Today we’d like to introduce you to Gloria Jean.
Hi Gloria, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My name is Gloria Jean Smith, When I started baking it was Gloria Jean Brownlee. I’m from Griffin Ga, Spaulding County. I live with my grandaddy and grew up in small close-knit community. There was my granddaddy, two uncles and aunts. My mother’s oldest sister… who we called “Muh” was the cake baker in our family. Every Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and family event she baked cakes. She would bake cakes for everyone, chocolate, coconut cake, pound cake, red velvet and even cake flavors people don’t know about. One cake was called lamination cake. It was almost like a fruit cake because the middle layer had a lot of spice and nuts in it. We baked for almost a week, for Christmas to have cakes ready for about four different homes my uncle’s house, granddad’s house, our house and my other aunt’s house.
They would be layered cakes, and we used fresh coconut not from a can or a bag. Muh would have the whole coconut, and we had to prepare them. First, we drained the milk from them, then put it in the oven to dry out and grated the coconut by hand. Preparation was important and everyone helped. The kids in the family picked and shelled nuts. Muther would make cakes and the icing. At that time, we didn’t have cake boxes, Tupper ware or plastic to store the cake in like what we have now. Muh would take cardboard boxes and stack two cakes in one box and cut up fresh apple slices to keep the cakes fresh and moist. Around Christmas time there were always boxes with apples and oranges around. Muh didn’t have a lot of equipment or mixers, but I remember her beating eggs and flour with her hands. The batter would be so smooth and creamy and taste like the sweetest cakes you could ever have. We did that for a long time.
I was about seven or ten years old and my family moved to Atlanta I was in third grade. Later I went to Parks Middle school I took a cooking class. The class was not a baking class but basic cooking class measurements and stuff like. Then I went to Fulton high school, and I was in home economics class throughout high school. While I was in home economics class our principal would invite other principals to our school for Christmas time and different celebrations. During this time our cooking teacher would pick a team of students to cook, I would always be selected to be a part of the team. We cooked cakes and food to celebrate Christmas around the world. We made salmon to look like it was from Alaska. We would bake large sheet cakes and cut by hand shapes of butterflies and other animals. They were pretty and nice. By the time I was in the twelfth grade in home economics class I was an A student. I have dyslexia, but I was picked out of all the kids in my class to get the Betty Crocker scholarship to go to college for baking. And because of my dyslexia the scholarship was given to another student and I received a certificate. I wanted to go to school but it was difficult and black kids weren’t getting help back then. My mom would come to the school to get help for me, and the school just wanted to put me in special education. My mom decided that it was not for me, but I enjoyed that time so much.
I graduated from high school, and was still living at home, still loved baking it’s such relaxing time for me. When I was a teenager, we lived on Thaxton Drive, and my Godfather lived across the street from us. He loved peanut butter cookies, any kind of cookies. He always wanted me to bake for him. His wife was a baker too, so she would bake cakes and pound cakes, and I was right there in the kitchen with her. I always like to bake at night when everyone else is asleep and it’s quiet. Cause you don’t want to mess up your recipe, or you get distracted by talking to someone. Shortly after I got married, one of signature cakes became the talk of the town. By this time, I lived in Atlanta, downtown in the high rise on Martin Luther King Street, I must have been twenty or twenty-one years old. My husband’s brother Lonnie fell in love with my red velvet cake. After that every thanksgiving, birthday, Christmas I had to make him a red velvet cake with nuts. Word spread about the cake and people started to order more red velvet cake from me and they loved it so much. It was just me baking by myself and me and my husband would deliver cakes (you remember that honey?. yeah I do). I even bake for my family, I have two sisters and their kids, eight grandchildren my mother has. All of them have a cake named after each one of them because they love my cakes so much. There is quality in every ingredient, and I give it to family and customers when I say it homemade, I mean it. I learned a lot from my aunt back then. There is not much that is knew in baking even though some like to think making cake release is new… I grew up greasing pans with Crisco and flouring dusting them, then cutting wax paper to line the pans with and the cakes did not ever stick to the pan. When my daughters got older, I was still baking and would help bring in a little extra money, a little change for me because you with my dyslexia it was kind of hard. I always wanted to go to school but I didn’t. So baking helped me to be able to do stuff for my house, my kids it was good.
Then we moved into our house I think one of the girls told me I need to get a name for my business. I came up with Gigi Sweets at the time, that was the first name. And I still have that in my heart because the Lord gave me that and it was a taste of God’s goodness! Because they say can’t nobody make cakes like me…because it’s me and Jesus at night. So then I came up Gigi Sweets and baked more cakes, I’m also a pastor. I started sharing with my pastor friends and taking it to events that our church would have and conferences. People started ordering more cakes and cupcakes. Later the girls grew up and graduated from college, guess they had more time to be with me sometimes I would have them helping me bake cakes. I have a cake a that I called Tiffany’s cake, which is Marion baby girl that’s the German chocolate because she begged me to make that cake. I’d say to her, you just don’t how much it takes to make that cake. If you make a real one you have got some real time to put into it. So, I started making German chocolate and it became a favorite. Started making pound cakes and it became a favorite. Then I made a honeybun cake. I call that Marc’s cake my nephew. The guys really like that one and I think it’s because it is so sweet, I guess. Carrot cake is named after my husband that’s his favorite cake. My son just loves all of them. Then we have a chocolate cake, that has a rich milk chocolate icing, and the cake has three layers that’s named after my sister Fleta. The chocolate cake is one I remember making with my aunt back in the day. It’s a good chocolate cake, it comes with nuts on the icing or not, but delicious either way. At one time my cupcakes were in a Noodles restaurant in downtown Atlanta on Peachtree Street. I was baking jumbo cupcakes for the Noodle restaurant, and the owner said that the cake was a great product, but the staff was eating the cupcakes before he could get them sold. That was great adventure. Then after me and my daughters came up with name and got a license Cajwana became a baker. My oldest daughter, that burned tomato soup and never cooked at home because her brother always cooked for both girls, started baking. After she got married, much later I didn’t even know she could bake. It’s an inheritance, destiny part of what you can do. You just must be willing to tap into it. The first cake she made was a one-year anniversary cake and we tasted it; it was amazing. So she started baking and baking more and stepping into her own. Then she baked a pound cake, now she bakes an Italian cream cake and it’s become a favorite. She’s a baker and working to our cake decorating stand out a little more. I just want to bake a cake, but my girls help me to get the business together. That’s how we started. It has not always been easy, but within the next five years I’m looking forward to growth with a dessert truck, we would like to have classes and there are so many other things we want to do…stay tuned!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
There have been challenges, I mean as long as we are all living there may be all sorts of struggles along the way. I’ve experience many struggles, from early in my education to health challenges and even loss, but my faith has been a strong anchor through it all. I also have the amazing support of family and close friends.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.gloriacakes.com and http://www.hotplate.com/gloriacakes
- Instagram: @gloriacakesdessert
- Facebook: Gloria Jean Cake Company
- Phone: 404-919-4931
Image Credits
Tymyrick Photography
