About me

Hi, I'm Mary and this is my blog, Cake Talk.

I'm the owner of Mary's Cakes and Pastries, a specialty bakery that offers unique wedding cakes, grooms cakes and celebration cakes -- all baked fresh in historic downtown Northport, Alabama.

I am also the author of "Marys Cakes Favorite Recipes".

Before I went to culinary school and started baking, I was a management consultant in the Forest industry. In that job, I traveled a lot on business, over a million miles, enough to make me a Premier Exec for life on United. The best part of going to cities like New York or Paris was peeking in the large windows of the bakeries and pastry shops, with the pretty rows of perfectly decorated pastries and intricately iced cakes. They appealed to the artistic side of me.

So when I came to a career crossroads, I went south. To Alabama.

Mary's Cakes has turned into a popular bakery, where the locals love to come and get their coffee and a blueberry scone. We have a lot of regular customers whom we consider our friends.  We make everything in the shop.  We love what we do. We even have a blues song written about us! 

When I opened Mary's Cakes, I had no idea how interesting baking and running a bakery could be. This blog chronicles some of the more interesting happenings at Mary’s Cakes, and includes lots of recipes and other random stuff.

I hope you like it.

-Mary

p.s. That's Panda in the photo with me.  My other dog, Foxy, would be jealous if she had any idea she was left out.

Comments

[Mary Cesar]

We're downtown, right behind Melina's (former site of The Globe). There is an alley back there...

Come on down!!
Mary

[katie]

I'm in total shock right now. I randomly came across your website and then noticed your Alabama Cakes. Decided to check out your "about" section and umm, yeah, you are in Northport...my hometown.
Really? Northport, Alabama? This is nuts!

Where is your bakery located? I cannot wait to check it out in person!

[Andrea]

Hi Mary,

Another wedding cake scam.

I own Not Jus' Donuts Bakery in Houston, TX. I received this email from this guy Alex regarding a wedding cake. He and I have corresponded via email several times today. I was a little suspicious but wasn't quite convinced that this was a total scam. It wasn't until I actually goggled his email address and your blog popped up. Wow how amazing is this! I've asked for his phone number to further discuss his order but he came back with a rebuttal and additional $100 for my time. Thanks to your blog I wasn't a victim to this scam.

Here is his email to me.
Hello,

Thanks for the swift reply to my order request and your concern as well, i want you to know that am very grateful, I will like you to bake me 5teir's of cake, 3 in Buttercream cake and 2 in chocolate cake and the filling should be Raspberry, Chocolate Mousse and Vanilla Custard, it should be decorated with roses as seen in the picture i attached ( in the picture the roses can be in gum paste, what you see on the side of the cake is a polka dot, and i will like the color of the polka dot to be pink color). And you should also have the cake covered in fondant or butter cream to feed 250 people ( I believe the fondant should make the journey), let inscription be writing on one of the cake as *Happy Married Life* and i want you to packaged it in a different cake boxes for pick up once its ready.

I want the cake to be ready for pick up time 11 o clock A.M 19th of June 2009. and the shipper will be coming to pick them up for delivery to my wedding reception and i don't want you to be worried about the safety delivery of the cake. Regarding the shipping, I have a shipping agent who will be taking good care of the delivery consignments. The Shipping company will come for the pickup arrangement of the Cake at your location for the pick up date and time. And as I have said, you don’t have anything to worry about on the shipping of the cake it will be well secured and in a good condition on arriving the location of my wedding reception, the shipper will be coming with there refrigerator Van for the pick up and it will be ship under the fragile shipping insurance scheme, a friend of mine has used them before for a shipping consignment of this such and they are well secured, reliable and dependable. So I want you to calculate for me what will be the total cost of the cake order including the decoration plus tax if included, and also I want you to add $850 for the cost of the pick up and the shipping, so once I have your reply for the total I will remit my credit card for you to charge for the total cost. so that you can have the order book right away.

And once you have the order in progress, I will provide you the shipper information, and how you will get the shipping fee to the shipper as to confirm the pickup arrangement of the cake. I will offer you an extra $100 for taking care of my order properly and for any less stress you will go through for completing the transaction for me due to my absence. So plus do calculate altogether the total cost of the cake + decoration and tax + $850 for shipping charges, including the $100 am offering you.And get back to me with the total for all, so once i have the total cost i will remit my credit card for you to charge. And you should let me know the type of Credit Card you accept Visa or Master.

I will be waiting to have your reply for the total cost.
Thanks and God bless.
Alex.