-time job and runs the house at the same time,” she said. “He does almost all of the cooking and cleaning at home and doesn’t complain. He manages the schedules of three busy kids and, this spring, did all of the remote learning coordination. He’s even been my delivery guy since COVID hit, especially in the beginning, when people didn’t want to go out.”
Speaking of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kelder said the business “pivoted quickly here, because I needed to keep my business up and running, while at the same time ensuring a safe workplace for myself and my employees.”
She employs mostly high school and college students “and I needed to be able to tell their parents that it was safe to send them to work.”
She made it clear that it wasn’t a problem if they didn’t feel comfortable going in to work. “Some took a week, but then saw how much we were doing to limit exposure, and were back on board rather quickly,” Kelder said. “I think the kids liked having a break from home quarantine, as it was the only other place they were allowed to be.”
She said the pandemic also caused scheduling to be “a bit of a nightmare.”
“Every large event that was booked out to September got postponed and then canceled … and continue to do so,” she said.
“I have brides that rescheduled from May to July and then October and now are pushing to next year. The weekends of First Communions are the first two in May and usually some of my busiest weekends, followed by college and then high school graduations … all were canceled or extremely scaled down.”
While all of this was happening, the bakery also experienced a surge of orders throughout the week, and it’s “felt like every day was a 12-plus hour day … Fridays and Saturdays used to be when everyone [held] their celebrations, but COVID and quarantine obliterated the ‘weekend’ idea, so everyone started ordering custom cakes all week long.”
She said people still wanted to make the celebration special, even if it was just with immediate family, and drive-by birthday parties resulted in orders for dessert, “but it was all individually packaged to hand out to guests.”
Mrs. Kelder’s Cakes has also made other adjustments due to the pandemic.
“I invested in a new point of sale system/register to be able to be contactless, sending invoices or just processing credit cards at the door,” she said. “We no longer take cash, as it tends to carry quite a bit more germs to pass on. We provide service at the door, so that no public is within the walls of the shop for now. We keep it clean and germ free here as much as possible.”
She also wanted to give back during the height of the pandemic
“We donated our leftovers to all of the frontline heroes. We dropped cupcakes by the dozens to all of the hospitals, fire and police stations and sanitation departments,” she said. “We tried to give bright spots to some dark days.”
What’s ahead for the bakery?
“I want to increase distribution through delivery and to be more of a household name outside of Fayetteville and Manlius,” Kelder said. Maybe a second location in the university area … maybe a mobile truck … we’ll see!”
For more information visit the bakery’s Facebook page or email mrskelderscakes@ gmail.com.
