Prize cake is a labor of love

Amelia Carbine of Logan enjoyed sweet success with a third-place win at the Oklahoma State Sugar Art & Wedding Cake Competition in Tulsa, Okla., Sept. 28-30.

The 27-year-old mother of four received $2,500 in cash and $1,000 in sponsor prizes from what is regarded as the Super Bowl of cake decorating.

"The decorators who go to this competition are the big names who have been my idols," she said. "So it was really fun to be a part of it, to meet them and have fun conversations and actually become friends with them."

Carbine's cake, titled "Love Letters," drew inspiration from the World War II-era love letters between her grandparents, Evan and Marylene Dastrup of Sigurd, while Evan was a B-24 bomber pilot in Europe. Some of the letters are displayed on the cake.

"The show's theme was the language of flowers, and I had to come up with a cake that had flowers with a meaning behind it," Carbine said. "I really wanted to do a magnolia flower, and magnolia means perseverance. I thought it would be fun to show the perseverance of love, because love can take a lot of strength and perseverance. I also used an oak leaf, which symbolizes strength. And I thought of love letters, when people in love are away from each other."

When she mentioned the idea to her mother, she found out about her grandmother's old love letters.

"I read through them and picked out some that I thought would be best with my theme," she said.

The cake has the potential to endure as long as the letters have, because it's actually made with a Styrofoam base rather than real cake, Carbine explained. "Everything on the outside has to be edible, but they allow a Styrofoam base for transportation reasons," she said. "It has the fondant covering and royal icing but no buttercream frosting that can spoil. It would last forever as long as it doesn't have sun or water damage."

Carbine teaches cake decorating classes at the Love to Cook Kitchen Kneads and Michael's stores in Logan, and she is in the process of obtaining a business license for a cake business, Frosted Fantasy Cakes, at

frostedfantasycakes.com.

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E-mail: vphillips@desnews.com

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