New feature here at 37 Cooks!

Welcome to a new feature here on the 37 Cooks Blog! From time to time we plan to have a "guest blogger"! How cool is that? And while we love sharing our recipes with you all, our guest bloggers will be sharing other stuff! You see, we realized what an interesting bunch we are! We have someone who taps their own maple trees, someone who can teach us all a little something about gluten-free living, and some of us have taken amazing trips and are able to take us on a virtual tour of some of the many places visited. You might even see a feature or two from some of our past sponsors! We are thrilled to kick off our new feature with Matt "Cake Daddy" Baird! He's a very talented guy and you will love his story! ~ Susan

Here I am working on my brother's wedding cake!

I’m Matt Baird (a.k.a. Matt the Butcher; a.k.a. Cake Daddy), a member of 37 cooks. I was flattered to have been asked to write a guest post for our blog! While I love to cook, I’m a butcher by trade and I love answering some of the meat-related questions from my fellow 37 Cooks. I’m also known in some of my food circles as “Cake Daddy”, as I like to decorate cakes (mostly for my family now) but, I used to sell them as a side business. I was asked about how “Cake Daddy” came to be. Most people seem pretty surprised when they discover that I decorate cakes! A big, bald, old guy, covered in tattoos, ridin’ his Harley, that bakes cakes???

I started baking birthday cakes about 35 years ago, when my kids were toddlers. They were just plain, round, two-layer cakes from a boxed mix with canned icing. Of course, when the kids were toddlers they loved that I made their birthday cakes! As they got older and learned to read, they would pick out a special cake that they wanted for their birthday, from the cake decorating books I had lying around. So, I had to practice…a lot! Eventually, as I got to be fairly good at baking and decorating cakes, word got around the small town that we lived in. I started making cakes for friends, and the cakes kept getting a little more fancier (for lack of a better word.) I had a friend that was getting married and he didn’t have a lot of money, so we made a deal. I would make his wedding cake if he bought all of the pans and let me keep them in exchange for the cake. The cake turned out pretty nice, if I do say so myself, and I decided to start selling them to make a little extra money.

Fast forward to my daughter Chrissy’s wedding. I knew that I was gonna make her wedding cake, and I also knew that it would have to be spectacular, no ifs, ands, or buts! Talk about stress! We decided on a nice three-tier cake, but Chrissy was worried that there wasn’t gonna be enough cake for all of her guests (that was the Italian in her coming out…lol.) So, we decided to make a few extra cakes.

Chrissy's Wedding Cake

Here comes the “Cake Daddy” part! Since her wedding was gonna be here in Florida in April, and it was gonna be 85 degrees out, I was worried about the icing melting and running offa the cake. I went onto a popular food site, Serious Eats, where I’ve spent a lotta time chatting with other foodies, and I asked if anyone had a recipe for an icing that would hold up in the hot weather. Well, my screen name obviously gave no clue as to whether I was male or female and a lady on the chat board asked how I, as the mother of the bride, was gonna get the wedding cake done, go to the beauty parlor, get my hair and nails done, all on the morning of the wedding! We had a good laugh when I told her that I was the father of the bride! And so, “Cake Daddy” was born!

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this and I hope yous guys enjoyed my rambling!

P.S. When my daughter Chrissy was little, she had a great imagination and she used to like to sprinkle imaginary Fairy Dust all over the place. When I made her wedding cake, I sprinkled glittery sugar crystals (edible Fairy Dust) all over her cake!