Profile: Harry Pantelios, Owner and Head Chef, Ministry of Cakes

“As a teenager, I worked as a waiter at a popular cake store. My love for cakes grew from there and I decided to become a Pastry Chef once I finished high school.
After a few years in the industry, I started Ministry of Cakes which was purely an online business at the time. This year I made the decision to expand the business and open a retail shop front and I’ve never looked back.
Every ingredient in cake making is critical and I only use the finest quality ingredients in all my baking. It makes a huge difference in the taste, texture and end result of the product.
My favourite dish to make with Olive Oil is Baklava. I have so many requests for vegan desserts and I decided to substitute the butter in my recipe to olive oil and the response has been massive.
We also use olive oil in a lot of our traditional Greek biscuits, as olive oil is the preferred oil to use in the Mediterranean. I’d say we would go through approximately 4L of Olive Oil in our shop per week.
Funny enough – my wife uses olive oil in her hair as a great leave-in treatment and my mum also uses it as a polisher for wooden furniture!”
Keep up the great work Harry! @ministryofcakes