Fay­ola Fras­er

“A south girl at heart,” Can­dice Ram­sub­ag Sinanan grew up in south Trinidad, heir to the gift of bak­ing as the daugh­ter and grand­daugh­ter of gen­er­a­tions of gift­ed home bak­ers.

Firm­ly etched in­to the bak­ing world from birth, she was raised in the warmth of a home where her moth­er baked con­stant­ly and her grand­moth­er passed down recipes through ac­tion, scent, and care­ful in­struc­tion. By the time she was old enough to bake on her own, she and her three sis­ters had all in­her­it­ed the fam­i­ly in­stinct for cre­at­ing de­lec­table treats. Her sig­na­ture—a good sponge cake—still pays homage to her moth­er’s recipe, com­plete with the lit­tle tips and tricks she learned along the way.

Her aca­d­e­m­ic jour­ney led her from Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School to The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, where she pur­sued a de­gree in Eng­lish Lan­guage and Lit­er­a­ture with Ed­u­ca­tion. Teach­ing came nat­u­ral­ly, and she spent her ear­ly ca­reer at St Joseph’s Con­vent and Lak­sh­mi Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege.

Yet even as she taught, a cre­ative rest­less­ness stirred. She had al­ways loved art and stud­ied it in sec­ondary school, even once dream­ing of ma­jor­ing in it, though op­por­tu­ni­ties were lim­it­ed at the time. Still, that artis­tic in­stinct would lat­er resur­face—in an un­ex­pect­ed way.

That way ar­rived through food. Sinanan even­tu­al­ly stepped away from the class­room and opened Amore Café in Wood­brook, an all-day break­fast spot that dou­bled as an art gallery by day and an open-mic venue by night. The café be­came her cre­ative play­ground, blend­ing culi­nary ex­per­i­men­ta­tion with artis­tic ex­pres­sion. It was al­so one of the first lo­cal cafés to serve break­fast all day.

Dur­ing this pe­ri­od, she be­gan bak­ing in earnest. While pric­ing cake op­tions for her sis­ter’s birth­day one year, she re­alised that pur­chas­ing a cake would be too ex­pen­sive—so she and her sis­ters de­cid­ed to make every­thing from scratch. The out­come sur­prised her. It wasn’t on­ly good; it was a door open­ing. Word spread, or­ders grew, and be­fore long the per­son­al pas­sion project evolved in­to her own busi­ness—Fairy Cakes—which would span fif­teen years and many cre­ative rein­ven­tions.

As her skills sharp­ened, Sinanan leaned in­to the art be­hind the craft. Her back­ground helped her de­vel­op a style that felt both per­son­al and dis­tinct.

About five years ago, she de­cid­ed to move en­tire­ly away from fon­dant, choos­ing in­stead to work ex­clu­sive­ly with but­ter­cream, which she be­lieves is a health­i­er, more prac­ti­cal, more cost-ef­fec­tive, and more au­then­tic medi­um for cake dec­o­ra­tion. It al­so aligned bet­ter with her per­son­al val­ues—and with Trinidad’s cli­mate, es­pe­cial­ly for out­door cakes like those used in wed­dings.

To­day, she is known for her all-but­ter­cream aes­thet­ic, most no­tably her rus­tic wed­ding cakes dressed in fresh flo­rals, which re­main her favourite cre­ations.

“Cake should be cake and look like it,” she of­ten says. “My clients un­der­stand that we aren’t work­ing for per­fec­tion, but beau­ti­ful art—and that’s what we de­liv­er.”

Af­ter Amore Café closed, Sinanan shift­ed ful­ly in­to cakes, con­tin­u­ing to re­fine her brand. She in­ten­tion­al­ly ap­peals to the lo­cal palate, cre­at­ing flavours like sor­rel and ponche de crème in her Christ­mas line rather than chas­ing im­port­ed trends like bis­coff, which she sees every­where but be­lieves do not re­flect her iden­ti­ty.

Her au­then­tic­i­ty even­tu­al­ly earned her the ti­tle of “the peo­ple’s bak­er”—not on­ly be­cause she bakes for the mass­es, but be­cause she cham­pi­ons lo­cal in­gre­di­ents and ac­ces­si­ble artistry. For her, the work has nev­er been about chas­ing scale, but about cre­at­ing with in­tegri­ty.

