My name is Shirley Wilson, I live in Concord, California... 1 hour East of San Francisco.
I am a single person, 67 years old. Mother of 5, grandmother of 9, and great grandmother of 3.

I have been doing cakes since 1959

Have not entered any big competitions, but did win blue ribbons at the California State Fair, our local county fair and in Yakima, Washington fair in 1966. I had cakes featured in an now defunct magazine called Chocolate News, Wilton's old Celebrate magazine and Mail Box News, those were all in the 60s and 70s. This past year I won 3rd place in a Poppy themed contest on another cake forum, Cakes Canada with my Wizard of Oz cake that featured gumpaste Poppies. In the 1990s I worked part time for a woman who owned her own wedding business, she did fresh flowers and I did the cakes. But actually I worked full time for 30 years for Safeway Stores in the meat department as a meat wrapper. I always spent a part of each coffee break talking to the bakers and cake decorators though. Today the majority of my cakes are donated gifts, and of course family events. I do maybe 3 wedding cakes per year. I also am retired from Safeway and am now teaching small gumpaste flower classes in my home.

I do not have a culinary degree. Would loved to have attended California Culinary Academy in San Francisco or the Culinary Institute at Greystone in Napa, California. Both are close by but beyond my budget and at my age it's a bit late to start. I will live vicariously through my 14 year old grandson Dominic who has plans to attend CCA in San Francisco when he graduates from high school. I have taken many classes, starting in 1959 with a basic beginners class at our local recreation center. No Wilton classes were available then unless you went to Chicago. The thought was as with many, to be able to do my children's birthday cakes. In 1964 I took Joseph Lambeth cake design classes at Gates School Of Cake Decorating in Long Beach, Ca. with Edith Gates, 1972 figure piping with John McNamara of Humphreys Bakery in Los Angeles, 1972 Mexican cake design with Senora Marithe de Alvarado of Mexico, 1972 local Australian cake design class, 1972 British cake design with Evelyn Wallace of England, 1996 Chocolate with Alice Medrich author of Cocolat, also chocolate one day class with Jacque Torres, 2000 pulled and blown sugar with Ewald Notter in Gaithersburg, Maryland, 2001 gumpaste flowers with Nicholas Lodge in Norcross, Georgia.

I doubt I will ever stop taking classes, each time I think I have learned everything I want to know about cake decorating someone comes along with some new brilliant idea and I am off and running to learn how it's done. My feeling today about cake decorating is that if we don't share what we have learned the art will die away. So if I am able to answer a question or help someone with a cake project that gives me great satisfaction and I am happy to pass along what I have learned along the way. I discovered cake forums in 2000 when I finally bought my first computer. I found Cake Central through a member of another forum and just joined in September last year. I am amazed at the size of Cake Central , the talent here and the friendly, sharing members.

My favorite technique or tool? I think gumpaste flower making is my forte' I find them relaxing and satisfying because they look very much like a real flower in nature. Favorite tool? My KitchenAid mixer used to be my favorite thing, now I would say my Kenwood mixer. Reminds me of Tim The Tool Man, MORE POWER!