Kildare teenage baker opens first store after huge online success

A few months ago we spoke to Alice Kelly, a young baker documenting her journey from amateur baker to opening her own food truck. In doing so she became an online sensation and gaining over a million followers across her social media accounts.
We come to the present day and Alice had her food truck ready for business at 7am outside H&M's College Green store in late November.

Alice was positioned beside the Molly Malone statue on a temporary basis in partnership with the clothing brand but opening day on the busy streets of Dublin remains a huge success for the young entrepreneur.

We can now look back at where Alice was just a few months ago when FromScratch Bakery was still a project based on the renovation a horse box.

Her plans to convert a vintage horse box into a mobile bakery posting on TikTok under the moniker @FromScratchBakery went viral.

Overnight success is typically a figure of speech but for 18-year-old Alice it was literal, with 100,000 followers being gained in roughly 12 hours.

“It was scary honestly,” Alice said of the staggering jump in followers.

“I just wanted to share my journey. I thought it would be cool to show other people my age that you can do stuff like this.

“Especially girls, they wouldn't expect someone their age to be welding and doing woodwork and it is very possible,” Alice said of her decision to begin posting.

18th birthday

Alice’s journey for her horsebox and baking project began back in April, around the time of her 18th birthday and two weeks before her leaving certificate.

She was dead-set on her plans to further her baking skills in college but wanted to test the market with her own business.
“I wanted to have my own bakery without having to pay any insane prices to rent one out and I saw that my local coffee shop renovated a horse box during the pandemic and thought I want to do that too,” Alice recalled.

“It was from an elderly man somewhere in the midlands and I saw it on a second-hand website and I got it as an 18th birthday present from my parents.”

Social media

That horsebox is now central to Alice’s journey and social media posting, not just as the future host of tremendous baked goods but the vintage box didn't arrive in the Kelly household in pristine condition.

“A large portion of Alice’s endeavours in recent months has been the welding and woodworking jobs needed on the box to get it business ready.

"I didn't do anything like that (welding and woodworking) in school, it has been mainly just doing research and looking up how to do things.

“My dad works full-time and when he could early on he showed me some of how to work the machines I'd be using but other than those small bits it's all been me trying to figure it out online," Alice explained.

Alice’s rise in popularity has now seen her grow to over a million followers between TikTok and Instagram and that has with both overwhelming support and naturally some resistance to her success.

“I choose to ignore it but there are plenty of those people seeing I'm not smart enough or strong enough to be doing what I am doing. I get plenty of little sexist comments about having a man do the work for me,” Alice described.

“But pretty much all of the comments are lovely positive ones and about how great it is and saying they could never do that. I just want to tell them 'no you definitely can do it too' but it's all mainly positivity and it makes me feel good and that's why I keep sharing the content.”

However, long before she became both a tradeswoman and a baker, she began her journey as a three-year-old helping her mother to bake. Inspired by her mother baking cupcakes for her father’s lunch box she began to join in and soon took over.

“I started baking when I was about three, I used to try and kick my mum out of the kitchen so I could bake on my own.

Kitchen
I would ask my grandad to pull my mum out of the kitchen for a while so I could have the kitchen,” Alice laughed.

“Ever since then I have baked something at least once a week, even when I was on holidays.”

Alice’s mam has regained temporary control of her kitchen as Alice enjoys her new found love of renovation. That is until the business is officially up and running at least.

Alice is aiming for early September to finally bring her brilliant bakes on the road.
“But there are a few more obstacles before the FromScratchBaker is open for business.

Bulk baking
"I’ve done bulk baking for family events so I'm not too nervous about the baking part, it's more the selling part, I will be relying on my calculator for the maths,” she laughed.

“I have a house inspection at home coming up because I can't obviously legally put an oven in the box.

“It's basically someone from the HSE and checks that there is no chance for contamination with the food that is being made.”

Alice as well as her handy skills also boasts a creative side as she prides herself on her re-imagining of recipes and is putting her own twist on classic baked goods.