profiled in Rocktown Weekly

i sort of hinted at this yesterday - i wanted to wait until it came out & i could make sure that it didn't totally embarrass me before i announced it to the world.....it's not even that big of a deal, really - but there's this weekly paper that Harrisonburg puts out called Rocktown Weekly - The Flip Side of Harrisonburg.....they profile a local person every week & chose me for this week's article!

this was on the cover

the journalist emailed me a couple of weeks ago - apparently, her boyfriend had found my site & sent her my way.....we met & she interviewed me for about an hour, she called one of "the cake sisters" (my BEST customer!) to get some feedback from her, and then sent a photographer down to get some pics of me "at work".....the online article doesn't include the pics, but they put my penguin cake in the hard copy


and the photographer took this ever so flattering pic of me decorating my cheeseburger cupcakes


i think it came across pretty well.....the only thing she got wrong was my high school - not sure where she got that from? jennifer & i did cheer together, but at Broadway, not Spotswood??? and she's embarrassing me with that whole "valley ace of cakes" thing ~blushing~

here's the text from the online article....since next week it will no longer be on their site


The Valley’s ‘Ace of Cakes’
By Brooke Bates bbates@dnronline.com

It started with a picture of a fish cake in Nick Jr. magazine almost five years ago.

Now Sharon Skates can’t get the cake smell out of her house.

Though not trained and, technically, not employed in the cake decorating business, her hobby is enough for friends to dub her the Valley version of Food Network’s “Ace of Cakes.”

Constructing a cake
Skates, 28, remembers her mother making creative birthday cakes when she was little, like bunnies with bow ties.

So when her own son, Jaden, was turning 3, Skates saw a fish cake in a Nick Jr. Magazine and decided to try it.

Her first attempt impressed family members so much they started asking for custom cakes for other parties. She started baking for friends, friends of friends and coworkers of those friends.

“Everybody has been through word-of-mouth,” she says. “My ‘customers’ have made it bigger than I thought [it could be].” Booked several months in advance, she usually makes two or three cakes a week, plus the occasional five- to seven-cake weekends.

Most are 3-D birthday cakes, which can take 10 hours each. The process usually spans two nights.

The first is for baking and stirring up icing and fondant — “edible Play-doh” made from marshmallows and sugar that can be sculpted into the chickens or cherries that adorn her cakes.

Day two is when Skates can “bring out my artistic self,” she says. First, she ices the cake with buttercream frosting. Sometimes, smaller cakes take shape as toppers.

She crafts even smaller parts, like a penguin’s head, from Rice Krispie squares and finishes with fondant and icing details.

After investing that much time in a cake, she’s sad to see it go. “I’d rather hand it off and not know what happens,” she says, preferring pre-party delivery to witnessing the slicing of her artwork. “Those kids have no mercy. They dig right in.”

Even adults like Jennifer Dellinger can’t wait to cut into Skates’ masterpieces. The women cheered together at Spotswood High School about 10 years ago, and reunited when Skates made a cake for a woman who worked with Dellinger’s sister two years ago.

“They taste as good as they look,” Dellinger says. “Everything is so detailed; you could just stand and look. But it always gets eaten. … She needs to quit her [day] job.”

That’ll be a while. Skates works at the support desk of a software company in Harrisonburg. Eventually, she wants to move into a shop and make cakes her business.

She has her foot in the door already, selling her cake truffles and cupcakes through The Sweet Escape in Broadway.

“I’m sure I could fill her books up,” Dellinger says. “Everybody wants a Sharon cake!”

Late night baking
Before her brother got married in 2004, Skates’ soon-to-be sister-in-law asked her to expand her birthday cake hobby and make the cake for their big day.

“I was terrified!” Skates says. “I didn’t think I could get it together.”

Instead of paying for the cake itself, Skates’ sister-in-law bought all the necessary supplies, like pans and frosting bags. Having never taken a cake-decorating class, Skates checked out cakecentral.com for some tips and let her artistry guide the rest, covering the cake with royal icing flowers made from beaten egg whites and powdered sugar.

The florist entered the kitchen and said, “Wow, those look like real flowers!” Skates remembers. That’s when she knew she could do it, she says, now wearing a pink-trimmed T-shirt that reads, “Got cake? ’Cause I can hook you up!”

She does most of her work while her kids are in bed, using the late night “me-time” to pray, watch TV or listen to books on tape while she decorates.

“The kids are desensitized,” she says of the constant presence of freshly baked cakes in her kitchen. “They’re so used to it.” Her kids — Jaden, 7, Gabrielle, 5, and Corinn, 4 — want to peek in the box the next morning and see what mommy stayed up making, but the cakes aren’t at risk of being taste-tested.

Her husband has “never been a big cake fan” either, and Skates has made so many that she’s not tempted to dig in mid-decorating.

She’s also used to people asking if her house smells good all the time. “That’s the permanent smell of my house,” she says. “I’m so used to it.”

But her “customers” can’t get enough. Dellinger gets at least 10 cakes from her each year, scheduling a year in advance. Sometimes, she says, she wonders if guests come just to see the cake.

“It’s my special gift,” says Skates, who provides cake at parties “instead of bringing a birthday present. Yeah, it’s gone by the end of the party, but it’s a memorable gift. People still talk about it months later.”

Her kids spend the year between birthdays planning, as well. Jaden, who was recently diagnosed with Aspergers, designs his own birthday cakes, Skates says.

One year he envisioned a dragon-shaped cake breathing a stream of orange icing onto a round cake. Next month, when he turns 8, he’ll blow the candles out on a spaceship with fondant aliens.

The kids put their artistry to work for mommy’s birthday, too. Skates bakes the cake and prepares the decorations, then her husband ices while the kids make fondant figures — anything goes, from snakes to chickens.

Aside from “the best birthday cake ever,” as she calls it, the most rewarding part of her hobby — which she calls both therapy and a creative outlet — is probably best illustrated with a picture on her Web site, www.sharoncakes.com. In the photo, Amelia, the 3-year-old daughter of a client, clasps her small hands over an excited smile, her eyes fixated on a mermaid cake outside of the picture frame. The gleeful look on her face says more than a thank you ever could.

“It’s all what the kid thinks,” Skates says. “When the kid loves it, then I get the [same] reaction out of the parents.”