By C. Dimiti | Photo Credit: Adam Detour | Oct. 14, 2016
Sweet on Each Other
A 20-hour road trip can make or break a relationship… so just imagine trying to do that and transport a life-sized Darth Vader cake from Massachusetts to Florida. Such is life for Amanda and Tyler Oakleaf of Oakleaf Cakes Bake Shop, whose business has grown from a two-person operation based out of their apartment to a storefront near Symphony Hall with a slew of like-minded artistic employees.
“I could never do this without his help; we make a great team,” Amanda says of her spouse of more than a decade. “Sculptural details like fondant doesn’t want to hang that high without ripping, and he’s more on the engineering side and marketing side—the real brains behind that cake and creating my website. I’m more on the decorating, baking and creative side.”
Their location helps bring in a mix of employees from her alma mater, nearby MassArt, and from Berklee, where he studied music engineering. The result is a mini family of illustrators, art historians and pastry chefs.
“Everybody has the same background, so we get along really well—sometimes too well! We have the same nerdy obsessions with comics and superheroes. We nerd out on the cakes as much as customers.”
The only thing Amanda would change? “If I got married now, I wouldn’t have a cake. By now we just do pies or ice cream for our birthdays!”
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