JIA RODRIGUEZ has been spinning her sugar magic for many suns in the land of sugar and spice. Nobody really taught her how then.
She just opened a cookbook and followed directions. The rest was magic.
For Jia, a nursing graduate planning to take the board exams in June, baking is a passion and making them beautiful works of art, a fascination. Like a fairy tale princess, she spins her sugar magic. She was only 10 years old when she started to bake.
Nobody taught her how to do it, except for the instructions from the cookbook. At that age, something made her gravitate toward baking cakes and pastries. At 12, she sold her macaroons in school.
In her shop, Got Cake?, every creation is a labor of love, and every cake inspired by her client’s personality, which she tries to capture in the cake she does.
For weddings, being fashion doyenne Ditas Rodriguez’s daughter, she weaves a cake that touches on the couple’s love story. A favorite cake for a silver wedding anniversary emulates vintage lace, sparkling with Swarovski crystals.
Jia loves her cakes to be elegant, neat and out of the ordinary, each with an “attitude,” each marked with intricate details that bring smiles to her clients’ faces.
Themed cakes are a favorite of Jia. The cake of her dreams is a whopping eight-foot Dr. Seuss motif from the book Cat in the Hat, with lights inside the cake itself, or fantasia themes from The Wizard of Oz.
Sugar is her treasured amazing ingredient and her favorite “helper” is her 20-year-old trustworthy, good-as-new Kitchen Aid mixer.
Jia says “baking is a joy and not a chore” and challenges homemakers never to be afraid to venture out of their comfort zone, and go ahead in trying to bake a cake.
Her best-seller is an uber-moist chocolate cake and choco-marble with mocha filling. Her family loves best her to-die-for chocolate cup cakes and carrot pineapple cake with cream cheese frosting. Jia, indeed, “tops the cake” as a cake princess. (She has a “royal” address at jiarodriguez@ymail.com.)