Success can be so sweet for Gold Coast cupcake queen Elise Strachan

FROM flight attendant to self-made shoe entrepreneur, Elise Strachan then managed to channel her love of homemade treats into an internet career that’s reaching stratospheric heights.

Elise Strachan: “I’m like the third largest food channel in the world on YouTube.”

FOR Elise Strachan and husband Alec, the proof of their huge success is in the pudding — literally.

The Gold Coast couple’s online product, My Cupcake Addiction, is a global sensation.

It has about 3 million followers on three YouTube channels, a Facebook following of 5.2 million and 1.2 million Instagram followers, not to mention Elise’s new Food Network show in the US and their latest project, publication by Murdoch Books of her book, Sweet! Celebrations.

The online success has rocketed My Cupcake Addiction to great heights. Elise is hoping the book, also published in the UK, New Zealand and the US, is the icing on the cake as a go-to book for simple treats and special occasions, including Christmas.

“I’m like the third largest food channel in the world on YouTube. It’s bigger than Jamie Oliver, it’s bigger than Gordon Ramsay,’’ Elise said on the Gold Coast this week, just hours after arriving home from the US where the Strachan family has spent several months in Los Angeles.

For her 10 million followers across all platforms, it’s all about the sugar hit, the bright colours of the dessert creations and Elise’s remarkable ability to not only connect with her audience (Alec is the man behind the lights and cameras in their home studio while she provides the sweets action in front of the lens), but also come up with ideas that are “do-able’’ for the average home cook.

“I’ve got a six-minute mousse — like it’s six minutes from when you get the cream out of the fridge and the chocolate out of the cupboard, start the timer and then you have the mousse,’’ Elise boasts.

“I’ve hit a niche in that I’m not expecting people to spend days and days preparing. They can literally whip up many of these recipes in say 15 minutes.’’

For the Strachans, it’s all about turning their passions — Alec’s love of technology and Elise’s urge to create in the kitchen — into a bigger and better brand while riding the bow wave of the digital revolution.

“I always say YouTube is the ultimate democracy. Anyone can make content and the people decide who they want to watch,’’ Elise said.

“It can be any one of a thousand reasons but I think I have a really great niche in that I want people to look like master pastry chefs but I also want them to do it the easiest way possible. I want you to have that finished product but I’m not telling you to buy fancy equipment.

“I’m breaking it down to achievable, do-able items.’’

What her followers don’t realise though, as they bake up a quick treat in the kitchen, is that the Strachans are spending about 100 hours a week working, Elise dreaming up recipes, baking and styling her creations, and Alec finding ways and means to come up with photos and videos.

Elise estimates they produce about 85 new pieces of content a week in their Gold Coast and LA studios — both home operations in converted garages. Both contain a functioning kitchen, walls with shelves loaded with “styling’’ extras for photo shoots, cooking implements and an amazing range of sprinkles for cake decoration, and studio lighting.

Ice cream sundae popsicles. Instagram photo from My Cupcake Addiction.

As the old song goes, from little things big things grow.

Elise was born Otahuhu in Auckland but her family settled in Loganholme when she was little. Lollies were a bit of a no-go area, given the expense and also the effect lots of sugar can have on a household of little kids.

So from when she was small Elise developed a love of helping bake treats in the kitchen and by the time she was six, she was making her own chocolate slices and soon worked out that if she used a few drops of peppermint or orange essence, a new world of taste opened up. Her mentors were her parents — her mother would allow the children to choose a cake from a Women’s Weekly cookbook for their birthdays and they could help bake it; her dad was known as The Scone Man at their church, feeding the masses with his home-cooked creations.

Becoming a well-known baker/chef was never on Elise’s radar at school.

She worked as a flight attendant with Jetstar until she realised she could “grow old’’ in the job. In other words, she had become comfortable in the work and decided she needed a new challenge.

Before that though she had developed a yearning to go into business. Her first opportunity arose in the early 2000s.

“I rode the eBay wave when it was incredibly popular,’’ she said.

“Believe it or not, I sold shoes — a lot of shoes.

“There was a chain of shoe stores in Brisbane that went bust and sold all of their shoes for $10 a pair, like Doc Martens. I’m talking $200 pairs of shoes.

“I drove all over Brisbane and the Gold Coast and I bought 250 pairs of these shoes at $10 a pair and resold them on eBay. It pretty much paid for my wedding actually, so it was small steps into entrepreneurism early on.

“My husband said while I was selling shoes, I wasn’t buying them, so a good thing.’’

Her passion for baking soon had her making and selling cakes at a Gold Coast market each week.

Where that would lead was undreamt of, even for the entrepreneurial Elise.

“I started on YouTube five years ago. It was an experiment though because I was going to open a shop,’’ she said.

