photo by Hannah Reel

Right, Brittany Boren, 11, awaits orders from her mother Veronica while helping her make birthday cakes for a client Saturday morning at their home on Apple Street in Vidalia. Veronica has been taking orders for holiday cakes since she was 14, and Brittany has been helping her ever since she can remember.

Baking sweet treats satisfies Vidalia family

By Emily Ham (Contact) | The Natchez Democrat

Published Monday, November 23, 2009

VIDALIA — For many people, weekends are a time to put aside the stress of the week and enjoy the sweet taste of relaxation.

But when The Dart found the Boren family Saturday morning at their Apple Street house in Vidalia, there was another sweet taste to be found — cake.

Veronica Boren, her daughter Brittany, 11, and their next-door neighbor Madison Harveston, 10, were busy making three cakes for a birthday party across town, and they were working on a deadline.

Boren, a real estate agent by workday, cake aficionado by weekend, has been baking cakes since she was 15 years old.

But other than bake them, cakes have been off limits since she was a child.

“I’ve been diabetic since I was 8 years old,” Boren said. “When you cook something it’s not as appealing, so I was delegated to make the deserts for family functions.”

Boren, whose taken one cake decorating class since she started making cakes, said she’s learned most of her decorating and baking secrets from trial and error.

“The only secret to baking is to measure precisely,” Boren said.

Boren said it was her mother who handed over cake-baking responsibilities to her at an early age, and, in turn, she introduced her daughter, Brittany, to the art early in life, as well.

“I have a picture of her in my lap as an infant sitting right here at this counter when she was six months old,” Boren said.

“I don’t eat cake unless it’s my momma’s,” Brittany said. “I’ll probably be a cake maker when I grow up.

“If (mom) has any cake mix left over, I get to make my own in a little pan and decorate it,” Brittany said.

Boren said cake baking is now a family affair.

“My husband is a great cake baker, but he would not want word of that to get around,” Boren said.

Boren said she’s dedicated many weekends to her craft.

“Every Friday night, I would be up all night long baking,” she said. “I quit for a while. It makes quite a mess.”

Now, Boren is back in the kitchen creating cakes and making $25 for each handcrafted, edible work of art.

“I don’t get stressed (making cakes.) It’s a bit of an ego boost for me. I’m a little bit of a perfectionist.”

“I work in real estate, which is a very structured, regimented job, and I also work in Ferriday at a hardware store, which is also structured and regimented and this is a creative outlet for me.”