A Baker’s Passion for Spreading the Love

The backroom at Nothing Bundt Cakes on Military Cutoff is a delight to the senses. Colorful ribbons hang from the ceiling; the scent of cake and icing wafts in the air; the soft sound of coworkers gabbing as they construct bows blends with the ticket machine alerting to new orders; and the promise of delicious tasting bundt cakes is palpable throughout it all.

“There’s no smell machine here; it literally just smells that great because we bake everything from scratch and make all the frosting right here,” said Gabriela Whelan, the chef at the Wilmington location of this national brand.

Whelan was thrilled when she saw a job opening at the Wilmington location of Nothing Bundt Cakes, which has been owned by Greg and Cat Marinich since 2017. “I love to do this work – whether I’m up front with customers or in the back baking, frosting, at the crafting station – it’s comforting to work in a place and be appreciated for it,” she said.

For Whelan, whose mother always made birthday cakes for everyone in the family from scratch, a love and talent for baking was in many ways inevitable. Whelan’s mom made elaborate cakes from popular ’90s Disney films – her Hunchback of Notre Dame cake featuring Esmeralda was Whelan’s favorite – all just simple sheet cakes which she’d stencil the characters onto. “Back in the day when your mom could bring homemade treats to school, she would bring these cakes or cupcakes, and everyone was like ‘Oh my gosh your mom made that?’” Whelan recalled. “My mom was that mom.”

As Whelan got older, she started making her own cakes, learning her mom’s techniques and expanding on them herself. When Whelan would get home from school, her mom would stay up with her into the night showing her how to make shells with cake and rosettes with icing. By high school, Whelan was making dessert at home and bringing it to school the next day to sell to her friends. She was that friend.

In the ninth grade, Whelan entered the N.C. State Fair for cake decorating with a solar system cake she based on a wooden puzzle in her home. She simply used her spatula to replicate the puzzle in cake and icing form. She ended up winning First Place and Best in Show. “After that, I started really working on my birthday cakes and working with my mom on my techniques,” she said. “In my junior year of high school, I was accepted into culinary school, and so I was stress-free my senior year. I was like ‘I already know what I’m doing … future secured!’”

After culinary school in California, Whelan moved back to North Carolina and worked as an assisting pastry chef at Nanas in Durham before working in some chocolatier locations and even opening her own bakery and patisserie in Southport. After Hurricane Florence, Whelan had to close down the Southport location and took a break for a few years before she found the ad for the opening at Nothing Bundt Cakes.

“I always felt at home in a kitchen, so I knew I’d be back eventually,” she said. “I have done a little bit of everything in my career but have always been drawn to the details in baking. I’m a visual person so I believe that when a person sees a dessert in front of them it should be art. My thing is food – and desserts especially – should make people happy.”

Whelan says this while adding the final touches to a birthday cake being picked up by a client in a few minutes. The bundt cake is covered in not only frosting, but happy birthday greetings and basketball decorations – it seems that the birthday boy is also a sports fan.

“Food has always been an art for me because it’s not just the way it looks, but the process behind it,” she said while adjusting the mini “happy birthday” sign adorning the cake. “I know people can get decorated cakes anywhere, but I think you’re getting a slice of happiness when you come into our store because our staff really does care about personal connection.”