GREENWOOD — Two down, to move.
Baking competencies inherited while operating in her mom’s Greenwood bakery and ardor for small business have placed 2002 Woodbridge High School graduate Ebonie Carzo in the Food Network highlight.
Ms. Carzo, proprietor of Scrumptious Cakery in Decatur, Georgia, and baking accomplice Courtney Olivari, proprietor of CEO Custom Cakes & Novelties LLC in Atlanta, have teamed up to advance through two difficult rounds of the 4-spherical Food Network “Wedding Cake Championship.”
At stake: a $25,000 grand prize for the prevailing team.
“Fingers crossed …,” stated Ms. Carzo. “We’re going to break it up right down the center … if we have been to win.”
“We make cakes for several Atlanta’s elites from celebrities, politicians, and athletes,” says Ms. Olivari.
“We bring the ‘wow’ element to each cake we positioned our fingers on,” Ms. Carzo said.
According to the rules of TV shows taped earlier, contestants aren’t at liberty to expose consequences. So, a song in for the 0.33 spherical Monday at 10 p.m.
Ms. Carzo and Ms. Olivari had been among six groups decided on for the “Wedding Cake Championship.”
“Food Network selected some of the most particular bakers from across the country to come in and compete,” stated Ms. Carzo.
The display is co-hosted by former Olympic determine skating champions, Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir.
“They had been amazing,” stated Ms. Carzo. “They are extraordinary.”
Each round has segments. The first competition focuses on cake toppers.
“In the second one, spherical, they create a newly engaged couple, and they tell us what form of wedding cake they need to be designed, the subject matter, and all of the matters they need in the cake taste and layout. We are given five hours to execute that,” stated Mr. Carzo.
“In every episode, they introduce a new bride and groom and provide us with their requirements. Then, we execute a new wedding ceremony cake for each bride and groom.”
“Typically, a day inside the existence of a bakery, you’re going to have your bake days, prep days, and redecorating days. So, within the opposition, all of that has been to be executed within 5 hours,” said Ms. Carzo.
“It, without a doubt, does take skill and information to give you a plan and bake and beautify an entire wedding cake in five hours.”
Conditions on the set where all four rounds were filmed differed greatly from those in Ms. Carzo’s home kitchen for her Scrumptious Cakery commercial enterprise.
“We were truly competing for the interior of a tent in a hot climate. So, it’s no longer your common baking situation wherein you are in a cold kitchen. I preserve my kitchen around 60 ranges because those conditions are true while you’re operating with butter and sugar and such things as that, so nothing melts,” Ms. Carzo said.
“That became part of the festivity in having sweltering conditions. It changed into, in all likelihood, about 90 levels.”
Scrumptious Cakery is a digital bakery near Atlanta. Her customers include well-known R&B artists, authority officials, and gospel artists.
Ms. Carzo flew home to Greenwood to view the June 10 airing of the second one spherical. Greenwood is domestic to Paula’s Place for Cakes — her mom’s bakery that has been “serving exquisitely lovely and delectable cakes” at the Eastern Shore since 1988.
Ms. Carzo has been in the cake-making change for approximately 5½ years. It observed her career within the global company.
“My mother has a bakery in Greenwood. She has been in a commercial enterprise for 31 years. She is very widely known all at some stage in Sussex and Kent County,” stated Ms. Carzo.
“So, I grew up in a bakery. On Saturdays, she always had me up early running, and I swore I would never work in a bakery because I no longer like getting up early on Saturdays. So, once I graduated from Woodbridge, I left and went to Spelman College in Atlanta, where I graduated with a commercial enterprise grasp. I labored in Corporate America until 2013.”
In 2013, she left the corporate world to open her bakery full-time.
“I started doing cakery on the side just to make some more money,” Ms. Carzo said. However, operating within the company world, I realized that I am an entrepreneur, and I love everything about small businesses. So, I fell again on the competencies I discovered from my mother and opened my very own digital bakery.”
A virtual bakery is a brand new idea, she stated. “We don’t have a physical place for humans to be available and out. We’re greater of a cake studio,” Ms. Carzo said. “We get orders online and deliver them out throughout the Southeast vicinity. We have clients in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida.”
I’m sorry, Delawareans. Her delicious desserts aren’t shipped to the First State. However, other non-cake products may be shipped to Delaware.
Classmates and pals may also not forget Ms. Carzo from her high school days at Woodbridge.
“I was born in Seaford, grew up in Greenwood, and went to Woodbridge. I changed into drum predominant three years and all that suitable stuff,” she stated.
Ms. Carzo’s perspectives on her cakery enterprise and Food Network reveal that you don’t have to come from a massive city to attain success and notoriety.
“Coming from a small town like Greenwood, plenty of times, people don’t see or comprehend we can do big matters coming from a small town. Everywhere I move, people don’t honestly recognize Delaware. Even though Joe Biden placed us on the map, they aren’t sure where Delaware is,” stated Ms. Carzo.
“So, I just need to encourage greater folks from ‘Slower Lower,’ something your dreams are to go out, make a plan, and you can be something you aspire to be.”