Yet suc­cess came with a price. At the height of her busi­ness growth—af­ter me­dia fea­tures, rapid de­mand, and a lev­el of vis­i­bil­i­ty many bak­ers dream of—Sinanan found her­self burnt out. She re­mem­bers wak­ing up one morn­ing and sim­ply cry­ing, over­whelmed by the pace she had main­tained. It be­came a turn­ing point. Re­al­is­ing she had to pri­ori­tise her men­tal health, she chose not to chase “more” but to re­ly on her abil­i­ty to pro­duce qual­i­ty over quan­ti­ty. Slow­ing down be­came not a lux­u­ry, but a ne­ces­si­ty.

That ded­i­ca­tion to self-care re­shaped both her life and her lead­er­ship. Her ad­vo­ca­cy now ex­tends be­yond bak­ing in­to women’s em­pow­er­ment. At the point where she felt most burnt out, she found­ed She Al­ready Is, an NGO fo­cused on help­ing women step in­to their most au­then­tic, pow­er­ful selves. She al­so sits on the board of Yes She Can, an­oth­er fe­male-cen­tric char­i­ty. Through speech­es and out­reach, she open­ly shares her burnout jour­ney, help­ing oth­ers recog­nise that rest is not self­ish—it is sur­vival. She speaks about the sim­ple but pow­er­ful act of re­claim­ing her morn­ings: sit­ting to eat, sip­ping tea slow­ly, tak­ing 30 min­utes to step out­side her work­space and qui­et her mind. It is a dis­ci­pline of gen­tle­ness—one she en­cour­ages oth­er women to em­brace.

Sinanan’s jour­ney to build­ing a suc­cess­ful busi­ness is an­chored as much in re­silience as it is in self-care. She is hon­est about the re­al­i­ties of en­tre­pre­neur­ship—how dif­fi­cult it is to run a busi­ness, and how tal­ent alone does not guar­an­tee suc­cess.

In to­day’s world of so­cial me­dia, she says, busi­ness own­er­ship al­so re­quires a strong sense of self, as on­line spaces of­ten spare no punch­es, mak­ing own­ers feel they must ab­sorb every crit­i­cism with­out protest. She has faced highs, lows, rein­ven­tions, doubts, and restarts. There were mo­ments she thought she had failed—on­ly to re­alise lat­er that fail­ure was sim­ply a stage on the path to clar­i­ty. What re­mained con­stant was her love for the craft and her will­ing­ness to keep go­ing.

Re­cent­ly, Sinanan was nom­i­nat­ed for “Best All But­ter­cream De­sign­er” in the 2026 Caribbean Bak­ing Awards, to be held in Saint Mar­tin in Ju­ly 2026. To her, the recog­ni­tion is not on­ly an ho­n­our but al­so a con­fir­ma­tion that she is ex­act­ly where she needs to be. It re­mind­ed her that her artistry is val­ued, her choice to work ex­clu­sive­ly with but­ter­cream is valid, and her lev­el of pro­duc­tion is enough. She looks for­ward to cel­e­brat­ing—per­haps even turn­ing the awards cer­e­mo­ny in­to a re­lax­ing va­ca­tion—car­ry­ing with her the ground­ing be­lief that joy is es­sen­tial.

To­day, Sinanan wears many hats—bak­er, artist, ad­vo­cate—but she wears them com­fort­ably and with­out apol­o­gy. Through She Al­ready Is, she hosts two ma­jor an­nu­al events: Kiss Can­cer Good­bye, a breast can­cer fundrais­er each Oc­to­ber, and a women-on­ly em­pow­er­ment fair that is free and open to the pub­lic. Noth­ing is sold; in­stead, women walk through a space filled with in­for­ma­tion, sup­port, com­mu­ni­ty, and pos­si­bil­i­ties.

The mes­sage is sim­ple, mir­ror­ing the ethos that has guid­ed her jour­ney: “You al­ready have the best per­son in­side of you.”