“From as early as I can remember, I have spent my time creating things” – Gina (aka Miss Ladybird)

As a child my mum kindly showed me the many ways of creating beautiful things out of nothing. Our room was always full of trinkets, paintings and objects, made from anything we could find. Living in the country was a great treasure trove of creativity.

This naturally led me to the kitchen where creating sweets became like second nature, consuming most of my weekends before working at the local bakery at the age of 15.

I then went on to complete my studies as a qualified chef, working in award winning restaurants in my home country of New Zealand. Hearing stories of London, Edinburgh and Melbourne from fellow chefs inspired me to travel.

I worked in Edinburgh, soaking up as much as I could from being in a larger city with so many different styles of food and cuisine right at my doorstep. Travelling around Europe, eating, learning and consuming as much information as I could. I went from baking hundreds of scones inside the kitchens of Edinburgh Castle to learning management skills from one of the top hospitality groups. This formed relationships that led me to beautiful Melbourne.

Here, I worked at reputable patisserie for one of the top restaurants in Melbourne, making tarts, eclairs and macarons, gaining as much experience as I could. I’ve always made sure that I experienced as much of the industry as possible, from silver service catering in Edinburgh, wine service in New Zealand, to café management in Melbourne. These are the makings of what I believe, is the knowledge to successfully run my own business.

Those relationships I built so long ago while travelling led me to work for a highly reputable and experienced boutique catering company. Running their pastry section, making the cakes for their cafés and supplying the canape sweets for Melbourne’s most elite functions.

During the 8 years of travelling and working, I was always making cakes for friends in my non existent spare time. Weddings, events, and catering for family and friends. Cakes for everyone whenever I could. I think there is barely a week in well over a decade that I haven’t been in the kitchen baking. It’s all I do, it’s all I’ve ever done.

I take great pride in my experience and am grateful for all the knowledge I have learnt from those I have worked with.

Miss Ladybird Cakes – the business:

This “small” business of ours has been running for 6 years now. During our time working in the wedding industry these past years we have made valuable relationships with other Melbourne wedding suppliers; photographers, venues, florists, printers, to name a few. I believe this helps us to provide a high standard product for our clients. Whether it’s the logistics of accessing a venue to organising the flowers for decorating, we believe our clients are in good, experienced hands.

We love to use locally sourced produce and bake everything on site from scratch in our studio production kitchen in Mckinnon.  We do not believe in pre-mixes. We take pride in creating a product which has been solely made by us, from the cake batter to the buttercream, to the jams, to the fruit essences.

“Our main aim is not to be the best, but to make a product we are proud of. A product which interprets the love we have for an industry we have spent our lives immersed in”.