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By Susan Shinn
Salisbury Post
ALBEMARLE -- When you see Jeanne Williamson's cakes, you're likely to utter three words:
"Oh my goodness!"
And smile.
That's exactly the reaction Williamson loves to see.
Williamson has been decorating cakes since she was 9. Now 40, Williamson has been working at the Albemarle Sweet Shop for about a year and a half.
It's the perfect job for her.
The folks at Wilton think she does a great job, too.
Williamson was recently named grand prize winner in the company's "Your Take on Cake" national contest.
Williamson gets her ideas from many different places. Once, she even made a lamp cake, just because someone gave her that challenge.
She's always up for a challenge when it comes to cakes. A customer asked for a cake to complement her Winnie the Pooh baby shower theme. Because Pooh is a copyrighted character, Williamson came up with a beehive cake.
The Wilton contest had several different categories: weddings, birthdays, holidays, miscellaneous, showers. She decided to enter this particular contest, she said, because she thought her entry would stand out.
Williamson chose the shower theme and decided to do a "classic" diaper bag -- you know, the kind that actually looks like a diaper bag instead of a designer tote.
Her cake looks exactly like a diaper bag. She actually made two cakes -- one that she photographed for the contest, another that's in the case at the bakery.
The bag and the diapers sticking out from the top are made of cake. The bottle and rattle are made of molded sugar. The diaper cream, baby powder and teething ring are made from fondant, with the pins made from royal icing. The rubber stamps on the bag depicting ducks and bottles were put on with edible marker, then painted with color diluted with lemon extract.
In all, Williamson put about six hours of decorating into the cake.
The cake is impressive -- so much so that if you went into the shop and didn't know it was a cake, you'd think, "Hey, what's that diaper bag doing in the case?"
Williamson was so amazed that she'd won that she couldn't even answer any questions when the public relations representative called.
"Oh my God! This is awesome!" was the only thing she could say.
Growing up as one of eight children, Williamson learned to cook, along with her other siblings. After she got married, decorating cakes was a creative outlet for her.
As a clerk at the bakery, Williamson bakes cookies, fills cream horns and fruit bars and decorates clown cookies, a bakery speciality since it opened in 1915.
If there's an unusual order for a cake, Williamson gets the assignment.
She's made, for example, a Playstation groom's cake, a picnic basket cake and cakes topped with spun-sugar flowers so realistic you want to smell them, not eat them.
"Food makes people smile," says Williamson, as she makes orange roses out of icing. "But a cake makes a party."
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Contact Susan Shinn at 704-797-4289 or sshinn@salisburypost.com. | 
