“I am Aunt Poppie Roosterkoek’s daughter.”
Naomi Etson, the 27-year-old daughter of Tannie Poppie van As, the famous roaster cake baker from Laingsburg, proudly introduces herself.
Etson currently lives in Macassar and is going to set up her own griddle cake business and keep the secret dough recipe alive on local soil.
After baking toaster cakes with her famous mother for years, she decided to now make toaster cakes of her own.
“I was pregnant with my eldest son when my mother started baking bread in Laingsburg in 2010. At that time she baked bread in outdoor ovens. She then started making baked bread for uncle Piet Geldenhuys, and then she moved away,” recalls Etson.
When she found out she was pregnant at the time, she decided not to go back to school and instead went to work with her mother at the stall.
“I was very shy, because here my schoolmates were walking by and I was standing next to the N1 selling products from my mother’s stall with her. My mother used to walk lumber across the Buffalo River bridge to the stall every day, and that’s how she started. I learned a lot from her. The cycling community then discovered my mother and she became very popular.”
She tells how her mother also had the dream of going abroad and it was realized when she went to Italy – all thanks to her grilled cakes.
“The griddle cakes brought my mother so far, and that’s why I decided when I moved to Macassar earlier this year, to start with griddle cakes, because I recently got married and I had a job at a well-known chain store, but this didn’t work out for me, because I had to start on this ‘ journey‘,” she says.
For the time being, Etson will be operating her griddle cake business from her home and customers will (for the time being) have to pick up the griddle cakes themselves from her home until she gets her own transport.
“It’s like my mother always says: ‘Keep going, shut up, and look ahead.’ My mother taught me to never stand back in front of people. If you can do something, try. Don’t just give up.”
She says her husband is the only one in the household of eight who works and she has decided she also wants to contribute to the household’s finances.
“My mother believes that if you have a grill and you have coals, then you can make grill cakes.
“That’s why last week I decided to advertise on social media pages in the Helderberg about my new business and that I am Aunt Poppie Rooseterkoek’s daughter.”
She has now received several orders and is looking forward to getting the business up and running.
“I’m going to learn to crawl before I walk. But I want to create a better life for my children – like my mother did for me,” she says.
She dreams big and still wants to make grilled cakes with her mother in Macassar.
“For the time being, I want to set up a ‘gazebo’ in front of my house, where I can make grilled cakes so that people can see how I make the grilled cakes. I want to work in front of the house where people can see me so people can know about me. My business will be known as Tannie Poppie’s griddle cakes made byAmy. Everyone at Laingsburg at the time got to know me as ‘mad Amy’ because I talked so much!” Q If you want to place orders with Naomi’s new griddle cake business, you can call her on 065 650 9374.
