It's Your Business: Cake Decorators School and Supply

John Lennon said that happiness is a warm gun. Maybe he was referring to one of Barbara Quick’s cakes.

Quick, founder of Meriden’s Cake Decorators School and Supply, was always a baker, but had never decorated any of her work before.  When she was asked to make a gun-shaped cake for a policeman’s retirement party, Quick struggled with the concept at first.

“I had never done shaping or anything like that before,” she said.  “I had to have my husband draw it out for me on paper. I mean, this was a long time ago. I didn’t know how to do it. Most of all I wondered: ‘How do I get the color black?’”

Quick eventually managed to turn the rectangular sheet of cake into the shape of a gun using a knife; she used black dye to get the color.

“I dropped it off [at the party] and everyone asked me to stay,” she said. “They loved how it looked.”

“As they were eating, a line started forming at the bathroom though…Everyone was rushing to the bathroom because they had black rings around their mouths from the frosting,” Quick laughed, tracing the frosting-goatee that would have been on her own face. “I thought: ‘Hmm, maybe I should take some classes if I’m going to do this again.’”

She did take classes (where, among other things, she learned the proper way to make black frosting) and opened up her school and supply store about a year later—that was in 1973. Now, after almost 40 years, Quick is still looking to expand the business, searching for a bigger place to satisfy a growing client base.

Though cheerily colored and adorned—not unlike one of Quick’s cakes— the shop at 244 Hall Avenue is shielded by a tree. It’s barely noticeable coming from Broad Street unless you’re looking for it. The narrow corridors inside are packed from floor to ceiling with pans, tips, candies, shaping tools and other accessories—“the most comprehensive and innovative selection” in the state, boasts the website. Only five or six cars can fit in the parking lot outside, so Quick is forced to teach most of her classes at night, once the supply store is closed.

She’s been on Hall Avenue for close to 30 years, though. It’s been long enough to build up a substantial following that she’s not going to abandon.

“When I tell them I might be moving,” Quick said, “they always say: ‘No you can’t go!’  ‘Don’t worry,’ I tell them. I won’t be going too far.”

Quick offers 37 classes of her own plus a series of basic demos to students of all levels. Smaller, multiday classes are usually held in the back kitchen of the Meriden store, while the larger, single day seminars are regularly taught at another location in New Britain.

A beginner session will go over the basics of frosting a cake. Students learn how to make the icing, how to smooth it out over a shape they’ve created, and how to border it, using simple leaves and other patterns.

The classes become more specialized as the skill level increases. Students focus on a single aspect of cake decoration like how to differentiate between a rose and a carnation, how to shape bows out of gumpaste, or how to master chocolate show pieces.

As she explained the techniques behind each, Quick showed examples from her personal portfolio. There’s everything from simple Batman birthday cakes to nine foot wedding masterpieces. 

While she went through the books in back, a woman came in the door up front and sighed. “I wish I could have one of everything in this store,” she said. “I learned more here in one class than I did somewhere else in a month.”

“I love what I do,” Quick said, “I’ll never retire.”

Cake Decorators School and Supply offers classes year round, starting at $25.  Call or visit its website CakeDecorators.com for more details.