A Pennsauken woman was a successful financial business executive who had been named by a local magazine as one of South Jersey's up and coming women when it all came to a sudden halt.

Shortly after the coronavirus pandemic arrived in 2020, Joccola Thomas' job as a finance banker and vice president of business development for a credit union was abolished along with the department she headed, leaving her in a quandary about her future.

Luckily, she had developed an online bakery she called Kreamies LLC  as a side hustle the year before, selling her homemade pastries via Facebook from her Pennsauken home and renting commercial kitchen space in Cherry Hill for baking.

Instead of job hunting in her field, she decided to abandon her career in finance after more than two decades and expand her love of baking by opening a Kreamies bake shop in a Bellmawr shopping center — all in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We are a boutique bakery with specialty cupcakes, cakes and other delectable treats, focusing on flavor and sheer yumminess and made with love,” said the 48-year-old Thomas, who was known to family, friends and some long-term customers as the "banking baker."

Thomas was raised in Camden, where she once dabbled in making soul food and desserts for about a year at a pop-up cafe she started on the city waterfront.

She was willing to risk opening a bakery because her online business was booming.

"I decided to leave the finance industry after 20 something years and here I am less than three years later with a brick-and-mortar location. It's all been a dream like a gift from God.”

 The reason for her bakery name is a simple one.

“I love cream inside of anything. All of my products have some kind of creamy filling and my butter cream frostings taste more like ice cream than the typical butter cream."

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Her cakes and cupcakes are filled with her signature cream fillings and soft, whipped frostings, setting her sweets apart from many at other bakeries.

She also offers unique creations like her dessert cones rolled in a crumble and her Dessert Jarz, Mason-like glass jars filled with layers of cake, creams and fillings such as fruit, cookies and cream. The "jarz'' are similar to a layered English trifle.

How do you eat the swirled creations? Hold the glass handle and scoop out its soft contents with a spoon.

Thomas also has maple-bacon cupcakes, pound cake (including sugar-free), rum cake, a cobbler-turnover combo, cakes with banana pudding and more.

She caters and makes wedding and other party cakes, bakes just about anything a customer wants to order and posts daily and weekly specials on her Facebook page.

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When she bakes her maple-bacon cupcakes, the aroma lingers in the shop at the corner of Browning and Bell for the rest of the day. Those cupcakes come in chocolate or yellow cake with a salted caramel drizzle over fried bacon atop a mountain of maple-infused frosting and a cheesecake filling.

Thomas said she was confident she could make a go of online baking after her son's community basketball team raved about the cupcakes she brought them and her friends and family members have long encouraged her after tasting her baked goods.

“When I first went online in the summer of 2019, I only had five flavors of cupcakes and by Fridays each week I had orders for 300 cupcakes,'' which she would make on Saturdays, she recalled of her first venture into commercial baking three years ago.

She also was encouraged by her father James "Jimmy" Williams. Her dad was a bass guitarist who played for 40 years with the long-enduring O' Jays, a rhythm-and-blues singing group with multiple gold and platinum records like their signature song,  "Love Train," and others including "Backstabbers."

The group became a leading influence in the Philadelphia soul music movement in the late 1960s and 1970s.

"My dad supported my effort and was proud of the growth of my business, and the creativity he saw right  up until he died last year,' his daughter said, adding that his favorite dessert was her banana pudding she now uses in cakes.

His advice to her? "Study your craft, perfect it and let God do the rest," which is exactly what she has done with her pastry creations. 

Many of her customers so enjoy getting "Kreamed," they come back for more.

Lovell Bassett of Atco, a customer since May of last year, is wowed by Kreamies.

"I was told about it by mutual friends and first ordered her pound cake, rum cake and lollipop cakes online for my son's 21st birthday party. She gave me baked goods like no other and they were the highlight of his celebration,"

Newer customer Rico Gonzales, who works for Bellmawr borough, said he is super impressed with both the owner and her bevy of hand-crafted treats, and spreads the word to friends and co-workers.

"Her Mason (cake) jars are so addictive and I Iove all the flavors, but the cookies and cream are to die for! And her cupcakes are not the plain Jane ones but gourmet with different flavors and fillings like pineapple," said Gonzales, who has become an almost daily customer since the grand opening last month.

He said he has never known a bakery owner who is as genuine as Thomas, calling her "a people person who welcomes you like family" and easily strikes up conversation.

"She has shared her story on the bakery wall about the empowerment of women, and she is very inspiring as an African-American woman and has an amazing story."

Go: Kreamies, 367 W. Browning Road, Bellmawr. 865 308-1375. Visit Kreamies at facebook.com/kreamies

Carol Comegno loves telling stories about South Jersey life, history and military veterans for the Courier Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal. If you have a story to share, call her at 856-486-2473 or email  ccomegno@gannettnj.com.

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