Friday, February 29, 2008 8:53 PM CST
Local woman takes the cake with career change
By DAWN SCHABBING, Features Writer
dschabbing@jg-tc.com
Christine Adair is a former dental assistant who in recent years has made a complete turnabout in her career.
It started in about 2000, when Dr. Roger Dettro decided to retire from his dental practice, where Adair had worked for 22 years.
She wanted to find something different to do, and opted out of working for another dentist in a new setting.
You could say her focus changed from caring for other people’s teeth, to giving people something to sink their teeth into.
Her start
Baking cakes has been a hobby for Adair for years. But the hobby has turned into a home-grown business that last year turned out about 100 wedding cakes.
“It is a good business to be in, and there was a need for it when I started. It was good for me because it allowed me to stay at home — for the most part,” she said.
Now, Cakes By Christine is complete with brochures, bridal networking and a Web site, and Adair is a regular attendee of cake decorating conferences and wedding shows promoting her work.
“I started off pretty slow. My husband was pretty skeptical,” she said. She’s married to Andy, assistant chief for the Mattoon Fire Department.
But, leaving the dental field for the kitchen wasn’t really much of major lifestyle change for her. It was more like a way to enhance the skills she already had.
Adair said she’s enjoyed baking and picked up some of the culinary skills from her mother — a farm wife, who cooked and baked three meals a day.
“I’ve always liked to create — and I was into sewing, just like my mom was. So, this form of edible art was just another way I could be creative,” she said.
After baking cakes for close friends and family at first, Adair enrolled in some decorating courses, including one by Wilton, which has a glowing reputation within the baking industry as the best place to learn about decorating cakes, she said.
Now, in addition to decorating cakes for all occasions, Adair also teaches cake decorating classes at Lake Land College in the non-credit curriculum a few times a year.
Her teachings
The classes have proven to be popular and a waiting list currently exists, said Johnna Morecraft, director of Community & Professional Programs at Lake Land College.
So far, Adair has taught basic cake decorating and basic fondant skills.
Anyone interested in taking a cake decorating class with Adair should call 234-5219 to learn more about future offerings.
Adair has been featured in national cake magazines American Cake Decorating and Mailbox News.
In 2002, she was asked to bake and decorate a wedding cake. At that time, it was something she’d never done before. This sparked an interest in wedding cakes and wedding shows, which has allowed her hobby to grow.
“I started shadowing at wedding shows that came up all around us. I became involved in ICES, the International Cake Exploration Societe.”
Adair learned about ICES through a bridal show in Chattanooga, Tenn. The members are willing to share with others, and they have what it takes to be successful.
Members of ICES have perfected the art of cake decorating, she said.
In recent years, more changes have made her baking hobby what it is today.
Television channels such as The Food Network and various Web sites have brought about a lot of interest in more elaborately decorated cakes, too.
Locally, she’s judged 4-H cake decorating contests.
Her cakes
The cakes Adair makes today might sport a top hat, or it might display a slot machine with coins falling out of it. The cake may look like a keg of beer, or be fancy, with some elaborate ribbons flowing from it.
It could be a cake that looks like a church, complete with stained glass, or one that looks like a Tonka truck.
The cake may include some edible ink to display a photo of someone or something.
A couple of special cakes she has made included one when Gov. Rod Blagojevich was first elected and paid a visit to Greenup. Adair made him a cake complete with the State of Illinois seal.
And outgoing president of Eastern Illinois University Lou Hencken was presented a cake shaped like Old Main.
Chances are good that many of her cakes will feature three-dimensional art.
Some wedding cake themes are going with the “less is more” idea, which are simple to decorate, less costly and attractive, she said.
Adair said she enjoys working with fondant, which is rolled icing that you can cover an entire cake with, and making 3-D figurines. She also enjoys the gum paste, which is rolled icing that sets up hard. But, today’s icing of choice is most often butter cream, she said.
Also, there’s the standard sheet cakes that are still wanted by customers.
Cakes are ordered for nearly any occasion: showers, graduations, birthdays, promotions, retirements, anniversaries and weddings.
“My goal is to create the cake of your dreams,” she said. And to help with that, Adair offers several traditional flavors: marble, red velvet, carrot and German chocolate.
She also offers specialty flavors like Italian cream, Kahlua fudge, amaretto butter or fudge, and tropical orange. Or, rich fillings like red raspberry, cherry or lemon can be added.
Now that the wedding industry has changed, a truly unique design may require some sketches to show the customer what the finished product could look like.
Adair said when she married almost 25 years ago, she didn’t have a one-on-one consultation with the cake decorator. She made a phone call and ordered the cake, giving the baker basic information only.
She didn’t even pick out the “topper” for her wedding cake.
“Today’s brides know what they want. And grooms are often a part of planning the wedding and selecting and designing the wedding cake,” she said.
Her local network
Adair is a part of a local network for brides that also involves Lake Land Florals, Victoria’s Bridal Service, J-Wag Photo, all from Mattoon, and The Stockyards catering from Greenup. The businesses are set up to meet clients at Lake Land Florals.
“It’s a nice working relationship and offers kind of a ‘one-stop’ shop for the brides,” she said.
Adair said as the business continues to grow, she counts on help from her family sometimes.
“My husband helps a lot. He makes icing and does a lot of dishes for me,” she said.
She also counts on her children, daughter Bailey and her husband Anthony, and her son, Sam, and his fiancee, Allie, for assistance.
“The fun part is baking and decorating — and the monotonous part is dishwashing and keeping things up throughout the process,” Adair said.
“It’s a hard job, and a very physical job. Sometimes, it involves an 18-hour day.”
Adair said as long as she’s enjoying the work, she plans to continue baking Cakes By Christine.
Contact Dawn Schabbing at dschabbing@jg-tc.com or 238-6864.
Add your comments
Not already registered?
Then click Here.
Comment policy:
JG-TC.com encourages readers to engage in civil conversation with their neighbors. Comments that are submitted are not posted to the site immediately. They go into a queue to be moderated and may take several hours to be reviewed. Comments posted on Saturday may not be reviewed until Sunday afternoon.
In order to keep the page a set width, long lines (mostly long links) will be chopped. Try putting spaces in your links or consider using tinyurl.com to make a smaller link that you can include.
We will never edit or alter your comments, but we do reserve the right to remove comments that violate our code of conduct.
No comment may contain:
* Potentially libelous statements; such as accusing somebody of a crime, defamation of character, or statements that can harm somebody's reputation.
* Obscene, explicit, or racist language.
* Personal attacks, insults, threats, harassment or inciting violence.
* Commercial product promotions.
If you have any questions, please contact our moderator.
|
|
CLICK TO ENLARGE
|
|
|
