In the window display at her "cakery" across the
street from campus, Barbara Benedict (Advising Services) showcases
a tiered cake and a variety of wedding accessories.
by Carolyn Skei
The back end of her Cadillac draws plenty of attention - not just because it bears a license plate that reads "B CAKERY," but also because the trunk is fully air-conditioned and often loaded with the tiers of an elaborate wedding cake.
Barbara Benedict of Advising Services laughs when she tells how car repair crews have gawked at the air-conditioning unit in her trunk. She even musters a smile - and admits to a few expletives - when she tells about the time a florist's lattice came tumbling onto the beautiful five-tier cake she had decorated for her niece's wedding.
"I had to apologize to family members at my table for my reaction," she said.
A self-described "type-A personality," Benedict owns and operates Barb's Cakery across the street from the campus while still working full-time for Fresno State as an academic counselor. She is a native Fresnan and holds two degrees from Fresno State -a bachelor's degree in business and a master's degree in counseling.
When she's not teaching University 1 or counseling students with special majors through Academic Enhancement Services, she's operating her business and surviving on about six hours of sleep a night.
Her specialty is cakes for all occasions - "ten flavors of cakes and ten flavors of fillings," she said. Wedding cakes comprise the bulk of her business. The largest ever was a tiered cake for 1,000 people.
"I have two employees [Fresno State students], who do the baking and mix the icing," Benedict said. "I do 99 percent of the decorating myself, working on evenings and weekends."
Her small shop is located in University Plaza at Shaw and Woodrow - so close to her office in Joyal that she's been known to "decorate a cake on my noon hour."
Baking and decorating cakes began as a hobby for Benedict. It was a former university employee - Judy Johnson of Theatre Arts - who involved her in baking for profit.
"Then [Judy] moved to Alaska and I tried working out of my condo. After that, for seven years, I had the bakery concession at Sweet Georgia Brown's," Benedict said. For the last four years she has had her own shop - an undertaking with a $4,000-a-month overhead. Her PG&E bill alone is $700 per month.
The challenges of running a successful cake business range from designing what the customer wants - "frogs, hearts, dalmatians, dolphins" - to transporting the cakes to their destinations. She has topped a groom's cake with a real hard hat - iced and adorned with chocolate hearts. And she's created a slot machine design in shades of chocolate.
This summer she will design the cake for a "Cinderella wedding." Embellishments: $900 in Disney collectibles chosen by the bride and groom.
Benedict has driven prepared cakes to places like San Francisco and once, for a friend, even drove cake supplies to St. Louis. "[With a prepared cake] I drive really carefully," she said. She describes creeping down the long, winding gravel road to Coombs Riverbend Ranch or carrying a cake into the Star Palace. "There's no elevator. Everything is up the staircase," she said.
Her cakes ride one-tier high in a spotless trunk and then are assembled at the site. One of her favorite memories is of bringing in a wedding cake, one tier at a time, and building it while a fascinated child watched.
"With her family enjoying the repeats, she sang 'Happy Birthday' for all of the four tiers," Benedict said with a smile.
One of her biggest challenges is protecting her wedding cakes - which are frosted with a "unique [soft] icing recipe" -- from Fresno's summer weather. It's not uncommon for her to get to a summer wedding and find that the cake table is in the sun or on a simmering asphalt driveway.
But even cake tables in the shade can pose problems. Benedict recalls a wedding at a local ranch. "I had just set up the three-tiered cake when a large piece of curly eucalyptus bark came down from the tree and missed the cake by inches."
What is her most popular cake? "French vanilla, with chocolate a close second," she said. She's also proud of her "wonderful carrot cake from scratch." And then there are cookies, chocolate cheesecake, pumpkin cake rolls with cream cheese filling and other delectables prepared on a seasonal basis.
Benedict has just completed three years as president of the Central Valley Bridal Association and said that most of her customers come to her by way of bridal shows. She participates in six bridal shows a year and will have a dessert table at the Fresno State Viticulture Alumni's "Celebration of Wine" in June. v
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