Finding Happiness? Piece of Cake

In her 14 years selling software for big companies such as SAP Business Solutions and Oracle, Kimberly Bailey defined success by the number of deals she closed.   

Now it’s whether wedding guests will recognize the Kermit the Frog groom’s cake she lovingly labored over in her Santa Monica shop.

"I was Samantha and Carrie running around in Gucci heels” and having dinner with CEOs in Manhattan. “My definition of success is so different than what it used to be."

In the summer of 2009, at a time when starting a small business was particularly risky—especially for someone undergoing chemotherapy—Bailey established Butter End Cakery, operating out of rented kitchens.

"I’ve never been more poor or more happy in my life," she said.

Her love affair with baking and sculpting whimsical cakes like those seen on Ace of Cakes and Cake Boss (except that Bailey's cakes are made with rolled chocolate, not flavorless, waxy fondant) began about the time she had a tumor removed. Going into the operation, she believed it was benign.

It had grown from the size of a lima bean to a golf ball in a matter of months, she said, but four doctors had each told her they were nearly 100 percent positive it wasn't cancerous. The surgery was "just in case."

She remembers wailing when she got the news that it was "triple negative" breast cancer—the most aggressive type. "It was so comprehensively devastating," she said.

It quashed her aspirations to act, which was her reason for moving to the Westside earlier that year. Who would cast a one-breasted, bald woman?

But she decided to stay in her Venice studio anyway. It was sunnier than New York; she felt her quality of life would be better here, and it "just felt right."

And, oddly enough, it turned out that the chemotherapy energized her.

"I had all this joy that needed to come out; I needed to do something with my hands," she said. Baking cakes—ones that looked exactly like Wilson volleyballs and magical mushrooms—brought her and her friends that joy.

The first person to buy one of her creations was a nurse who peeked over Bailey's shoulder as she built her business' website during a chemo appointment.

The business, thanks to plenty of referrals and lots of wedding business, "went bananas." She opened a Santa Monica expo kitchen on Santa Monica Boulevard in January 2011 and eventually scaled back so that work would continue to be fun.

In Los Angeles, some things didn't change. When naming her clientele, she lists celebrities Maria Shriver and Robert Downey Jr., among others. She also has partnerships with the Ritz-Carlton of Marina del Rey, the Bel-Air Bay Club and Vera Wang in Beverly Hills.

She has pictures of herself with Paula Deen and Eve Ensler, author of “The Vagina Monologues, at the Women's Conference 2010. She was invited there not only to display a cake, but also to speak.

There are also loyal customers such as Manhattan Beach resident Joan Danto Garland, who in her mid-70s, was married two weeks ago. She ordered 90 hand-painted, floral, personal-sized cakes for each of her guests.

When asked at the reception by a family member if they were digitally printed, she said she was "disgusted!"

"Each piece was a work of art," Danto Garland explained.

Baking was more than therapeutic. Bailey said it also introduced her to untraditional love affairs like Garland's that inspired her to date a 69-year-old client.

"I feel blessed," she said. "When you just stop and open up your arms to whatever comes your way, you might be positively surprised."

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