sweet expectations
Story and photo by Shaila Creekmore

Jeny Garza grew up in the food business and knows her way around the kitchen, but when she ventured into making her daughter’s third birthday cake, she never imaged it would lead to opening her own cake shop.

After six years of making cakes for friends and family, Garza opened Jeny’s Cakery on May 1 in Madison Suites at 3704 S. Caraway Road making the part-time hobby her full-time job. For 16 years, Garza has worked for her parents, Jerry and Susan Flynn, who own Lazzari Italian Oven and Lazarri Pizza in Jonesboro.

Like many home bakers, Garza began cake decorating with character pans and star-tipped designs. As she got more into the hobby, she took classes and read many cake decorating books to learn about more techniques and materials.
“I think I have 10 boxes of those (character) pans that serve no purpose.

Nobody wants character cakes or star tipped cakes anymore,” said Garza.
As her cakes became more elaborate, more friends and family began requesting cakes for birthdays, showers, parties and even weddings.

“More and more people got my number and it started to get crazy. You can only do so much at home before you run out of room,” said Garza. “You also can’t sell any food items out of your home. I could only make them for friends and family and I decided that if I wanted to do it as a real business I was going to have to look at doing it full-time.”

Garza began looking at spaces across Jonesboro and decided on the South Caraway location because it was an empty space she could design herself. Garza’s parents were instrumental in helping her turn the empty strip-mall space into a commercial bakery. The facility now has a large open kitchen with ovens, a large refrigerator space and display case, which Garza hopes to eventually fill with cupcakes available any time of day.

Currently, Jeny’s Cakery only fills orders taken in advance on specialty cakes. All of Garza’s cakes are custom designed and can fit any party theme or wedding design.

“Some come in with an idea of what they want or maybe something I did for another party, but most want to switch it up a little bit. They may like the design, but want to change the colors or maybe they need it to serve more or less people,” said Garza.

Jeny’s Cakery has a sample book full of photos of cakes Garza has made over the years to help customers find ideas if needed. She said the most popular cake designs right now are topsy-turvy cakes or designs with hot pink and zebra print for girls. For boys, she gets mostly request for cakes with cartoon or video game characters or sports.

“The boys aren’t into having parties as much as the girls are,” said Garza. “The cake is a much bigger deal to the girls.”

Jeny’s Cakery specializes in cakes decorated with buttercream frosting with fondant decorations. Garza said she doesn’t cover entire cakes in fondant because people generally don’t like the taste, but fondant makes intricate details on the cake’s design. Garza can also use various cake flavors regardless of outside decorations.

“Most just want white or chocolate but some will be brave and mix up the layers,” said Garza. “I’ve done some where we use strawberry and chocolate as the two layers or orange and chocolate.”

For specialty cake orders, Jeny’s Cakery requires four to five days depending on how elaborate the size or design. Cupcake orders can be ordered in the morning and picked up in the afternoon.

For more information, call Garza at 932-7777. Jeny’s Cakery is open Tues.-Fri., 10 a.m.-6:30 p.m., Mon. and Sat., 10 a.m.-2:30 p.m.