Manly Baker Boutiquery

Rickus Swanepoel is the owner, baker, and Cake Artist at Manly Baker Boutiquery.

As a young boy, he grew up in a family where his granny baked the most delicious vanilla cakes for her family. The smell of pure vanilla cake filled the kitchen during teatime whenever the old plastic container was opened. For years, Rickus tried to duplicate the scent he remembered from his childhood. Constantly longing to return to that beautiful moment of nostalgia.

This catapulted him into a world of sharing good food and especially cake with whoever wanted to share a slice of cake with him. In 2013, he baked his first wedding cake for a couple. With very little knowledge, but with a lot of dedication, Manly Baker was born.

For more than a decade Rickus poured his heart into a bowl with sugar, butter, flour, and milk, all the things that would make a delicious cake.

Manly Baker Boutiquery is a place where clients are invited to share their Love Stories, memories, sentiments and smells. Things that are important to them and incorporate that into the design that starts with a piece of paper. It’s important for them to not forget the journey they have walked to find one another and to tell their story. While listening to everything that is said in the consultation, they start to conceptualise a possible design. They want their client to be part of the design process, it is their day and story that needs to be told.

In 2023, Rickus took a leap of faith and entered an International Cake Competition, namely, Cake Champions. He won Gold in the Fairy Tale Wedding Cake Category with an upside-down chandelier cake (hanging from the ceiling) with a whopping weight of 27kg.

Dream Big With Manly Baker Boutiquery

It is important to them, that they keep on challenging the normalities of the Wedding Industry. Their clients are constantly challenged to think differently or at least allow them to wow them with a design that will pull the guests to interact with the cake design.

No cake is finished until it is delivered to the designated location. They facilitate the entire process of delivery and setup on behalf of a client. The team will never expect a client to collect a stacked cake. The team takes full responsibility for the cake while in transit and until the delivery is done and signed off by the appointed Wedding coordinator.

Manly Baker Boutiquery are truly honoured to be entrusted by a client to design, bake, and decorate their dream Cake! Hence, they proudly live their mantra “Telling Love Stories with Cake”