PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Monday through Friday, Marjorie Millage spends her time as a bus driver at a couple of Portland-area schools. Whenever she isn’t driving, she is working on expanding her business: Marjie Bakes Poundcakes.
Millage has enjoyed baking her whole life, but it was her family who encouraged her to turn her love of desserts into a business of her own. Growing up, she watched her aunt make 7 UP pound cakes until her hands wouldn’t allow her to anymore.
Her aunt passed down her special recipe, but Millage still experienced some trial and error when learning how to bake the cakes herself at the beginning of the pandemic. After several attempts at changing the recipe and making it her own, she found that baking was a form of therapy that could also be an additional source of income.
“I got into them fully three years ago, selling them,” Millage said. “My late brother-in-law inspired me to start selling them to people because they were so tasty… he had more faith in me than I did myself and so did my late brother Keith. So my two biggest supporters pushed me to legalize my business and really start going hard.”