Out of the fire into the kitchen

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Jennifer Stovell is the kind of person who likes to do things her own way.

When she went off to college she studied electrical engineering, a largely male-dominated field. She then spent 12 years working at the incinerator plant fixing engines.

Considering her past career, her next move was somewhat unexpected a home bakery business.

Zhenga sells gift jars filled with dry ingredients for cookies, soups and breads as well as her specialty, cake balls. A cake ball is a moist cake mixed with icing and hand dipped in chocolate.

“I named the business Zhenga because I did a photo shoot and people kept on telling me I looked like an African queen,” said Mrs Stovell. “Zhenga means ‘African queen’. I have been doing food gifts for a while. My mother, June Pitt, and I started doing the jar mixes five years ago. We sold the mason jars under the business name of Generations, but I recently changed it.

“We did Johnny Bread and Hopping John ingredients in jars. We found some recipes on the internet and we invented some ourselves. Over Christmas we did hot chocolate cones as well. We took a break and then started up again last year.”

Mrs Stovell describes herself as a “foodie sort of person”. She wanted to import the cake balls to sell, but no one would ship them to Bermuda, because they need to be refrigerated. She decided to make them on her own. After a little research online into how to make them, she was off and cooking. Luckily, she just moved into a new house and has a big kitchen with a large oven to work with, so she has yet to run out of room for her enterprise.

“It didn’t take long to figure out,” she said. “My favourite is probably the red velvet cake in dark chocolate.”

Other flavours include gingerbread and cream cheese icing, lemon cake and lemon icing, rum cake and vanilla icing, chocolate cake and chocolate icing. She sells them in dark, white and milk chocolate, and also in different box sizes. Boxes with four chocolate cake balls cost $7 and ones with eight chocolate cake balls are $12. She would like to get into making them on a large scale for weddings, birthdays and other events.

“Their popularity hasn’t really hit here in Bermuda yet, but they are very popular in the United States,” Mrs Stovell said. “I thought it would probably be a good thing to do and Bermudians like chocolate. You see enough of them going off to Miles Market regularly to buy Godiva chocolates.”

Her mason jars are available for purchase in the Bay Grape store in the Washington Mall in Hamilton and at Bermuda Linens and Gifts in St George. The cake balls are not yet available in retail stores.

“With the cake balls I haven’t approached anyone to sell them,” she said. “I may, I may not.”

She and her mother have a stall at the People’s Market on Saturday mornings at CedarBridge Academy and at Harbour Nights.

“In this economy, you have to use all your skills and talents to get ahead,” she said. “My husband had his own business, and I wanted to do something independently. I started cooking as a child. My mother and I have always baked. I think we make the best gingerbread.”

Her children, Thandiewe, Jumake and Ashanti, all help her in different ways. One of her daughters wants to be a food critic, and the other wants to be a chef. Her son wants to be an actuary, but he is happy to help her put together the ingredients for the gift jars.

She is planning to make plenty of chocolate cake balls for Valentine’s Day. She thought her red velvet creations might make the perfect gift.

For more information telephone 505-2578, e-mail zhenga69[AT]yahoo.com or see her on Facebook under Zhenga Bermuda.

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