The Sugar Cove: Cake Shoe Diaries Welcomes Tara Weissbach

The Sugar Cove is excited to welcome Tara Weissbach from Just Like Grams. Located in Fort St. John, British Columbia, Tara has forged a cake path in which innovativeness and uniqueness of design are her driving force. So get your cake shoes on and get ready to do some serious walkin’, as Tara shares with us what inspired her passion for all things sugar.

I still vividly recall my first cake, I was 5 and one night I wanted to bake a cake. So, my mom showed me "how". She had me open a bo

x of spice cake mix (yes, I even remember the flavour), DUMP the mix into the cake pan, add water and stir with a fork until all the lumps were gone, then bake it in the oven. I was so PROUD...because I baked my first very own cake. At age 7, I received my first Easy Bake oven and was soon baking up a storm and concocting all sorts of recipes. However, it was my grandma who really ignited my passion for baking.

My grandma had grown up baking, from providing huge pans of apple pie for the

thrashers when she was 13, to baking for the neighbour ladies in exchange for money to buy her school supplies. During World War II, she served as a pastry chef in the Royal Canadian Navy. After her children had grown, she worked in a small bakery for 25 years. It was my grandma who taught me how to bake bread the "old-fashion way" using your hands, and how to make jams and jellies and preserve fruits and vegetables. When I opened up my business, I honoured my Gram by naming it after her. Not a day goes by, that we don't talk "shop" on the phone.

While attending university, I worked in lots of different restaurants, from waiting tables to working at the management level. After gradua

ting with a degree in History, I floated from job to job for a period of time, but went back to school to receive my teaching certificate. While I was a teacher on call for 2 years, I volunteered with a caterer working at the Semiahmoo Fish and Game Club in Surrey, BC. In 1998, I married and with my husband moved north to Fort St. John, where we lived in a Mennonite community and I taught foods and nutrition for a year.

It wasn't until my daughter was born that I started to think about the “business” of b

aking. I was home on leave and was thinking of ways to make some extra money. I decided to bake goodies for the teachers. I wasn`t into doing cakes because I didn`t know how to decorate even if I tried...my artistic background was seriously lacking. My husband laughs at me when I try to draw a star freehand - once it literally took me an hour (no joking either).

When I started receiving requests for cakes, I decided to take a class in cake decorating. At first, I was just interested in doing a ba

sic cake, 'nothing too fancy'. However, as I became more involved, I became addicted to it and just couldn't get enough. My artistic side seemed to come out and I ended up spending the whole summer taking courses. By then, I had already lost interest in teaching and was looking for a way out and felt that decorating cakes was just the avenue I needed. Since my husband and I were already in the midst of renovating our home, it wasn't too difficult to make the necessary adjustments and make the addition we were putting onto our house, a "licensed and heath inspected" food establishment. I officially opened up Just Like Gram's in May 2007 - just in time for my first wedding cake.

Up here in northern BC, there are few cake designers and the few there are, mostly focus on the more tradition

al conservative designs. An important factor behind my business was that I offered one-of-a kind custom designed cakes, which is very hard to find up here. I really enjoy creating cake designs that are "outside the box" and one-of-a kind. I love it when I get the occasional bride who walks through my door and wants an unusual design. It so refreshing from the typical traditional cakes that are still far too common here. So I constantly strive to keep up to date on the latest designs and learning the latest techniques.

Since travelling to take classes is very limited at this time, I am a frequent member on several cake forums learning from talented decorators from all over the world, watching numerous cak

e tutorials on the Internet, and purchasing every cake book I can get my hands on. I am also a perfectionist at heart, so if something doesn`t look right, I won`t stop until it`s done properly. My daughter, Elizabeth who is 6, also keeps me on my toes. Even at her age, she knows how to make a fondant rolled rose, hold a piping bag and knows what gumpaste is. She’s also learning how to cover a styrofoam display cake with fondant. Kids are notoriously honest, so I will often turn to her and ask her opinion.

The pitfalls that I’ve encountered thus far, consists of running both my business and my husband's environmental consulting business, raising 2 children and

living on an acreage outside of town. Not only is the summer the "wedding season”, but it is also my busiest season for outside work. Living on an acreage carries with it an immense amount of work - 3 days mowing lawn, upkeep of the garden (yes, we grow a lot of our own fruits and vegetables) and maintaining all the outside buildings (we have a shop, outbuildings and barn with corrals). Since we heat our house with woodstoves, we add the additional job of getting 25-30 truckloads of firewood that have to be split and stacked. My husband also works in the oil patch 24/7 and is often working away from home. Since we have no other family support, it can be challenging. There is always work to be done, with few breaks or days off.

What keeps me motivated is my sheer love of designing cakes. It's my "ME" time, where I can get away and zone out. I love seeing a piece of china or

a fabric swatch and thinking, "That would make a cool cake." and then beginning the challenge of incorporating it into a cake design. I love it when my husband looks at one of my cakes and proudly says, "Wow, that looks amazing". In the end, my greatest motivator is seeing my clients eyes light up with joy or when I hear someone say "I had one of your cakes and it was so amazing" and then I know I’ve done my job.