“I was going to teach other people how to make cakes and charge them. I’d been selling cupcakes and wedding cakes at a local market and I was inundated with orders for weddings and birthday cakes.

“I got so many requests from other mums and brides-to- be who wanted me to show them how to make something because while they could afford to buy it, they didn’t want to. They wanted the personal touch of making it themselves.

“So I looked at opening a cake decorating school.’’

Enter Alec, the techno whiz. He suggested Elise test the market by first putting up a YouTube video.

Elise was sceptical. If she gave away a free lesson, would people ever want to pay to learn?

But she conceded that opening a store and school would be a big investment, so agreed to try the market.

“People loved it,’’ she said. So YouTube it was.

“You make money on YouTube initially through advertising revenue and it’s a very small amount in the beginning. You do really need a lot of views to make meaningful revenue — anywhere from about 3 million views a month and you can think about leaving your job.

“At that point it was comfortable.’’

The rest, as they say, has been history — and talking to Elise, this story has a long way to run yet.

While 5.2 million people follow her on Facebook, she says that platform does not generate revenue as such. The value lies in recognition and brand.

“Now that I’m the size that I am, companies like Nestle or KitKat will come to me,’’ she said.

“I’m in the middle of a campaign now with Nintendo where I make these amazing Pokemon-inspired desserts.’’

The home cook can go online to find the steps to making these treats, which Elise describes as “a good example of a super high-end dessert’’. The video tutorial is on YouTube, but her mention of it on Facebook has attracted well over 2 million hits.

“I’m not going to lie to you. This guy’s probably about 30 minutes in the making,’’ she said.

So apart from the sugar and colour, why the success?

“In terms of Australia, I’d be one of the largest digital influencers, certainly in terms of food,’’ she said.

“Influencer — that’s similar to celebrity, but different because it’s accessible.

“If I’m watching Nigella (celebrity chef Nigella Lawson) and one of her recipes doesn’t work for me, where can I go?

“If you’re watching me and the recipe doesn’t work, you can look at the thousands of comments from my audience, some may have had similar issues, and you’ve got the luxury of the website you can go to with troubleshooting tips. Half the time I’m sitting up and I get a comment and I can reply to it on my phone.’’

Despite her enormous online profile and the business confidence she exudes, there is still something of the little girl in Elise when she talks about the book.

“I’m a bona fide author,’’ she grinned, and described the excitement she felt when she and her boys, Oliver, 5, and Jacob, 2, walked into a Big W on the Coast this week and saw a pile of her books. It was like being a teenage girl spotting the dress she wanted to wear to her formal.

“I didn’t want it to be a traditional cookbook,’’ she said.

“I wanted this to look like a magazine and be the ultimate coffee table book. I wanted it to be really beautiful from the first page to the last.

“They allowed me to take my vision and run with it, to create something very different for the industry.’’

One of her favourite chapters is titled The Grill Master. From a distance, the products of this particular game of sugary deception look like a table set for a barbie, with hot dogs, pizzas, tacos and even a bucket o’ chicken. The reality is something else. They’re cakes, waffles, and cookies.

Come Christmas, there’s something special from the Happy Holidays chapter, including her favourites: a Christmas tree Surprise Cake and a Glowing Candy Cottage made from chocolate bars, sprinkles, mini-candy canes and more chocolate.

Elise Strachan making a video in her home studio. Photo: Steve Holland

FAMILY FAVOURITES

Elise’s husband Alec is a man of simple tastes, despite his passion for technology. Give him plain old banana bread and he’s happy.

Her boys, Oliver, 5, and Jacob, 2, love anything she makes that resembles favourite cartoon characters. “There’s something novel about being able to recognise a character, then eat it,’’ Elise says. The boys are a chip off the old chocolate block, liking to pitch in and help — just like their mum when she was little and began baking chocolate slices at age 6.

Elise will be making her Glowing Candy Cottage (no baking required) and her amazing Christmas tree Surprise Cake for Christmas desserts.

KITCHEN ESSENTIALS

Keep it simple, says Elise. There is no need to mortgage the house to buy ingredients and implements.

For the pantry: vanilla extract, flour, baking powder, sugars (white, coaster, brown, icing and sanding to add a little sparkle), unsweetened cocoa, cinnamon, nutmeg, coconut oil.

For the fridge: fresh eggs, milk, butter.

Tools of the trade: spatulas, measuring cups and spoons, whisk, cutters, cake boards, grater/zester, zip-seal bags.

Sweet! Celebrations

Author: Elise Strachan

Publisher: Murdoch Books

RRP: $39.99

Originally published as Success can be so sweet for Gold Coast cupcake queen Elise Strachan