By BETH CHAPMAN / Community Columnist

Some people seem to have it all. Such is the case with Sharlisa Lancaster. She sings solos at my church, is secretary of Helena Middle School, wife to Greg and mother to Lauren and Clayton. While she is not a butcher or a candlestick maker, she is a baker – of home-style cakes.

Five years ago, Sharlisa wanted a car-shaped cake for her son’s first birthday. When she sought someone to make it, she was given a price of $87 for a cake that would feed 15. She found that outrageous. So with the encouragement of a friend, she set out to make it herself.

She was shocked at how much she enjoyed it and when her daughter’s birthday rolled around she made her a beach-scene cake.

By the time her son’s next birthday approached she made him a cake in the shape of a barn with its own John Deere Tractor. Her daughter later got a Hanna Montana guitar cake.

She made her parents and sister-in-law a cake for their special occasions and one close family friend’s wedding cake.

Lancaster loves the creativity it takes to bake and create new, custom-made designs. She likes the compliments her family gives her, “It tastes as good as it looks.” That is not usually the case with many store-bought cakes: They either look good and taste bad or look bad and taste good.

Lancaster loves the completion of her visions and designs.

“I love the artistic side of it. It’s like being a painter,” Lancaster said.

Among her creations are an Auburn football field cake and an Alabama hound’s tooth cake. Her most challenging was a crawfish boil cake shaped like a pot with flames under it with clear bubbles coming out of it with crawfish, corn and potatoes inside.

Lancaster says she would one day love to open a bakery, but she loves her job and her summer time with her family. She doesn’t write the idea off though.

“Whatever God has planned for me is what I want to do.”

 

Beth Chapman, Alabama’s secretary of state, is a Shelby County resident and writes a weekly column for the Shelby County Reporter. You can reach her at bethchapman@bellsouth.net.