Mother-daughter duo Kathy Burks and Yvonne Stevenson, along with longtime friend Kimberlee Odom, opened The Cake Depot in south Sacramento in October 2017.
For 30 years Burks and Odom ran cottage industry endeavors — baking cakes for friends and family, and calling on each other to help with big orders — outside of their full-time careers with the government. “We were thinking about retirement and thought we could go into this together,” Burks says, adding, “Yvonne started doing the elaborate 3D cakes, she just picked it up.
So we couldn’t do this without her.” Stevenson learned how to bake from her mother, and picked up the flair for unique 3D designs after meeting Buddy Valastro of TLC’s “Cake Boss” at a book signing and demo in South Lake Tahoe.
The Cake Depot makes inventive sculptures, having worked on edible projects from Air Jordan rice krispie treat replicas to a cake bustier for a bachelorette party. Above, Stevenson works on a themed cake for a baby shower, which takes about eight hours to complete.
The Cake Depot fills an average of 10 cake orders per week, mostly custom requests that range in price between $150 to thousands of dollars, while maintaining a retail storefront with eight flavors of cupcakes and other confections. The Cake Depot offers full-service party dessert buffet planning, and hosts occasional cake decorating classes.
The Icing on Top
The Cake Depot serves up a treat for the taste buds — and the eyes