Everyone loves eating different types of cakes and IB senior Mia Rathjens is best known for baking them! From Iron Man cakes to nutella cakes, Rathjens bakes it all! However, this talent didn’t just appear one day. She began to bake as a freshman, deciding that she wanted to give her friends something more meaningful than just store-bought gifts.

“I thought the gifts to my friends could be improved by baking them special cakes representing the personal relationship we have with one another,” Rathjens said.

Many people wonder how Mia Rathjens learned to make such yummy cakes. Surprisingly, Rathjens taught herself using YouTube videos.

“I started by baking regular circle cakes and frosting them with a simple ‘Happy Birthday’. Luckily, I learned how to use fondant on YouTube to make my cakes look much nicer,” Rathjens said.

Inspired by what she saw on the hit TV series Cake Boss, the first cake Mia Rathjens ever made was for her best friend Crystal Dingle. This “simple rectangular cake”, as Rathjens put it, was the start of this baking obsession. Eventually, she began selling her cakes and creating her own business. The first cake she sold was shaped like one of the rifles from color guard! Rathjens has made several amazingly shaped cakes, but when asked which cake was the hardest to bake, her answer is very specific; she reports it as the Iron Man cake baked especially for her friend Karina.

“The [Iron Man] cake was the most time consuming because I had a specific vision for it and it had to be perfect,” she said.

Although Mia is a passionate baker, her baking masterpieces aren’t the only things that define her. One of Mia’s other hobbies is playing volleyball, which she began in sixth grade. She then coached others on Key Biscayne as a freshman. Her love for volleyball extends all the way to our own Gables court, where she has played for three years. At Gables, Rathjens is very involved; she is an avid member of the Support Our Sports (SOS) Club. Apart from school, Mia Rathjens has been on four mission trips to Puerto Rico, Peru, and twice to Haiti. She only speaks fondly of these trips.

“Being a missionary is one of the best experiences I’ve ever had and I’m hoping to continue it in the future,” Rathjens said.

Dedicated student, active missionary, and master chef, Mia Rathjens is a well-rounded student and a great friend.  Rathjens’s delicious and beautiful cakes have created quite the buzz throughout Gables and her caring heart is what started it all. Perhaps one day we will personally see Mia Rathjens spreading her love for baking and lending a helping hand on her mission trips.

If you would like to see any of her masterpieces with your own eyes, follow Mia Rathjens’s business page on Instagram with the username: miascakes.