From Law Books to Cookbooks Howell baker makes designer cakes

When Josephine Terrell needs to unwind after a busy day as a legal secretary, chances are she can be found in her kitchen baking up a storm. 

Terrell said she has been in the kitchen for as long as she can remember back to when she learned side by side with her grandmother. She has taken that love of cooking baking and started her own business baking designer cakes, an idea that first started when she was 14-years-old making ice cream cakes while working at Carvel.

Known as Josie Cakes, she said she got the idea around a year ago when a friend asked her to bake a cake for her daughter's birthday. "She told me to be creative and I just started playing around with it," she said. 

Having watched cake design shows on TV, Terrell said she takes what she learns from those programs and brings it to her own kitchen. No matter what the occasion for the cake, she said she has enjoyed finding this new love. "It's therapy for me," she said. "I get in my zone and no one can bother me."

Now that she has gotten the chance to design a variety of cakes Terrell said she loves seeing the response to her creations. "I love getting the wow factor and the expressions on people's faces when I present these crazy cakes."

For right now word of Josie cakes is spread by friends and family and her Facebook page. That may however not always be the case. "Hopefully one day," she said of having her own bakery. "That's my goal, to open up my own place."

In the meantime she said she does her baking out of her kitchen just the way she first learned what to do. Unlike when she started when it was her grandmother working alongside her, Terrell said she now has her husband Ralph to turn to when she needs him. "After the product is done, that's when I ask him his opinion because he is my best and worst critic," she said with a laugh.

Over the course of the year she has done more than just birthday cakes. She said her favorite so far was for a young man entering the Marines. The picture of the cake can be seen in the photo gallery. "You'd be surprised what people want cakes for," she said. 

From designing to baking the process of making a cake can take anywhere from three to four hours, but she said it is a labor of love.