Born and bred in Embalenhle, Ms MamoketeThaele grew up observing her mom bake cakes.
Being raise by a mother who was a teacher and her father a policeman, baking cakes was another way to supplement their income.
“To help sustain the family’s income my now late mother would bake and sell cakes to the people within our community.
“She had many customers because people loved her cakes,” said Thaele.
Thaele added that due her mother’s diagnose with cancer, she was sent to a boarding school as the mother was in and out of the hospitals, making it difficult for her to look after all the children.
“During school holidays I would help my mother bake and that honed my baking skills.
At school I majored with Home Economics.
When my mother passed away I stopped baking because it reminded me of her, but when my sister got married she asked me to bake her a wedding cake, under siege I baked the cake and never baked again”.
Forced to put food on the table, she decided to start her own baking business.
“It was not easy because I had no baking utensils, all the stuff that my mom was used during her years of baking were no longer there, so I had to start from scratch.
With the help of my aunt and friend I was able to start my business 4 years ago.”
Mamokete said she bakes for all type of events and her cakes are specially customized according to a client’s needs. She has baked wedding and birthday cakes for her clients. She does her marketing on Facebook page called Motshabi’s Cakes, through word of mouth and via WhatsApp Messenger.
The mother of four further explained that she has a good family support structure.
The family helps to care for the children while she solely run her business.
Most of the time she bakes at night to avoid load shedding.
Mamokete hopes to open her own confectionery shop one day and to empower people.
She has taken one young lady under her wing and is still in the process of taking more youth and teach them.