Keijuane Hester launched his baking business in the kitchen of his townhouse with a hand mixer, a Bundt pan and the cake-making skills he learned in prison.

He carried bins full of carrot cake slices into barbershops, beauty parlors and nail salons, selling the desserts and passing out business cards, all the while using the business savvy he’d learned dealing drugs on the streets.

“I turned it into a positive way of hustling,” he said. “I just switched products.”

After more than eight years of growing his business, Hester has opened Favor Desserts Bakery and Coffee Shop at 5607 N.C. 55. The shop will have a grand opening celebration April 21.

He has two goals: to sell cakes and to serve as an example for men who are incarcerated.

“God blessed me with the gift of baking while I was in prison,” Hester said. “It has allowed me to be a testimony to other people.”

Hester served four years in prison and learned the art of baking at a prison camp at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro. His mentor, a fellow inmate, made him a believer with a carrot cake recipe Hester still uses.

“It tasted so good they had to lock it up in the fridge to keep it from the bakers,” he said.

After his release in 1999 Hester began working at Triangle Laboratories, where his co-workers would request cakes. After being laid off he began baking in his townhouse and working at George’s Garage restaurant and Blue Mountain Catering.

In 2004 Hester decided to focus solely on his business. The next year, when he and his wife, Pamela, bought a house in Durham he gained space and equipment. Eventually the operation spilled over into their garage, and Hester was filling 300 cake orders on holidays.

He practiced patience over the years and saved enough money to open Favor Desserts without debt in February. Now instead of delivering everything, customers come to him to pick up orders, including wedding cakes. There have been as many as 100 walk-ins each day, Hester said. The bakery sells cupcakes, cake by the slice and coffee.

He sometimes sleeps only four hours a night, but Hester says he thrives on the rush of meeting orders and expanding his business – all the while asking himself “Who can I touch with my story?”

Hester is hiring other ex-offenders, who often have trouble getting jobs. In March he spoke to hundreds of inmates at Harnett Correctional Institution in Lillington.

“Get a plan together so when you get out you can be successful,” he told the crowd.

Hester believes that prison can be the best thing to happen to a person. “I found myself thinking ‘How did I get here?’ It was a reality check.”

After realizing baking was his passion, Hester never gave up his dream of owning a bakery, and now he’s making a name for himself, he said.

“Sara Lee don’t got nothin’ on me.”