Cake maker to the stars planning to make return to Wolverhampton
He’s the cake maker to the stars – serving up delicious treats for the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Floyd Mayweather, Sylvester Stallone and others.
But it has been somewhat of a rollercoaster for Paz Heer who was forced to return back to basics after his Wolverhampton shop closed amid Covid-19.
The baker, from Essington, said the closure of AB Cakes in Snow Hill last year was necessary due to there being no customers due to the restrictions.
But now he is planning to make a comeback to the city after finding his feet through a marketing and a security role after having to initially think again.
The 41-year-old said: “I want to get back into it, I’m currently looking at places in the Wolverhampton city centre area. I’m still doing bits, to be fair, but because of the ‘no parties and gatherings’ rule I had to close the shop in 2021 – because there was nobody around the town to come in.
“It was walk-in before Covid-19 and anyone could come in and design and order cakes, and sometimes I would bake a cake and we would sell it on the same day. But when Covid hit the shop it affected me massively.
“I had no income and nothing on my CV because for the last 13 years I’ve just been making cakes, but luckily I had a degree in marketing to fall back on so I was able to explore other areas for jobs.”
And the baker, who said he was going through a “bad patch” after the shop’s closure, wanted to turn his frustration into something positive and took some time off to get his life in order.
It led him to training to get a licence as a security guard initially which saw him land a part-time role as Wolves FC, who kept him on after he landed a position as a marketing executive at a solicitors’ firm.
“I didn’t bury my head in the sand,” Paz said. “I got my life in order and became a security guard at Wolves and I don’t even see it as a job to be honest, I enjoy it so much – I’m not a football fan but I really love the people I see at the club.”
He added he was “fortunate enough” to be part of the main security team on match days and non-match days at Molineux and they agreed to keep him on after he landed his marketing role.
And after being forced to adapt back into a marketing career which included a stint at Compton Care, the baker decided to take on something “completely out there” – and conquer the London Marathon.
“I looked at all the work Compton Care did and it really opened my eyes,” he said. “I started thinking there’s so much need for extra funding – and I thought I hated running, I don’t run whatsoever and I think people are coming out of their comfort zones so I should go for it.”
Paz headed down to the capital a day before the gruelling challenge and described it as being “really tough” as he hadn’t trained, but it was the cheers from members of the public which kept him going.
“You have the name on the back of your shirt and there was people cheering ‘go Paz, go’ and that really helped me,” he said.
“I saw people fainting along the way and you think ‘am I pushing myself too much?’ so I told myself I had to calm down and pace myself. In the first hour, I was trying to keep up with the four-and-a-half hour pacers and then the five hour runners and in the end I did it in over six hours. I was that much in pain I was just focused on completing it, there was so many people who said they couldn’t go on.”
His efforts has seen around £1,200 raised for the hospice but his thoughts soon turned back to finding a spot for his business – and whether it would return under its name as AB Cakes.
The baker admitted it could return under the same name, his hashtag ‘#CakeMakerToTheStars’ or something Arnold Schwarzenegger once said to him after seeing his cake – “you’ve outdone Hollywood”.
