LIFT UP LOCAL 019
Written by Pamela Patton
📷 courtesy of Amber Rose Photography
A Small Celebration In Every Bite
How many brides-to-be would let their fiancé bake their wedding cake? Here’s the story, taken from the Wani Cake website:
In 2017, Bola Ndifontah and Anwelli Okpue were planning their wedding on a budget. Anwelli had an idea:
“Hey Bola, how about I bake the cake for our wedding?” Bola was like, “What??? Well, I love this guy, and I have tried his stuff, and it’s amazing, and yeah, I know he learned baking from the best (his mom who was trained in the UK as a culinary chef), but we have 200 guests coming, and he wants to bake our cake? No!”
📷 courtesy of Amber Rose Photography
But smooth-talking Anwelli said, “Bola, trust me, it’ll be amazing. I have this idea of a cake table with a three-tier main cake with a single-tier cake. There’ll be candles, champagne glasses, red roses, etc. It will be amazing.”
Bola was convinced, the cake was a hit with the guests, and in 2017, Wani Cakes was born to help cake-lovers celebrate life in all its flavors. Wani Cakes soon became a big hit with family and friends as the two (in addition to their full-time jobs and raising three small children) began baking birthday, wedding, and celebration cakes.
“We felt that if we can develop a more cost-effective product, we can get it into people’s hands more frequently and drive our message of celebrating lives and building stronger communities.””
📷 courtesy of Amber Rose Photography
You’re not alone if you’re curious about where the company name came from. Explains Anwelli, “I’m from Nigeria, and the community I am from is called Ųkwųani, one of the tribes in the Delta state of Nigeria. When we were looking for a name for the company, I wanted a name connected to my roots and heritage to keep me grounded. We shorted Ųkwųani to Wani because it reminds us of where it all started.”
After consideration and discussion, the couple decided to make Wani Cakes official as a business. But simultaneously, the pandemic put nearly all in-person parties and weddings on the shelf. Anwelli said, “It was really tough. People weren’t celebrating that much. Weddings weren’t happening. But we always had it in mind that we wanted to be in stores, and we wanted to have a product that is more affordable than a full custom cake so that people can engage with it a lot easier. We felt that if we can develop a more cost-effective product, we can get it into people’s hands more frequently and drive our message of celebrating lives and building stronger communities.”
📷 courtesy of Amber Rose Photography
In 2022, Bola and Anwelli officially transitioned to selling their smaller Omich Cakes, naming them to celebrate Anwelli’s Mom and their three children. “I learned to bake from my mom, and after her passing in 2019 we named our daughter after her. We felt it was very befitting because it all started in her kitchen. Our 2-year-old daughter is Ominorisa, and my two sons, ages 4 and 6 are ChuChu and Chike. So the O-M-I is for our mom and daughter, and the C-H is for the boys. My wife came up with that,” he said.
The cakes were sold at farmer’s markets, but Anwelli had bigger plans. “Farmer’s markets usually end in the fall, but customers asked where to get Omich Cakes year-round. We started working with the MSU Product Center to get the packaging and barcodes created. Then Meijer had a vendor event for their Market stores. We met with the store directors, told them our story, and gave them Omich Cakes, and now they are sold in the Capitol City Market in Lansing, Rivertown Market in Detroit, and Woodward Corner in Royal Oak.
📷 courtesy of Amber Rose Photography
And what does an Omich Cake taste like? “We wanted to offer customers something unique, and we thought what better way to do it than create a product that fuses our Nigerian heritage with the love Americans have for berries. We created our Berry Summer flavor by pairing a Nigerian Cake with a berry medley of gently cooked strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries. A Nigerian cake is light but full-bodied with a very deep buttery vanilla flavor, and it’s made without preservatives. And our customers love it because, Berry Summer has been our bestselling flavor so far.”
An Omich is sold to customers in a ‘kit’ format, so customers get to be part of the process of creating their dessert. The Nutty Crunch flavor pairs the same cake with coconuts, pecans and hazelnut spread.
But what truly sets Omich Cakes apart is the Wani Signature Cream. It’s rich and creamy, light, and not-to-sweet. “Some people tell us it tastes like ice cream!”
📷 courtesy of Amber Rose Photography
What you will not find in Omich Cakes is a lot of added sugar. “I did a little comparison to other baked cakes, and ours has about 30% less sugar, which we are working to get down to 45% less sugar. And it doesn’t have any artificial coloring or preservatives. At the stores, Omiches are sold as a ready-to-eat dessert in the refrigerator section but may be frozen at home for up to 3 months.
In celebration of fall, Anwelli and Bola are crafting two new flavors, Apple Crisp and S’ Mores, in time for the second Annual Snack Competition in Port Huron. Last year, Wani Cakes was nominated as one of Michigan’s Top Twenty Snacks. This year, they served more than 1,000 samples of the Berry Summer Omich Cake, winning first place in the Confectionary Creations category and a cash prize of $15,000. “The prize money will allow us to purchase a vacuum sealer, which will enable us to package each cake more efficiently, reduce the amount of plastic we use, and cut costs. It will really help the business grow,” said Anwelli.
As previously mentioned, Anwelli’s mother was a professional chef who taught her son. “My mother catered events, and she saw the value in bringing people together and building a stronger community just by doing what she loved to do. She passed away in 2019, so I see Omich Cakes as a way of continuing her legacy.”
So slow down, open an Omich Cake, spoon on the toppings, and top it off with a dab of cream, then eat with intention. As Anwelli says, “Big cakes are a part of big celebrations. A personal-size Omich Cake is a way to celebrate yourself.”