Durban - With almost 4 000 cupcakes sold in a month-and-a-half, it’s clear Durban loves Masterchef Roxi Wardman’s baking as much as she loves creating her one-of-a-kind masterpieces.
The former train driver spoke to the Daily News at her café, Spoonful Eatery, inside Anthology at the Windermere shopping centre recently.
Sporting her signature pink hair, shaved on one side, she deftly iced a decadent chocolate creation topped with cherries and strawberries.
Chocolate with mint Aero frosting, cream soda, chocolate with marshmallow fluff and chocolate drizzle are just some of the flavours of cupcake beckoning from the display stand.
“The flavours are different every day. The chocolate Nutella is a firm favourite, so I make sure we always have that, but otherwise I just bake what comes to mind… I wing it,” said Wardman.
After a 10-hour day in the café, Wardman said she goes home, eats and gets baking. She has a baking area and “massive” stove in the home she shares with fiancé, Byron Maclou, on the Bluff.
Baking for Spoonful has kept her so busy she has not had time to cook a “proper” meal. And all she has had a chance to cut with her new gourmet knives are strawberries to top her cupcakes.
Wardman, Maclou and three other employees are at the café seven days a week. “I hardly have time to do anything else, this has become my whole life! But Spoonful is my baby and I don’t mind because I am doing what I love,” said Wardman.
Some come because they want to meet her, some are drawn by the smell of fresh cappuccino, of which almost 1 600 have been sold at Spoonful.
“The people who come in here are so diverse in every way; I have support from people who know who I am and those who don’t.
“The look on people’s faces when they walk in here and see the cupcakes or when they bite into them is priceless,” she gushes.
Patrons include fellow MasterchefSA contestants and Bars Equipped owner, Ndu Mncwabe, and Penny Fitchet.
She may be “living her dream”, but said she was always working toward something bigger and better.
“I have so much more I want to do. I am just so grateful for the positivity, love and support I have received,” she said.
Daily News