Cakes, cakes, and more cakes!

Cake decorating has been a family interest for as long as I can remember. My mom, who loved to cook, began copying cake ideas from magazine articles she carefully clipped and saved. One of her first real attempts at cake decorating was to make a cute little train for my younger brother.

Over the years, her interest in cake decorating became a driving force in her life. When I was 12, she and my aunt opened a little shop in Southwest Denver called Custom Cake Supplies. The store eventually expanded to include a classroom where they taught many students to share in their love for the craft.

During the 1970's, my mom, my aunt, and a few other Denver-area cake decorators started the Mile High Cake Decorator's Club. The club sponsored and judged several contests over the years. My siblings, my cousins, and I used to tag along with our mothers and judge the cakes ourselves, filling out judging sheets in their footsteps. We soon became "experts" on string work, gum paste, and other decorating techniques.

As we grew older, our parents left the cake decorating business behind. The shop closed, the club was turned over to younger blood, and my mom and aunt had grown weary of the stress involved in delivering wedding cakes over bumpy roads. But even though they were officially "out of" the cake business, cake decorating still held our interest, an interest that we eventually passed on to our own children.

Over the years, I did my best to make interesting cakes for my kids' birthdays. I never had the training that my mom and aunt had, but some of their talent managed to trickle down. I loved designing cakes for the kids and then trying to figure out how to bring my ideas to life. Sometimes I had great success, and other times, embarrassing disasters.

Once in awhile, someone other than a family member needed a cake and, occasionally, I even managed to earn a few extra dollars! In the last couple of years, my girls have started to join in my cake adventures. They even ran their own little cake decorating business for a year (until the stress finally got to them as well).

But economic stress is equal to or greater than the stress of decorating a few cakes and so I've decided to get back into the business on a limited basis. Under my internet pseudonym, Pastazia, I am now taking cake orders again. Pastazia's Cakery is now open and ready for business! I don't know how successful this endeavor will be, but I want to keep it manageable, and most of all, I want to keep it fun! I'm looking forward to the excitement of taking customers' ideas and turning them into reality.