Many people in the Nashville area know Irene Long as ‘The Cake Lady,’ but before she baked cakes she was simply a woman working a regular nine to five.
Long was nine years old when her mother took her into the kitchen and taught her how to make a cake from scratch. Though it was only a simple layer cake, she said her passion for making cakes started that day.
Long would bake cakes all the time for friends and coworkers and was shocked when they began offering her money to bake for them. Long lost her job in 2004 and used her new found unemployment as an opportunity to pursue her dream job of baking cakes full time.
Long didn’t get a chance to go to culinary school but, in her own kitchen through trial and error she perfected her skill. She turned an extra room in her home into a bakery so she could receive her license to bake. This allowed her to expand her business. Long now sells wedding cakes.
She prides herself in offering her customers delicious desserts all from scratch. Long said the beauty of her cakes is making people’s mouths water with the use of fresh fruits and nuts—not with fancy shapes and colors. One of her most popular cakes, the hummingbird cake, includes fresh pineapples and bananas.
She shared her red velvet cake chess square recipe on ‘Talk of the Town’ in December of last year and her chess pie was featured in Travellers magazine.
Irene’s ‘Old Fashioned Homemade Cakes’ are available everyday at Prince’s Chicken. She also bakes pies, wedding cakes, and has seven varieties of chess squares. If you would like to place an order she can be reached at 615-473-5227.
