Susie Rasmussen

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" background="059785a3.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>Make-A-Cake, Houston's Oldest & Largest Cake Decorating Supply Warehouse</B></FONT><B>    </B><B> </B></div> <bR> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <IMG SRC="0b1c64d0.jpg" border=0 width="198" height="77" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="MakeACake, Houstons Oldest Largest Cake"><U><B>Home</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id17.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Our Products and Services"><U><B>Our Products and Services</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Location and Hours"><U><B>Location and Hours</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id19.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Useful Information"><U><B>Useful Information</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id22.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Whats New"><U><B>What's New</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id23.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Photos "><U><B>Photos </B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id40.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Cake Gallery"><U><B>Cake Gallery</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id32.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Class Schedule"><U><B>Class Schedule</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id21.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Us"><U><B>Contact Us</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id29.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Links"><U><B>Links</B></U></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>Susie Rasmussen</I></div> <div> I am Susie Rasmussen from Tomball, Texas which is about 30 miles north of Houston. I'm a fourth generation cake decorator. My mother, my grandmother, and my great grandmother all on my mom's side of the family were all cake decorators. I have my great grandmother's sterling silver decorating tips. </div> <bR> <div> I can remember watching my mom decorate cakes for the ladies at church and in the area. Although she was a good decorator, she never really mastered making roses. She had another lady in the area make the flowers for her. We would go to her house where my mom would carefully carry out a small box of buttercream roses all in rows on a piece of foil covered cardboard that would later be placed on the finished cake at home. She was later amazed how fast I could make them on a stick, no less!</div> <bR> <div> I decorated a few rather crude cakes in high school and I took a small decorating class during one of my nutrition classes in college. Although I never really planned to do much more with my "master" skills than that, it was when I started thinking about my daughter's all important first birthday that I decided I needed to refresh my skills. After all, I didn't want to go to a grocery store's bakery to buy that special cake. Boy, would that thought come back and haunt me later.   So I signed up for the Wilton Course One, a five week class taught by Marsha Elam (later to become Mrs. Roland Winbeckler) at Montgomery Wards in the mall. Boy, I was so nervous that my mom came over to baby-sit and ended up making my icing for my class. I practiced and practiced but my husband could make that stupid rose before I could.</div> <bR> <div> Well, I survived it and then took every class that they offered. I was then asked to teach for Wilton. I taught for Wilton at Montgomery Wards, J C Penney’s, Crafts Etc., Hobby Lobby, Michaels, and even at Wal-Mart! I learned that I really loved decorating with buttercream icing for the ease and the speed although I do enjoy doing fondant and gum paste flowers most of my costumers don't really want to pay for it. Even my kids got into decorating when they were little and would enter the various cake contests with me.</div> <bR> <div> During this time, my husband, Peter had a great job so I got to stay home and play with my cakes and stuff. We built a new house and then ...... Yup, you guessed it. He got laid off. So being the supportive wife that I am, I offered to go back to work (something I hadn't done in eleven years) while he stayed home and did the "Mr. Mom" thing while our son was in kindergarten and our daughter was in first grade. After all I had been taking all these cake classes so I might as well put them to work. I was only going to work <B>five</B> years before returning to my life of leisure. Yeah, right! .... that was twenty years ago.</div> <bR> <div> I knew enough to bluff my way into the first job, a famous French bakery in Houston. It was located downtown where I had to drive in the city traffic that used to scare me to death. I was their "American" style decorator. I stayed about six months and learned enough to bluff my way into the second job, an Italian bakery. I only was there a short while until their regular decorator returned. Time to look for a job again. Finally, an American bakery where I stayed three years learning everything I could. Four decorators worked on Saturday doing150 -175 cakes on weekends, each iced, hand drawn, airbrushed, bordered, and then boxed in less than 15 minutes. Here is where I learned to airbrush, figure pipe, do buttercream flowers, do loose and exciting borders and that writing style. They joked that they were going to charge for the amount of icing I wore home on my shoes. I would leave here and go to a small family bakery/deli that had only been opened a couple of months. I could do anything I wanted on the cakes and had time to play and develop my own style of decorating. I was still teaching for Wilton for 10 years. </div> <bR> <div> I left this job to got to work for a food broker that sold frozen cake layers and icing to bakeries and grocery stores. I would be teaching the in-store decorators. Now, that not wanting to buy that important cake for my daughter at a "grocery store" would make me work harder to help the develop the skill levels of the employees so that no other Mom would think that. I left this broker after 5 1/2 years and have been with another one for ten years. </div> <bR> <div> I had enjoyed this part of my working history partly because I was blessed to have had two of the best bosses in the word. I'm able to float between different accounts and then different stores in each account. I have been able to work with some really great decorators that are always willing to share and to learn any new ideas. We can't wait to get together to swap ideas and play with the icing. The day wasn't complete unless you had color all over your hands. I just tell people that I lead a very colorful life. Thank goodness, it washes off. I have what Peter calls my "cake nightmares", you know that one that wakes you up in the middle of the night.</div> <bR> <div> Peter now says I probably wouldn't quit working even if I could, and he's probably right. So now I work longer and harder than I probably should. But I get to do all kinds of decorating things, like 30 fondant dummies and a seven tier fondant wedding cake all in two days for a national show in Chicago. I have airbrushed 70 feet of background for the trade shows. I have traveled all over Texas teaching classes and Day of Sharings. I recently taught classes on buttercream flowers and borders at some of the local cake shops in Houston. I have an airbrush class scheduled for August in Houston. So I hope to continue "playing" with buttercream, developing new ideas, and having some fun with it for as long as the hands hold out. So come on along and play with me.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>