Mingo woman running cake business out of her home

MINGO — Meet Katie Smith, the stay-at-home Mingo mom turned cake designer via her business — Cakesmith.

Smith has been operating Cakesmith out of her Mingo home since 2008, creating and decorating designer cakes for weddings and other special occasions. She first got the urge to start professionally decorating cakes in 2007 and took classes at Michaels in Ankeny. Smith did so well in those classes that the instructor actually asked her to teach one of the sessions of the class.

Gaining confidence in her skill, Smith began experimenting with recipes and decorating for special occasions. Before long, friends and family were suggesting that she start selling her cakes. So she did, starting out with cakes for birthdays and special occasions for people she knew. Word of mouth brought her more customers until finally she was hired to make the holy grail of designer cakes — a wedding cake.

“The first wedding cake, I was so nervous,” Smith said. “Once I delivered it and stacked it and stood back and looked at it I was like ‘oh, I am in love, give me more. I pulled this off I can do this again.’ I don’t know why I was so nervous.”

Smith had caught the itch for making the decadent, beautiful cakes typical of weddings, so she sought to expand her business. She attended a Hy-Vee wedding show and met Colleen Kelly-Powell from Star 102.5, who promptly asked Smith to make her a wedding cake. As part of the deal, Smith got to appear on the Star 102.5 on St. Patrick’s Day in 2010. With the extra exposure from being on the program, Smith’s Cakesmith business exploded after that.

For Smith, making wedding cakes is a labor of love. She makes most wedding cakes over a period of three days just before the event, though she’s not certain how many hours go into it. It’s hard to keep track of time when you’re enjoying what you’re doing.

Smith loves the challenge of baking and figuring out a killer recipe.

“I also love the challenge of having someone give me a picture and then trying to replicate the cake,” she said. “I get that a lot. I love it.”

As far as having a favorite cake, Smith has made several of which she’s particularly proud, like one where she crafted delicate flowers as decorations, or another time she tried to duplicate a complicated design on a cake for a tattoo artist. It’s not always easy to pipe in swirled lines in buttercream frosting.

“Most people wouldn’t see my flaws, but with room full of tattoo artists I was like ‘They do this on skin, they will notice!” she said, covering her face in mock embarrassment. “But it turned out almost perfect, so I was really proud of that cake, too.”

She’s had only two horror stories to date and even those turned out all right in the end.

“So far the biggest disaster was just that I didn’t refrigerate some cupcakes before I got to a wedding ... and it must have been hot in the car because in two of the chocolate cupcakes’ boxes the chocolate frosting just slid right off,” she said. “But I had enough extra frosting to just re-pipe them before we set them up. But it was definitely like a gut-wrenching ‘oh my God’ moment.”

Looking to hire Smith? Plan ahead. She typically meets with couples six months to a year ahead of their wedding for taste-testing and to share ideas, but she can work with someone even as close as a month out if she’s not already booked. She recommends that newly-engaged couples absolutely plan to do a taste-testing with whoever they choose to make their cake to ensure they don’t just get something that only looks good, but that tastes good, too.

“I don’t freeze my cake. I make them all fresh with real yummy ingredients. Lots of butter — real butter,” Smith said. “I just think if you’re going to spend the money, it should taste as good as it looks. There’s a lot of options.”

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Check out Cakesmith online at www.cakesmith.us

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Andy Karr can be contacted at 792-3121 ext. 434 or via e-mail at akarr@newtondailynews.com.