In Ballyfermot, a baker doubles down on biscuit cakes

David Judge gets up every now and then to stir the rich and goopy chocolate in a gently heated bain-marie.

The 17 bars melting into gloss right now are for just two cakes, he says. 

Each of his specialty biscuit cakes takes eight bars. “And I throw in an extra one for good luck every time,” he says. “Just for my head.” 

It’s a hot summer day, and just beyond the pot with the chocolate, the window is open onto the hum of the busy Ballyfermot Road. 

Around the room are counters and shelves stacked with bars and bars of white and milk cooking chocolate, and tins of condensed milk, and rolls of rich tea and digestive biscuits.

Judge set up his bakery, Baked to Death, about four years ago – building it up himself as he moved from double-jobbing and commandeering his ma’s kitchen, to a single room above a hairdresser’s, to two rooms and his own refrigerated van.

He was told by council business advisors that it wasn’t viable, he says. Yet, the orders are still growing, he says.

The Saturday before, he had dropped off his one-pot cheesecakes at a Spar in Cabra for the first time. “They were sold out in a day,” he says.  

A growing business

When the Liffey Partnership, a community development organisation, recently brought people together to suggest the ideal social enterprises to fill a new town centre in nearby Cherry Orchard, some suggested a bakery. 

After all, “there is a baking culture in Ballyfermot that has produced numerous businesses”, said an account of the event. Bakeries are hubs where people can gain skills and work, it says, and share culture and mix with other generations. 

That is visible in the west Dublin suburb.

Eastwards down Ballyfermot Road from where Judge bakes his cakes is the bustling Tasty Treats bakery, with its fresh bread and novelty cakes.

Further east still is the Cup and Spoon, a not-for-profit café at the Ballyfermot Family Resource Centre, which is known for its scones and gur cake, says Audrey Coyne, the centre’s manager. 

There are regular bakers among both the younger and older visitors to the resource centre, says Coyne. People often bring treats they’ve made at home to share, she says. 

It brings people together, she says, recalling all the chats around a recent Malteser cheesecake. “It becomes a topic of conversation.”

People are rightly proud of what they bake and get a kick, she says. “You’re getting the therapy and you’re making people happy.”

To celebrate the baking that goes on during the year, the centre now also hosts an annual Great Ballyfermot Bake Off. This year’s is set for 23 July, with registrations still open.

“It’s always a good vibe,” says Coyne. “Good community spirit, you’re celebrating the local talent.”

Not everybody who comes by the bake-off is there to drop off an entry, she says: “Are you here to take part? No, we just want to see the cakes.”

Finding a space

“I’d never baked before really,” said Judge, of the start of his journey towards baking. Until pandemic lockdowns, he says.

He had been bored – depressed even – during lockdowns, he says. 

“I was always social,” he says. “Even if it was just going to work. I always went out, and met my friends.” 

He had been a cocaine user for years, he says, and drank heavily too, and the isolation of lockdown just made that worse.

But then, he stumbled on baking. “I surprised myself with the turnaround,” he says. “It just sort of happened.”

He saw a cheesecake recipe online. He tweaked it a little, and gave it a try – and sent an image to a friend. They asked for leftovers, he says. 

He began to make three flavours, and quarter them to share. Then, to post on Facebook to sell. Before long, he had 10 orders in a day, he says.

He later began to bake biscuit cakes – now his speciality. 

Although, he had never decorated a cake before, he says. His first attempt was, well, special, he says.

“I posted it and it was shit-looking,” he said, with a quiet chuckle. “I used sprinkles and all on it, I didn’t use any fondant.”

“It was cute, we’ll say,” he says. “But the taste was there.”

The extra cash that Judge made helped him get out of a rut too, he says. It helped pay for surgery he had wanted, he says – a gastric sleeve because he had been 20 stone. 

He has since met his partner too. They got engaged last year, he says. 

“I class it as the baking saved me,” says Judge – not the first to find a connection between cooking and improved mental health. “It gave me something to focus on. It was keeping myself busy and occupied and not idle.”

Growing it up

Judge had been taking over his ma’s kitchen in the early days, he says. 

But as the orders grew, that became trickier. “Especially on the weekends, as that’s when most of the parties are,” he said.

“You can’t come into the kitchen! I’m doing cakes!” he says, reenacting the exchanges. 

When the place he’s in now came free, he took it. At move-in, there was just one table and a fridge, he says. “This was just a shell.”

The Local Enterprise Office wouldn’t give any funding, he says. They said that they didn’t think his business was viable, he says.

So he kept his job, as a supervisor in a catering unit at Intel, for a couple of years to kit it out and ramp up customers, he says. 

He tiled the room. He put in the equipment, and the extra sink to pass all the food-safety regulations. He added more counters, and grew his stock. He invested in a printer, to personalise his cakes, with images on wafers, and edible ink.

He settled on the business name Baked to Death because he was working his day job, then returning to bake until 3am, then up for work at 6am to be in to Intel for 7am. “I was baking myself to death, basically.”

Kissing his regular salary goodbye was hard, he said. But eventually he made the full jump.

Orders are going strong, he says. “Now, I supply nine locations with my desserts,” he says – the cheesecakes – from Chapelizod, to Crumlin, to Cabra. 

On the table in front of him are three of the cheesecakes – a white-chocolate, Biscoff, and Kinder Bueno. They’re creamy and rich. The cheesecakes are €6 each in the shops, he says.

He has been working to get them into more places, he says – and grow that side of the business. 

Juggling the larger biscuit cakes and the regular cheesecakes can mean long hours, he says. Especially when occasions hit – Father’s Day, Easter, Valentine’s. 

But it’s satisfying, he says. “I love it when I have them all finished.”

He had 13 cakes on the shelf one day recently and paused a while to admire them, he says. “Sometimes, I surprise myself. Ahhhh, look at all that. Who did all that? You did.”