Johnson’s Custom Cakes Works With Couples To Create Amazing Wedding Cakes

The culinary finale of a great wedding is an amazing wedding cake, and Johnson’s Custom Cakes in Wellington has been creating delectable masterpieces for the past nine years.

Owner Jennifer Johnson has spent most of the last decade making a name for herself not only in South Florida, but nationwide through appearances on the Food Network and at cake competition events. She might have flair as a competitive cake artist, but her business is her livelihood, and that is focused on building relationships with her clients.

Johnson calls soon-to-be-married couples her “cake babies,” because that’s usually where her business begins when serving a new client.

“The brides and grooms, they come to me for their wedding cake, and we call them Johnson’s cake babies,” she explained. “Often, the bride and groom come back for their bridal shower, and then we get to do their baby showers and their christenings and their baby’s first birthdays.”

When a couple visits Johnson for her cake artistry, she stresses the need to book her services with ample time before the wedding date.

“It’s really beneficial to book your wedding cake at least three to six months in advance,” Johnson said. “Some of the brides are coming in two weeks or one week before their wedding, and unfortunately, sometimes we cannot do it because we are a custom shop, so quality comes before quantity.”

An important part of the process is identifying the spirit of the wedding for each client.

“We draw the sketch in front of them, and then they make the changes,” Johnson said. “Their input on their wedding cake is really, really important. We want to make sure that it’s all about them. When it comes to design, taste, everything, we really listen to them. It comes from our soul, but it also comes from their minds.”

Johnson credits her staff for being equally as important to the process of giving a client their special dessert, for weddings and all other events.

“They’re all artists,” Johnson said of her staff. “We’re able to feel the bride out on the colors. All the other aspects of the wedding are important for the cake as well, like the floral, the color palette, the décor, what the bride is wearing, her dress pattern, if her dress is ivory or white. All those things affect the cake in some way, because we want to make sure the cake matches the décor.”

After Johnson and her team have seen all the wedding colors, they will often ask to see samples of the décor items. Then Johnson and her team show the client their own ideas, and it all comes together for a personal, custom cake.

“It’s teamwork with that aspect of it, because we want to create what the vision is,” Johnson said. “If they don’t have a vision, we try to give them some pointers or try to create it with them.”

Some of the most creative cake ideas may come from competition shows on television, but Johnson also gets interesting requests for personal wedding cakes.

“We’ve done crazy things,” Johnson said. “One bride and groom, they wanted what they eat for breakfast on their wedding cake, which was like a spiced cake with peanut butter and pecans and fresh fruit. They wanted something that is memorable to them.”

At Johnson’s Custom Cakes, Johnson and her staff have the skill to add many different features to a cake that you may not see every day.

“We’re artists, so we actually do a lot of modeling and super sculpting, so we can actually form the bride and groom on top of the cake,” she said. “If they’re a firefighter or a nurse or a doctor, we can customize their cake to what they do. We’ve put their pets on the cake.”

Johnson cherishes the long-term relationships she maintains with her clients once the first cake has been served.

“The most important thing is I get to watch their families grow, and that’s humbling to me how their babies are six, seven, eight years old, and they come in and they sketch their own birthday cakes,” Johnson said. “The children come in, and they look forward to seeing me every year.”

Johnson’s passion for her work is as strong as her passion as a cake artist, and she welcomes the challenges that she faces as a business owner.

“I’ve learned that business is about growth, and you learn from your mistakes,” Johnson said. “You always try to do something different. We are not just a bakery that does one thing. We push ourselves to try to explore all different mediums. We want to give you what you want. So, if it takes us until 5 o’clock in the morning to get something right, we’re going to make sure we do it.”

Johnson’s Custom Cakes is located in the Kobosko’s Crossing shopping plaza at 9148 Forest Hill Blvd. in Wellington. For more information, call (561) 422-0303 or visit www.johnsonscustomcakes.com.