4 minute read
Baking queen
For Lauren Kitchens, the first seed of what would become a thriving business was a childhood fascination with piping bags used by the pastry chefs on channel 13. Kitchens made a bundt cake for a friend her senior year of high school and immediately connected to the pride of creating something that delighted her friend, even if, by her own admission, the cake wasn’t very good. Throughout college, she continued making cakes.
Kitchens baked all kinds of cakes and handed them out to her classmates. Through word of mouth, she started getting paid to make cakes, even wedding cakes.
After college, Kitchens rented her parents’ kitchen for $200 a month while working part-time at a bakery. Finally, in 2002, Fancy Cakes by Lauren opened its doors, and Kitchens was thrust into the wedding industry.
In 2008, Kitchens was asked to appear on Food Network Challenge, the first televised cake-baking competition. She was reluctant at first, doubting her skills, but she won multiple episodes of the show.
The cakes she made on Food Network Challenge were extravagant and creative. Her most notable one was a replica of all the judges as muppets. Cakes like these changed the demands of “I couldn’t her clients.
During the first decade of her business, groom’s cakes were all chocolate and strawberries, stop making Kitchens says. But now, she creates all kinds of overthe-top, realis tic cakes, everything from dogs to cakes. It’s sports stadiums. “Making these groom’s cakes is the thing that sets me apart,” Kitchens says. She like I was even encourages brides to plan the groom’s cake as a surprise. Her customers include high-pro- bitten.”file clients, like Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton. Their five-tier wedding cake was inspired by the one Stefani’s parents had at their ceremony.
After people began gathering again in 2021, her business
more than doubled. Now, Fancy Cakes has over 1,000 clients a year. 2023 is already being booked, and weddings are getting bigger, she says. “If I was an artist first, I would have caved under that kind of pressure,” she says. While Kitchens has a team of four bakers, it still isn’t enough. She’s had to “It doesn’t turn down clients simply because there’s not enough space or personnel to take matter on more work without sac rificing quali ty. Luckily, an expansion is in the works. the budget. Kitchens has purchased the space next door and will push through the wall to have Everyone’s more kitchen space and add a couple cake decorators. They hope to have the new got a story. ” kitchen run ning by the end of the year. Her favor ite part of the cake-baking experience is conceptual izing the fin ished product with clients. Working with brides isn’t easy, but it is rewarding.
“It’s an emotional purchase. If you’re not tuned in to how much stress the client feels, you’re not going to resonate,” Kitchens says. “If I could just sell and connect with my brides and my vendor teams — that is more fun for me than actually making a cake — and I love making cakes, so that’s saying a lot.”
In the planning process, Kitchens takes inspiration from wedding invitations, the dress and everything else that comes along with couples’ big days. Once, she even replicated the design from a bride’s imported Italian plateware.
Meet Linda Fritschy Interior Design
Interior designer Linda Fritschy says she doesn’t have a “look.” Every day she pushes herself to think outside the box, to come up with unique creative solutions specific to each client’s wishes.
“I listen to clients’ needs and trust my intuition. My interiors are welcoming with a common thread of being artistically edited,” she says. “I am keenly aware the house is not my home and that my clients trusts me to make it their home.”
With her approachable style, homeowners enjoy collaborating with Linda on interior projects.
Best compliment: “A friend once said, ‘When doors open to your clients’ homes, visitors see behind them a reflection of the owner. Not of you.’”
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