South Shore cookie decorator finds sweet success on YouTube

This story is part of CBC Homerun'sseries onMontrealers who have made it big on YouTube.

The first time Marlyn Birmingham posted a video onYouTube six years ago, she didn't even tell her husband.

"Who starts a YouTube channel at age 35 when they have never done anything like that before? It was weird," said Birmingham.

Now, her YouTube channel, Montreal Confections, has just over 95,000 subscribers and she says her husband brags about her work at business meetings.

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Through Montreal Confections, Birmingham teaches people how to decorate cakes and cookies. She describes her channel as educational because the videos, all close-up shots of her hands, show her designing the frosting, step-by-step.

"I try to break it down so they can walk away and do it themselves," said Birmingham.

Before she started her channel, Birmingham had little baking experience. She first got interested in cake and cookie decorating when she began planning her children's birthday parties and realized how expensive it can be to order a cake on top of everything else.

"I thought, I'll give it a go myself. I'm going to try it," said Birmingham. " And I just had a knack for it."

Birmingham slowly gathered an audience by posting photos of her finished cookies online, and got the idea to make videos after people began asking her how she had made them.

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For Montreal Confections, it's not about the baking process but about the finished, artistic product.

"If you're making a chocolate cake with frosting, it's delicious and your kids will be thrilled, but this is about esthetics," said Birmingham. "It's Pinterest worthy. It's stuff that takes good photos."

Her most watched videos of a Gingerbread House and a Barbie cake have more than a million views.

She says she stays current by designing cookies around the latest movie releases and cartoon characters, like Frozen and Angry Birds. She also started an undecorated series, where she uses coloured cookie dough instead of icing.

As for what the future holds, Birmingham isn't sure. She doesn't expect to become a YouTube sensation but is enjoying making extra income for her family and is having fun.

"I'm happy with where I am and with how it's gone for me."