Tasting success in Hallsville

Donna Martz is well-acquainted with the work of Hallsville cakemaker Edith Hall. After all, Hall made the cakes for the weddings of three of Martz’s five children.

“She does a terrific job in making them,” Martz, of Columbia, said. “I would say she’s an artist in cake decorating.”

Hall has made and sold wedding cakes since 1984 and this week receives national recognition for her talents as a cake decorator. One of her cakes is on display through Thursday at Grand Central Station in New York City, as part of a gallery sponsored by Brides magazine.

“I feel very honored,” Hall said last week.

Hall was one of about 5,000 wedding-cake designers invited to submit designs for the gallery, she said. Of those, 50 were chosen.

Hall runs her business, Cakes with the Personal Touch by Edith Hall, out of her home. She said that from May through October — the high season for weddings — she usually makes about two or three wedding cakes each weekend. They sell for $300 to $400.

Each cake, typically four tiers, takes her about three to four hours to decorate, Hall said. The cake she took to New York, on the other hand, took her about 100 hours to decorate, even though it’s a bit smaller than her usual cakes.

The difference, she said, is in the details.

“For one, this cake has handmade, edible flowers that were put together petal by petal,” she said. “When you’re doing a show cake, every drape must be exactly the same as the next drape, every petal must be identical.”

And put that fork away: The inside of the New York cake, like all other show cakes, is made of plastic foam. Hall said this is done so that the cake can be displayed indefinitely.

After she is done with her show cakes, Hall displays them in her shop. The New York cake also will be put on display at the International Cake Exploration Societé convention in late July and early August in New Orleans, she said. Hall is a member of Societé’s board of directors.

Lida Snow, the group’s president, said Hall is talented in terms of her artistic ability and creativity. “She would be able to accomplish anything a bride would ask of her,” Snow said. “You can’t say that about everyone in the cake-making industry.”

Snow also spoke highly of Hall’s ability to adapt to her customers’ needs.

“She can design a cake that would be theirs, that no one else had had before,” she said.

One could certainly say that about a cake Hall made some 15 years ago: It was a full-scale replica of a coffin.

“It served over a thousand people and was taken to the party in a horse-drawn glass carriage,” she said.

Hall said the most rewarding aspect of her job is seeing the happiness she brings her customers.

“When it is all said and done, and you hear back from the bride that you made their day, you are very pleased,” she said.