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FeedLove at First Bite
Meet Adrian Davis of Kennedy’s Kakes
Buckeye Blitz (top left), Banana Strawberry Split (top right) and Red Velvit with Lemon Cream Cheese icing (bottom).
Photos by John Knouff
As she ices and boxes several sheet cakes for a 90th birthday celebration, Adrian Davis recalls winning an art contest as a little girl at Pilgrim Elementary School. She chose a cookbook as her prize.
The childhood memory is a fitting one for the owner of Kennedy’s Kakes. This full-time esthetician has started a second career for herself as a self-described cake-baking diva.
As a makeup artist for Charles Penzone, Davis knows well the importance of making someone look and feel like a million bucks. With Kennedy’s Kakes, Davis makes things beautiful on the outside—and inside.
For the past several years, Davis has been pulling double duty, working at the salon and baking at night and on the weekends.
Although the days are long, Davis couldn’t be happier. “How many people can say they do what they love—twice?”
The main difference between decorating faces and decorating cakes is that with makeup, “I can erase and start all over,” she says. It’s not so easy with cakes, because of the time and effort involved—she gets only one shot at pulling off perfection.
Davis specializes in making sweet treats that are not only delicious, but easy on the eye. Cakes range in size from quarter to full-size sheet cakes, specialty rounds and more. Fillings include chocolate ganache, strawberry, buttercream, and fresh berries. Icings include buttercream (chocolate and strawberry), cream cheese (butter and chocolate), caramel, whipped cream and fondant.
Her specialty items, called Love Bites, look like chocolates on the outside. Bite into one of them, however, and you’ll find a delicious cake-filled delight. And they are the perfect size—you can nibble at it or pop the entire morsel into your mouth—without all the guilt of eating an entire slice of cake.
With Kennedy’s Kakes, Davis started out slowly. Friends and salon clients were her first customers. But in 2009, she made her cake-baking business official by incorporating as an LLC.
Friends suggested she expand by putting herself—and her company—on Facebook, something Davis admits she didn’t fully understand at first. “I thought, there’s nobody I really want to find,” she says.
Even so, she gave it a try. Customers readily found her cakes and in 2011, business took off.
“There was an abundance of people I didn’t know (ordering my cakes). It’s like it was turning into a true business,” she says. “It was a great feeling.
“Facebook has been the catalyst, as well as word of mouth. Before I baked seasonally, but then I knew I was ready,” says Davis, who recently turned the laundry room off the kitchen into a mini baking area.
Davis’ baking inspiration comes from her mother, who she also refers to as a baking diva. Many of the recipes she uses were ones she learned from her mother—with some slight variations.
Davis’ motivation to start her own company comes from her daughter, Kennedy Goolsby, the company’s namesake.
“Sometimes she helps,” Davis says of Kennedy. “But mostly she likes to test and taste.”
There have been times—some challenging orders—when Davis has questioned whether she’ll be able to pull it off. Those also are the times she receives encouragement from her daughter. “She talks me into it,” says Davis smiling.
