The Cake Whisperer of the Jersey Shore

AVON-BY-THE-SEA, N.J. - Cristian Rojas' love for baking began when he was a child watching his mom and family members cook in Costa Rica. 

"My mom and my aunts were like home bakers their whole lives," Rojas, 43, said. "I grew up watching them bake, nothing professional but that kind of gave me a start."

When Rojas was 19, the family moved to New Jersey. Rojas wanted to share his love with his new country but there was a problem. He couldn't speak English so he decided to learn on his own.

"What I did was mostly like at the time watching TV," he said. "Back then when the CDs had the booklets? So I was reading lyrics from the CDs and just listen to music."

He quickly grew from there and became known as The Cake Whisperer because of his ability to take custom-designed cakes to another level of imagination and creativity.

His business is based out of Monmouth County at the Jersey Shore.

"I've been very lucky that most of my customers let me do what I really want," Rojas said.

Doing what he wants has now landed Rojas as a contestant on this season of the Food Network's baking competition show "Holiday Wars," which he said is a surreal experience.

"I'm used to doing my own thing and then when you're working with other people, you have to learn to work on a team and then on top of that having like 16 cameras on top you," he said. "It's different."

Regardless of how he does on the show, he hopes his passion will inspire others to find theirs. 

"There's going to be a lot of doors that are going to close. It happened to me, it happens to everybody," Rojas said. "But you keep the hard work — it will take you there."