Robin McClain has been baking since she was 10 years old and drawing since she could hold a pencil. But when she was asked by a friend to try a 12-week cake-decorating class more than 20 years ago, she was reluctant.
‘‘Initially, I didn’t want to do it because I was an at-home mom,” said McClain, who at the time was caring for her 3-year-old son, Nathan.
Still, McClain and her friend made the 45-minute commute from her home in Gastonia, N.C. to Kings Mountain, N.C., to take the class.
Three weeks into the course, however, her friend became pregnant and the smell of frosting made her nauseous. While her friend had to stop coming, McClain decided to stick with it but not long enough to earn her certificate. When her father-in-law was hospitalized after suffering a stroke, the family moved to Cheverly to be closer to him.
Although she never earned a certificate, McClain’s ideas for cake making and decorations took off full-time, and her business began to expand. In 1987, she officially began Sweet Bobbies Cake Creations, working out of her home kitchen.
McClain takes suggestions from her clients about what they want their cakes to look like. The requests are far from generic. Whether it is a racing car, roller skates, a ladybug for a child’s first birthday, or pink and white booties for a baby’s christening, the cakes should tell stories about what is going on in the customer’s life, McClain said.
Clients who want portraits of themselves or friends and family on a cake send their photographs to McClain, who makes a photocopy, draws a stencil and puts the image in a projector that displays it over a blank cake. Then McClain uses an electric airbrush with edible ink to create her designs.
She said it takes between an hour and an hour-and-a-half to make a 50-serving cake depending on the intricacy of the designs. She decorates as many as 15 cakes a week, charging between $1.90 and $4.25 a serving, depending on whether the cake is for a birthday or a wedding.
During the wedding season, she is busy decorating cakes for about three weddings on weekends or as many as three weddings in one day.
But there is no hint of high-tech cooking equipment or ovens with all the modern touches. McClain bakes all of her low-fat and low-cholesterol cakes in a single 30-year-old Montgomery Ward oven and uses 20-year-old cake pans. She even makes vegetarian cakes using carrot and sweet potatoes.
Both the oven and the pans — thoroughly cleaned with castile soap — are spotless.
McClain gave her son Nathan, now 28, and daughter Natalie, a student at Morgan State University in Baltimore, an allowance only for washing the cake pans.
She said she constantly looked over their shoulders to see just how hard they scrubbed.
‘‘You have to stand there with them because they’ll try to get away with whatever they can,” McClain said, with a chuckle.
Longtime friend and customer Sandra Fitzgerald goes to McClain for all kinds of cakes for all kinds of occasions. A friend recommended McClain to Fitzgerald, who was searching for someone to decorate a specialty cake for her son more than 20 years ago.
‘‘My son was in college on the football team,” Fitzgerald said. ‘‘I wanted the cake in shape of a football jersey with his number on it. I was just blown away, and I’ve been using her ever since.”
Fitzgerald said McClain’s product trumps typical decorative cakes made in supermarkets that she said you would need a ‘‘strong cup of coffee” to get through.
‘‘Let’s get down to how the cake tastes,” Fitzgerald said. ‘‘You cannot touch her. That buttery flavor — you would’ve thought grandma took it out of the oven and put decorations on it.”
Though her children helped spread the icing and clean pans over the years, they are not automatic heirs to the business. McClain said she has thought about who would take over when she no longer can.
‘‘Finding somebody to take up the gauntlet is so hard,” McClain said. ‘‘They realize this is really work.”
McClain said she gets help between April and September from senior citizens in the community or high school students looking to make money during the summer months.
But McClain, who does not hire regular staffers in fear of having to raise prices for her loyal customers, does not expect the help to stay in for the long haul.
‘‘People have their own goals,” McClain said. ‘‘They may stay with me for a summer, but then they’re off on they’re own thing.”
