Member Spotlight: Sweets And Tweets From San Jose's Suzi Weller

The other day we caught a Tweet to popular Apple Fan Girl Justine Ezarik on Twitter from Kow! member Suzi Weller the owner of SuziSweets.com.

Suzi went out of her way and baked Justine a really cool looking Apple logo cake for her 25th birthday and drove all the way to San Francisco to deliver it personally. Interested in this work of art, we proceeded to Suzi's website and saw that she has some serious baking skills! We were so impressed that we got ahold of Suzi in our hometown San Jose for an interview.

Interview With Suzi Weller

KoW: Tweet tweet! Thank you for coming today Suzi!
Suzi: What an exciting way to start a conversation, "Tweet tweet" hah anyway, thanks for having me.

KoW: Its good to meet you! Tell us about yourself.
Suzi: I am a stay at home mom with 2 beautiful little girls, who love baking and eating my sweets just as much as I do. I lived in Southern California most my childhood then moved to Arizona. I eventually made my way back to California because of my love for the beach.

KoW: How long have you been baking goodies?
Suzi: I have always been a big fan of baking since I was young. I started getting into decorating about 6 years ago when I was pregnant and had nothing better to do, then I realized how much I loved it and started getting better and better at it. So one day I made a site to show my stuff to family and friends who are far away. Never even thought of selling my creations, until I realized people were willing to spend money on my tasty art work.

KoW: They look tasty indeed. Did you go to cooking school to learn your craft?
Suzi: I did not go to any culinary schools of any kind. I never even took the cake decorating classes at Michael's ;). I am fully self taught, all I can give credit to is the other people on the Internet that are willing to share tips and tricks, and other tidbits of advice. That is one thing about making cakes that is wonderful, people are always willing to help out their fellow bakers :D

KoW: KoW! is all about helping others. Its obvious to me its something you love to do and you are very good at it.
Suzi: Well thank you, as a perfectionist I am not 100% happy with anything I have made at this point, I see it more as a learning experience every time. Trial and error, makes me stronger. I do however feel as though this past year I am getting much better results. I love doing it, and that is something that encourages me to keep going. I love the looks on the faces when they realize this is their cake.

KoW: How long does it take to create each one of your cakes?
Suzi: Depending on the cake. The iPhone cake took me over the course of a week to make. I worked on the buttons for days, I hand piped and painted every one. The most recent Apple logo for iJustine was a much shorter one, just over 6 hours. I usually give myself at least a week to work on them.

KoW: What kind of secret ingredients do you use?
Suzi: Butter flour sugar cream.... you know the normal cake ingredients ;) No I know, you mean on the outside ... well I use Fondant and gumpaste. The fondant is a thick play dough like consistency sugar paste that I roll out and drape over the frosted cake. Then the gum paste is the same kind of thing with a bit of gum tex worked in, it hardens up to become something that you can keep as long as you want.

KoW: And you do this all from your home kitchen?
Suzi: When it was a hobby I did, however as I started getting orders I started renting out a larger kitchen so I could make more at a time.

KoW: The iPhone cake rocks. What inspired you to do that?
Suzi: Since the iPhone was announced I have been a BIG fan. I am an Apple girl at heart, if you couldn't tell. I was just waiting on the first opportunity to make one, and I was on a roll. This is a picture of the first one I have made and had a broken camera the other 2 times I made this cake. I WISH I had pictures of the most recent one, it looks 50 times better (in my perfectionist eyes). But it is by far my favorite cake to make. I love when I get orders for it, I tell them send me a screen shot of the recipients home page so I can duplicate it exactly. I then change dates and times to the exact birthday of that person.

KoW: The presentation of Pablo surrounded by cupcakes is too cool!
Suzi: I love doing kids birthdays, because they do turn out so cute. Having kids of my own helps for the inspiration, and the bright colors help. The best part is the cupcakes, they are always filled, I recommend them for the adults and the mini cuppies for the kids.

KoW: How can our readers order goodies from you?
Suzi: I do ship cookies all over the US, but I haven't thought it worth it to ship over the U.S. borders YET. I just know the cost for them is high enough without adding $30 or more for shipping. And shipping cakes is still a work in progress, I am testing it out now and will have more information on my site about it when It is available.

KoW: Thank you for taking the time to chat with us today Suzi. We wish you much success.
Suzi: Thank you too, Its been fun! I love how your site helps people! I am happy to be a part of it. If anyone else has anything they want to ask me about cakes they are more than welcome to email me directly, I answer all of my emails personally :)

Name: Suzi Weller Location: San Jose, California Owner: SuziSweets.com