Photo by Adam Vogler
Marty Puckett owner of Marty's Sweet Dreams Cakes, 5 East Seventh Ave.
Marty Puckett specializes in “yummy.”
Puckett, of Emporia, puts her yummy specialization to good use with the opening of Marty’s Sweet Dreams Cakes, 5 E. Seventh Ave. Puckett opened her store about two weeks ago after her cake business outgrew her home. She rented licensed kitchens in town to make her cakes and decided it was time to find a home for her business. She chose downtown Emporia.
“I’m really happy to be close to downtown,” she said. “I just love downtown. I’m trying to add to the charm.”
Puckett makes all kinds of cakes, from wedding to custom and everything in between, she said. Among her list of cakes are sheet cakes, double layer cakes, theme-shaped cakes, gourmet cakes, wedding cakes, custom tier and wedding cakes and signature wedding and gourmet cakes. Altogether she has more than 30 choices of cake with more than 10 types of frostings.
“I do everything unless it blows up or moves,” Puckett said with a laugh. “I’m pretty unlimited unless it’s a cake in motion. That might take a lot more planning.”
Puckett said she got into cake baking and decorating when she was young.
“I was the kid that was always staring at wedding cakes and wondering how they did that,” she said.
Puckett has two kids of her own: Ruth, 8, and Julia, 3.
“They think they should get a cupcake every day after school,” Puckett said with a smile.
She is a lifelong Emporian except for the time she spent living in Chicago, and she now lives in Emporia in the same house her family has been living in for five generations.
“I love Emporia,” she said. “I’ve traveled to other places but I’ve always come home.”
Puckett’s grandmother decorated wedding cakes as well. She also took some classes while she lived in Chicago to become a Wilton Decorator.
“And lots of practice working on techniques,” Puckett added while she worked on putting the finishing touches on a cake Tuesday morning. “Few things are as easy as they look.”
Puckett said there’s a lot more to cake decorating than just the cake.
“Usually when you decorate the cake, people think you do the cake (only),” she said. “I try to make it an art.”
To stay up-to-date on local trends, Puckett gets Martha Stewart wedding cakes magazines, Wilton Decorator cakes magazines and she keeps up on other publications.
“Everybody wants it a little different,” Puckett said.
Puckett’s favorite type of cake is the gilded mocha cake.
“It’s so pretty with the ganache on top and 24k (edible) gold dust on top,” she said. “It’s probably the most popular gourmet cake I’ve ever had.”
The most challenging types of cakes are multi-tiered cakes, Puckett said, adding that wedding cakes are usually extremely detailed. Sometimes the cakes take on a life of their own.
“You just learn a lot and accept it,” Puckett said. “Everything is what it’s going to be and it’s going to be its own art.”
Quality is a top priority, she said. She uses only the finest ingredients she can get her hands on, such as pure cane sugar. She bakes her cakes as close to the delivery time as possible.
“I don’t like dry cakes,” she said. “I don’t like crunchy frosting. You should never crunch into frosting unless there’s nuts in it.”
One of the most unique and time consuming jobs Puckett has done was a baby shower. She made a series of cupcakes that had an edible baby figurine on top. Each figurine had hair and a blanket. It took about 20 minutes per cupcake.
“That one was complicated because there was so much detail,” Puckett said.
One of Puckett’s mottos is to make things “just so” and just how the customers envision it.
“I can make it just so,” she said. “Most people today don’t have the time or knowledge. Think of how much time our (grandparents) spent making it ‘just so.’ I’m the just so.”
For customers wanting to sample some of Puckett’s work, she keeps a fresh supply of cupcakes in her store for customers to buy. She makes several kinds, from mocha to German chocolate.
Comments
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Posted by Emporiafan (anonymous) on October 15, 2008 at 3:04 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Good for you!! Good luck!
Posted by create (anonymous) on October 15, 2008 at 3:27 p.m. (Suggest removal)
mmmmmm, cupcakes! 5 East Seventh Ave. here I come.
Posted by 93shocarguy (anonymous) on October 15, 2008 at 3:58 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Marty did our wedding cake on 7/7/07. She did an AWESOME job and had the most reasonable prices of anyone in the Emporia area.
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