COUTURE CAKES OF GREENVILLE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHELSEY ASHFORD PHOTOGRAPHY
was a 4’x4’ confection designed to serve 1,500 people. One Earth Day She spent many a teen-year afternoon in her great-aunt’s kitchen, request turned into a 4-foot-tall tree made entirely of rice crispy treats and sitting on the counter amidst a bustling home-based bakery business. chocolate. Unique orders are often job-related – a cake designed to look “I loved watching her work,” recalls Susan McMakin, “and she loved like an anesthesiology machine, for example. letting me help.” “We take all kinds of requests,” Susan says. “We like quirky. Thus knowledge, skills and long-secret recipes passed And we like people with creative vision, too.” between generations, and before long Susan – who today Because she inherited her craft from her great-aunt, love of owns Couture Cakes of Greenville – was baking up her We have fun turning our family is baked into the business. own spending money while in high school and college. customers’ ideas into “Couture Cakes loves sharing our clients’ milestones,” says “I was studying architecture at Clemson University and edible works of art. Susan. “We watch them grow up – we bake their birthday baking cakes on the side,” Susan says. “It became pretty cakes through the years, and then before you know it, we’re obvious what my true calling was when I’d work on a making cakes for their graduations, then their weddings, then design project and think ‘This would be so much easier to their baby showers. It truly makes us feel like we’re part of their family.” do in cake!’” When she isn’t busy running her bakery, this Newberry native stays So instead of designing buildings, she built her career around designing busy running her 13-year-old daughter, Eleanor, to activities such as sweet memories for customers as they celebrate birthdays, graduations, Greenville County Youth Orchestra and soccer. Family time is important, weddings, and other special occasions. and the McMakins especially enjoy playing board games together. “Couture Cakes is a family business,” says Susan, “and we love being part of your family’s memories.” Couture Cakes takes pride in baking cakes that taste as good as they look. They boast 20+ flavors of cakes, fillings and icings – but buttercream frosting is a definite favorite. “We love the opportunity to be creative – cake is an incredibly artistic 1325 Miller Rd., Suite H, medium,” says Susan, noting that many of their intricate birthday cakes are Greenville often more time-consuming than wedding cakes. “We have fun turning 864.288.6610 our customers’ ideas into edible works of art.” Unusual requests are all in a day’s work. Couture Cakes’ biggest bake couturecakesofgreenville.com
Behind The Counter
|
2017
123