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Her products, however, are not the usual angel food or layer varieties, for Mrs. Johnson specializes in ornate replicas of churches, homes, ships, and even miniature football fields with players. Although her smallest cakes have averaged only nine inches in diameter, others have reached a height of forty inches. The largest one she has ever made, a replica of a grocery store for an open house anniversary, served 2,500 persons and weighed 240 pounds.

Among her most complicated cakes was a detailed farm, complete with lights, fences, trees, and livestock—composition figures covered with icing to represent the owners' animals. Created for a golden wedding anniversary, the cake supported a bride and bridegroom, dressed as they were on their wedding day.

Another, intricately fashioned, showed a sunken garden with twenty-four wedding figures. She has even made one of the United States Capitol building for the birthdays of two girls in Washington, D. C.

"The most beautiful and most interesting cake I have ever done was a battleship for a sailors wedding," Mrs. Johnson asserts. "But the ones I enjoyed most were those I did for a little girl who had polio. One had a circus theme, another was for Hallowe'en, and the third depicted a Thanksgiving scene."

The majority of her cakes are for weddings, birthdays, and anniversaries, although some are ordered for conventions and rallies. She has shipped them to thirty-three states and Canada.

AVOIDING SPONGE varieties because of their tendency to collapse, Mrs. Johnson makes her butter cakes in almost any flavor. With three icings on the outside to keep them fresh, the huge cakes stay moist for two or three weeks.

One of Mrs. Johnson's major considerations is the quantities in which she must purchase ingredients. Cake flour and granulated sugar are obtained in 100-pound measures, with baking powder coming in ten-pound containers and powdered sugar in cases of twenty-four pounds. Shortening is also bought by the case. Costs of cream, butter, and eggs cannot be determined so accurately, for these are products direct from the Johnsons' farm.

Expensive extracts are of the utmost importance, according to Mrs. Johnson. She maintains that not only are more of the cheaper extracts required, but that they color the cakes, and the flavor of the finished product is not so delicate. Extracts are purchased by the quart.

Two methods are used for mixing the ingredients. Occasionally Mrs. Johnson resorts to the one-bowl method in which all the liquids are mixed together, then added to the dry ingredients; a single beating thus combines all materials. Generally, however, the conventional method is preferred. Using a basic recipe, Mrs. Johnson proceeds in the following manner:

(1) Cream 2 cups sugar and ½ cup shortening.
(2) Add 2 teaspoons vanilla.
(3) Sift together ½ teaspoon salt, 3 teaspoons baking powder, and 3½ cups flour.
(4) Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture alternately with 1½ cups iced water.
(5) Fold in 4 stiffly beaten egg whites.

The batter is then poured into a pan 11 inches wide, 16 inches long, and 3 inches deep, which has been lined with wax paper, buttered, and floured lightly. If several round tins are used to accommodate the recipe, the same preparation is necessary. Although this recipe can be doubled for one mixing, Mrs. Johnson never exceeds that amount of batter to be blended at one time. The cakes are baked for one hour at 325 degrees.

Upon removal from the oven, the cakes are placed on the cooling racks and allowed to stand overnight. A knife is then run completely around the edge, and the cake is inverted. Gentle and patient tapping on the underside loosens the cake without causing breakage.

ONCE ON the modeling board, all browned portions are removed. The slightly rounded center, characteristic of all butter cakes, is also sliced off to achieve uniform thickness. Desired shapes are then cut from the large sheet of cake. One by one these patterned pieces are stacked on a plywood platform on which the entire cake rests. This three-ply base, square or rectangular depending on the general shape of the cake, is covered with several layers of cloth and white paper before the actual building of the cake is started. From ten to fourteen pans of cake are needed for an average product.

Between each layer of cake goes a ½-inch boiled syrup icing, which has less tendency to become sticky than other frostings similar in appearance. When all layers are in place, the cake is completely covered with the icing. Finally comes the decorating, done with a metal, barrel-type decorator. Although the cakes are generally white, such details as flowers, leaves and signs are applied in icing tinted with vegetable coloring.

No forms or molds are used in making the decorations; all are built up freehand. When trees are desired, however, stiff wire is used as foundations and the icing is applied to the wire. Windows are formed by cutting back into the cake, attaching cloth curtains, and covering the entire opening with Cellophane.

Inedible objects such as dolls and bells are added last.

TO HER daughter, Amie, who has worked with her for the last seven years, goes all the credit for getting Mrs. Johnson started in her present occupation. In 1928 Amie became intrigued with the idea while watching some decorators in a large department store in New York, and sent her mother a cake decorator. At first she attempted cakes only for her family, relatives, and friends, but as her ability became known, increased pressure for her products forced her to consider cake-baking on a commercial scale.

"I have never seen anyone else decorate a cake," Mrs. Johnson says. "In fact, I think if one attends a school to learn the trade, he will acquire the techniques of others; he'll never develop his own ideas and his work won't have a personality."

Depending on the time required to complete a cake, the amount of ingredients, and the elaborateness of the finished products, the prices range from $2.50 to $250.

Mrs. Johnson maintains that the cakes themselves are her best advertisements. Pictures featuring her cakes have often been taken at various social functions and have appeared in newspapers throughout the country. Frequently her name and address are mentioned in the accompanying story. Orders are accepted as far as eight months in advance.

For replicas of buildings, Mrs. Johnson works from photographs. Tiny dolls are fashioned from various materials and dressed to represent the principals of the particular occasion for which the cake is being prepared.

MAJOR EQUIPMENT includes electric mixers, wooden cooling racks, a double-oven stove, and a wood table for the decorating process. Deep, built-in cabinets in the special decorating room hold supplies and decorating utensils. For modeling the cakes, Mrs. Johnson uses two knives, both more than 150 years old, with unusually thin, keen blades.

Special care is needed in moving the fragile cakes. Wooden crates lined with cardboard and white paper are used for shipping. The cake is lowered onto down pillows, and Cellophane covers the whole top.

"Since the expressmen can thus see what they're handling," Mrs. Johnson explains, "they exercise extreme caution in moving the boxes, and the cakes arrive at their destinations in perfect condition."

The crates, constructed by her husband and son-in-law, are usually returned by the customers. Eleven are kept in readiness at all times.