I felt like a Food Network Star

One of the first people I met when I moved to the Phoenix area was my friend Flicka.

Not really.  My friend Kira was, however, one of the first people I met in Phoenix.

Her birthday is fast approaching, which happens to be on November 11th.

Yeah.  She gets to have a birthday on 11/11/11. 

Pretty fabulous, I tell you.  Especially since she is a numbers kinda gal.

So, she has planned a bash which sounds like great fun.

And because her birthday is on such a monumental day, she cannot have just any old cake.

Not even a Costco cake.

I.KNOW!  If the day is too good for a Costco cake, you know this will be a serious cake!

And so, since the bakery she chose to get her birthday cake from is really just down the street from me, she invited me to go with her for a cake tasting.

Darrell, incidentally, asked me why she had to do a cake tasting, since those a reserved for events like a debutante ball.  I didn't even make that up!

We got to the bakery...Lisa's Rum Cake...a little after 5 pm and they close at 5 pm.

Lisa greeted us at the door and she brought a couple of slices out that Kira wanted to try.

They talked about the size, the way to decorate it, pick-up time.  You know.  The kind of stuff you would talk about with the baker of your fancy cake.

We got everything settled and then Lisa asked us if we wanted to tour the factory.

DOI!  Of course we wanted to tour the factory!

She showed us how they bake the cakes and she decorated one in about 3 minutes that looked better than anything I could have decorated in 3 months. 

Lisa introduced us to most of the employees--which are her husband and three daughters (we met all but one of the daughters).  They all have a real passion for their work.  They said they work until quite late at night and then go back to the shop in the middle of the night to finish things up.

Then Lisa asked us if we knew what a blast chiller was.  Kira and I looked at each other with this silly grin on each of our faces and shrieked "YES!"  As if she had asked us if we each wanted $100 Million Dollars.  A Day.

I asked if I could take photos.  And Lisa said yes.

Here is the giant mixer:

Can you see the regular sized Kitchen Aid to the right of the giant mixer?  I know it's hard to see, but it sorta gives you a sense of the scale of the giant mixer. 

Here is the oven:

You can probably fit eighteen 9x13 pans in this oven.  I bet it would come in super handy around the Christmas baking season.

Here is the blast chiller:

Kira is playing The Price is Right model with her hand.  After the cakes are baked, they are cooled in the blast chiller before decorating.  I want you to know that it was super cold when we opened that blast chiller.

While we were touring the factory, we noticed there were lots of cake scraps in the garbage can.  All I can say is that it was a good thing we had samples because I was a little tempted to pull a George Costanza for a minute.

I think Lisa felt sorry for us since she could see that I almost did the unthinkable, so she gave us another sample. 

So, the moral of the story is, if you are ever in the market for a cake fancier than Costco's, check out Lisa's Rum Cake.  They are delicious cakes baked by a fabulous family!