WHILE MOST PEOPLE SAY, “I’m off to work”, Renee Jarrett tells her family, “I’m off to create”.
It’s a deceptively simple phrase that neatly sums up the philosophy that transformed a working-class girl from Canberra into one of Australia’s most accomplished cake artists.
That mindset has taken the owner of Daisy Cakes and Bakes, Caloundra, from decorating cookies late at night after putting her young daughters to bed to leading Queensland this year at Australia’s biggest cake competition. “It just doesn’t feel like work,” says Renee of the business she built from scratch 11 years ago.
“My dad used to say to me, ‘If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life’, and that’s exactly how I feel.”
Renee’s father owned a plumbing and gas-fitting business specialising in repairing and reselling dishwashers. During school holidays, Renee and her siblings earned $5 each scrubbing old appliances.
“We’d be there for hours scrubbing this thing and then Dad would say, ‘What about that bit?’”
As a teenager, she graduated to invoicing customers and chasing unpaid accounts, unknowingly learning the fundamentals of small business.
Long before she discovered cookie decorating, Renee owned a beauty salon and was preparing to open a beauty school when a skin allergy abruptly ended that dream. “It was devastating,” she says.
A career in recruitment followed, leading to senior human resources positions with the Department of Defence in Canberra, where she met her future husband, Air Force officer Jason.
After the birth of daughters Pippa and Evie, Renee began searching for something that belonged solely to her. She started watching cookie decorating tutorials on YouTube and then attended a cake decorating class with her mother. “For my mum it was a nice day out,” she says. “But I thought, ‘That was a great experience. I’ve found my jam’.”
Renee began baking for family celebrations until friends started requesting cakes and offering to pay. She repeatedly declined, insisting it was simply a creative outlet. After turning away commissions for two years, she finally established a commercial kitchen at home and launched Daisy Cakes and Bakes.
The business began in Canberra, but a profound life event changed its direction. Jason had always wanted to return to the Sunshine Coast, where he grew up. When one of Renee’s closest friends died at just 47, the couple decided it was time.
“I realised life is just too short to not be doing what you want to be doing, or be where you want to be.”
The family relocated to the Coast in January 2020. Weeks later, COVID-19 shut the country down.
While many businesses struggled, Daisy Cakes and Bakes boomed. Working from her licensed home kitchen, Renee launched an online cookie business just as Australians were searching for meaningful ways to stay connected. Orders poured in from across the country, particularly Victoria, building a loyal customer base far faster than she had imagined.
Today, Daisy Cakes and Bakes occupies a commercial kitchen and shopfront in Bulcock Street, Caloundra. It remains a family business, with Pippa, 16, helping bake slices, Evie, 13, decorating cupcakes and working Sundays, while Jason helps at markets and chats with customers.
Renee’s love of baking began long before her business. Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, she learnt from an older girl next door who regularly invited neighbourhood children into her kitchen.
Her grandmother was also an accomplished baker, with handwritten recipe books that remain treasured family heirlooms. Daisy’s vanilla cake is based on a recipe handed down from her grandmother-in-law.
Of course, not every early creation was a masterpiece. For her eldest daughter’s first birthday, Renee painstakingly created a bird-shaped cake to match the invitations, only for her mother-in-law to innocently ask: “What’s that meant to be?” Laughing, Renee says, “But it’s also good because you can see how much you’ve improved.”
That improvement reached a remarkable milestone in 2025 when her sculpted cake of singer Pink won first place in the Bust category at the International Cake Show Australia, hosted by the Australian Cake Artists and Decorators Association (ACADA).
It was the first realistic figure she had attempted.Taking around 45 hours to complete, Renee meticulously researched Pink’s tattoos, hairstyle, jewellery and facial expressions while experimenting with modelling chocolate and modelling paste for the first time. “It was definitely a ‘trust the process’ exercise.”
The 2026 ACADA competition brought a fresh challenge when Renee returned to complete a gravity-defying Mr Squiggle sculpture she had abandoned the previous year. When both hands detached and his hat broke during transport, she calmly repaired the damage before judging. The cake received a Bronze Award.
She also captained Queensland in the inaugural Cake of Origin competition, where three-person teams created spectacular live cakes over three days. Queensland finished runner-up to New South Wales.
Today, Renee has come full circle from teaching herself online to teaching others. She runs cookie decorating classes from her Caloundra shop and decorative cake icing workshops throughout Queensland.
“Some people think they’re not going to be good at it and then they surprise themselves and they take home something they’re really proud of,” she says. “That’s what I love.”
After a lifetime spent proving that creativity can flourish anywhere – from practising icing on baking paper to sculpting award-winning cake art – Renee believes everyone possesses creative potential.
“There is a creative element in everyone,” she says. “And I love seeing the moment people realise it for themselves.”