Cakes - Cutting it close
Misty Woodten keeps late hours in the bake shop, often working all night to fill orders for Sweet Art Wedding Cakes.
It's not that she's slow — or overextended. It's a matter of kitchen availability — and family priorities.
By day, Woodten, 29, home schools her children, ages 3, 5 and 7. By night, she whips up dreamy bridal cakes in space rented from Sweeter Side Bakery in Lincoln, where she lives.
Woodten, a mostly self-taught cake decorator, loves experimenting with new techniques. “I buy every book I can find,” she says. “If I see it in a magazine, I want to know how they did it.”
Custom creations often employ a design element from here, an icing flourish from there.
In business for five years, Woodten typically reserves two or three nights a week for baking. The pace — and hours in the bake shop — pick up in May, August and October.
She doesn't know how many cakes she bakes and decorates a year. “I just get through the week,” she says. “The average is probably four a week.''
Woodten arrives at the bakery between 5:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. and spends a minimum of three hours baking and mixing icings and fillings.
“Some Friday evenings, I can be there pretty late,” she says. “I have to be out by 5 a.m. There have been a few times when I've cut it close.”
Taste-testing of new recipes falls first to husband David, then to church and youth groups.
“We always have some way to serve the leftovers” and solicit opinions about recipes, Woodten says. “I swear I did a dozen recipes for strawberry shortcake before I got the right one.
'' Fillings are a hallmark of Sweet Art Wedding Cakes. Woodten's favorite combination is raspberry or strawberry filling with French vanilla cake and Italian meringue butter cream icing.
The trend, the cake artist says, is toward simple cakes with fabric ribbons, dots or swirls, and fresh flowers. Several brides have asked for lacestyle icing.
Another hit this season: An ivory cake with fondant diamonds sprayed with pearl dust. “I get to make that one four times this year.”
The best compliment, she says, is when a bride proclaims a cake “more beautiful than imagined.”
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