Initially starting her career as a geologist, Cloudy Kitchen founder Erin Clarkson found her love for baking whilst suffering from homesickness.
After moving her life to New York City with her future husband to start a design business, Clarkson longed for nibbles to remind herself of home. Her love for baking grew, and she started to post pictures of the treats online, eventually building up a following of people asking for recipes. With her husband’s help, the Cloudy Kitchen website and her career as a baker was launched.
“I’ve always been really into food and, in particular, baking, so it was a really organic shift for me,” explained Clarkson. “I quickly discovered how much I love developing recipes, and my little passion project turned into my full-time job.”
Unlike other bakers, Clarkson’s most significant focus at Cloudy Kitchen is on technique and weight, creating recipes that only use grams to ensure the most accurate measurement of ingredients. The importance of accurate measurements is accredited to her background in geology and geography, two subjects that appreciate the scientific process.
Clarkson’s advice for her past self was to back herself fully but not to niche down early in her career and instead explore different varieties.
“Sometimes I wish I had branched out more into savoury food,” confessed Clarkson. “At first, I was trying to do ‘different’ versions of things that had already been done, but now I have sort of found my groove and established myself in my little corner of the internet.”
One of the highlights of Erin Clarkson’s career was combatting her homesickness and moving her business back home, even going as far as renovating her home kitchen into her dream space. She inspires her blog readers to branch out and make perfected recipes they wouldn’t usually try through her curated, straightforward recipes.
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