Pastry chef, entrepreneur, workshop leader, mother of four and owner of the company “Ugly Cake” – Velga Kopce’s everyday life is filled with new ideas and a desire to keep learning. At her social enterprise in Tīnūži Parish, she makes everything from naturally fermented sourdough bread to cakes and other treats, while also creating employment opportunities for people with disabilities. However, the path to entrepreneurship and many of her other bold ideas in the world of pastry began, in part, when Velga decided to return to the classroom as an adult and take advantage of an opportunity to study pastry-making in the adult education programme at Ogre Technical School.
Although her first qualification was in a completely different field, Velga had been interested in pastry-making for a long time. She regularly baked bread, cakes and other treats for her family, but increasingly wanted not only to improve her skills, but also to understand the fundamentals of pastry-making at a professional level.
“Everything I made always tasted really good, but I had to work quite a lot on the appearance. I wanted to achieve that beautiful side of things as well. So, when the opportunity came in 2019 to study pastry-making in the adult education programme at Ogre Technical School, I didn’t think twice and applied,” she recalls.
Velga began her studies with great enthusiasm and curiosity, but life had other plans – at the beginning of 2020, her fourth child was born. Combining caring for a baby with her studies was not easy, so she had to put her studies on hold for a while. Once her daughter had grown a little, Velga returned to what she had started, took her exams together with her coursemates and obtained the pastry chef qualification she had been working towards.
Looking back on this educational experience, Velga emphasises that the theoretical knowledge she gained at Ogre Technical School became a solid foundation for her further development and gave her the confidence to develop her own signature style in pastry-making.
“Now I don’t need to look at recipes. I know the basics – what shortcrust pastry and puff pastry are made of, how everything works – and that is exactly what allows me to create my own recipes. I can proudly say that several of these experiments have also received wider recognition, including gold, silver and bronze awards in the ‘Taste of the Region’ competition. It all comes from the foundation I gained at the technical school,” she says.
At first, Velga baked for her family and friends. Later, she began accepting her first orders and took part in Home Café Days. A major turning point came when she received a large order for a Prayer Breakfast event in Riga, requiring her to prepare 90 loaves of sourdough bread and 45 kilograms of honey cake in a single day. Although she did not yet have professional equipment, she successfully met the challenge. Soon afterwards, a small shop opened in Tīnūži Parish, which gradually grew into the social enterprise “Ugly Cake”, where people with disabilities are now employed.
Interestingly, the social enterprise model was not a carefully planned goal from the outset – it developed quite naturally. Initially, Velga organised free workshops for residents of care homes and worked with specialised workshops in Ogre where people with disabilities are employed. It was during these activities that she made her first contacts, and gradually people themselves began expressing interest in the possibility of working at Velga’s company. Today, day centres and families raising or caring for people with disabilities also approach her about employment opportunities.
For each new employee, she tries to find tasks that best match their abilities and interests because, as she herself points out, the most important thing is to see the person first and only then think about what kind of work they could do.
Today, “Ugly Cake” continues to grow. Its products are available not only at the self-service shop in Tīnūži Parish, but also at several other retail locations. As she develops the business, Velga is constantly looking for new ways to bring her products closer to customers, including through self-service vending machines.
But her biggest dream is even more ambitious – to create an even larger social enterprise, providing more employment opportunities for people with disabilities while demonstrating that, in business too, the most important thing is to recognise the person and their strengths.
Although she has many everyday responsibilities and several years have passed since her first studies at Ogre Technical School, Velga has never stopped learning. This year, she once again expanded her knowledge through Ogre Technical School’s “Preparation of Pastry Products and Desserts” programme, which also gave her the opportunity to take part in an international mobility programme at the Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners (ICIF).
“If I had the opportunity, I would gladly go again. It was a very valuable experience,” she admits.
But pastry-making is far from the only field in which Velga wants to develop herself. She is also learning French, studying to play the violin and cello, teaching German at Ikšķile Free School, leading pastry-making classes for children and organising workshops for adults.
“I love that feeling in my brain – that kind of tingling you get when you are constantly learning something new. It brings me joy,” she says.
That is why Velga also encourages others not to wait for the perfect moment and not to be afraid to return to the classroom.
“Many people think, ‘I’ll study later, when I have more time.’ But that time will never come. If you want to, go and learn. You are doing it for yourself,” she says with conviction.
This story was created with the support of EU Funds.
