Career Conversations: 'How I turned my baking hobby into a job'

Benjamina Ebuehi says for a long time, she never saw baking as a career. "I didn't want to work in a restaurant kitchen or run a bakery," she says. "And I didn't really know what else I could do with it."

So she carried on with her degree in Economics at the University of Leicester, and kept baking for friends at the weekends.

But that all changed, when she appeared on The Great British Bake Off in 2016.

In this episode of the Career Conversations series, Benjamina tells us all about her time on the show: "As a watcher, it does look like a lot of fun.. but being in the show is definitely more intense than I was expecting.

"You're practicing at home all the time, every single day... it was tough but really enjoyable."

And being on Bake Off wasn't her only career-defining moment. Benjamina says one day she was making a cake for a food video, when she met a food stylist - and that sparked something in her.

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Find out how she was turned on to being a food stylist, how hard she had to work to get her foot in the door, and how her economics degree still stands her in good stead to this day.

Benjamina Ebuehi, Food Stylist, Recipe Writer, Baker

Benjamina is a baker, food stylist and recipe writer. Born and raised in south London, she has always had a love for food and being creative in the kitchen, and quickly became the person who made all the birthday cakes and desserts for friends and family.  

Benjamina was a contestant on The Great British Bake Off in 2016, finishing as a quarter finalist. 

Since then, she has gone on to work full time within food, publishing her first cookbook, The New Way to Cake, in 2019, writing a bi-weekly baking column in Guardian Feast magazine, food styling and developing recipes and social media content for numerous brands.

She is an ambassador for Luminary Bakery and is co-founder of The Sister Table.