I am the mother of two young children who fill my days with hugs, snuggles, and various cereal products. We've lived in Pleasant Grove for two years and I love the fact that there are fields right across from our building and horses just a short walk away. On the musical side, I play the violin. I am currently taking fiddling lessons and am also a member of the Pleasant Grove Orchestra. My addiction to good books came in handy when I studied English for my B.A. and my M.A. and my husband's talent as a ballroom dancer led me to write a thesis on ballroom dance culture in Utah. I've just started a training program with the hopes of running a 5-K sometime this fall. I never thought I'd be any sort of runner. Finally, I am a dark chocolate person.
Why mini cakes? My mother teaches art classes out of her home in North Carolina and happened to be having classes one week when I was visiting them this past year. Since I had taken some cake decorating classes, she asked me to teach some basic techniques to her students. I knew that I wanted each child to have their own cake to decorate, but time, space, and budget didn't allow for dozens of full-sized cakes. I was standing at her kitchen counter one day mulling this over when I had the miniature cookie cake idea. We could take 4-5 cookies, stack them, fill and frost them with buttercream, and each child would have their own, proportionate, miniature cake. The cakes were a hit with the kids who enjoyed building them and decorating them with simple piping details. The took home miniature cakes and I brought the idea back to Utah, wondering if I could sell these miniature cakes. I decided to just give it a try and that's how Dollhouse Cakes was born.
For full details, you can visit www.dollhousecakes.com . Basically, I make customized miniature cookies cakes. The customer chooses the flavor of the cookies and the flavor of the frosting from my menu of choices and together we design their cakes. I have various levels of decoration to suit different tastes and budgets and you choose the number of cakes you want. One cake makes a sweet treat for one person and a dozen cakes can give each birthday party guest there very own miniature cake. Each slice looks just like a miniature layered cake and the flavor combinations are pretty delicious. They are fun and different way to celebrate any occasion.
As a mother, I've found it important to have some kind of creative outlet that allows me to work and express myself apart from my children. Having various activities like playing the violin and making these cakes refreshes me and reminds me of the person I am outside of my mothering responsibilities. At the same time, I prefer these activities to work around my mommy schedule, not against it. Starting up Dollhouse Cakes has been a blast. Working with my husband to design the website and baking trial cakes was exciting and invigorating. It's fun now to receive actual orders and know that someone out there actual likes the miniature cakes. It's nice, as a mother, to have that concrete validation and I think it's good for my kids to see that life is about taking chances, creating, and trying new things. I guess it's just nice to have something that is completely mine and that gives me a space to be creative. It doesn't hurt that I'm creating with buttercream and cookies that always need taste testing.
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