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An added touch is Patt's talent for molding sugar icing called fondant, whhich has a play-dough-like consistency and is colored and used to garnish cakes. from this she makes, for example, edible, orange-colored crabs that garnish a cake in the shape of a wooden basket like the ones Maryland watermen use to haul in their catch.
"I'm one of a few people in the area to do specialty work," said Patt, whose talent and professional training helped land her jobs in baking departments in some of the leading hospitality kitchens. She worked at the Hyatt Regency in Baltimore and Marriott in Annapolis. She was in on the ground floor at Classic Cakes, a bakery that opened some five years ago in Salisbury, specializing in the multi-layer Smith Island cake, Maryland's official dessert.
"I wanted to expand, to do more than bake Smith Island cakes," Patt said.
"Look at the work," she said, pointing to her catalogued creations. "It speaks for itself."
Determined to earn a degree in baking and pastry, Patt set out for the East Coast from her home state of California, graduating from the Baltimore Culinary College in Baltimore in the late 1980s. She moved to the Eastern Shore, where before her five years at Classic Cakes, she was pastry chef at Salisbury University, "where most things were made from scratch."
It also is where she met her husband, Gerry, a former chef in SU dining services. She also did a stint at Waterloo, the elegant bed and breakfast in the Somerset County town of Mount Vernon.
The eldest of four siblings -- she has two brothers and a sister -- Patt learned to bake from her mother, who would make cakes for special occasions at church or for friends.
"I baked my first wedding cake when I was 14; it was for friends at church," she recalled. "It was white, with blue flowers. It was three tiers, with pillars between the tiers. Roses were blue -- it was in the '80s."
Family outings to a California amusement park came with the big thrill of visiting the Knotts Berry Farm next door. "Next to the amusement park, I would window watch, watch them decorate cakes," Patt recalled.
Her artistry captures themes Alice in Wonderland, Barbie and other characters, the beach -- flip flops nestled on a bed of graham crackers instead of sand -- designer hand bags, a pregnant belly.
Prices vary according to size or servings and shape, with a $75 flip flops cake to a $125 Louis Vuitton handbag edible treat. the crab basket cake garnished with fondant-made crabs, $500 with servings for 100. Cupcakes are $2.50.
Launching the bakery in an economic slump time is no major concern, since Patt believes the quality of work and service will build the business.
"I'll be successful because I spend time with customers," she says. "I make everything here, opposed to pulling ingredients out of the freezer; it's a good product."
Cake shop to open in downtown Salisbury
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