Does she make cakes to sell? "Absolutely not. You can’t put a price on a child telling you ‘Ruthie, you are the best cake maker ever.’" And the best cakes ever are what Ruth Ann Hutson has been making for family and friends for a long time. "Not as much as I once did when my children were small, but grandchildren, nieces and nephews came along and there are weddings in between. Wanting to do special cakes for my children was how I got into cake decorating. Until they started to school I was a stay-at-home mom so I took a class in cake decorating in the early ’70s. But now my children’s decorative cakes have turned into a six-layer chocolate cake. It’s the standard birthday cake now."

Ruth Ann says she loves to cook and that she learned by "watching Mama and then challenging myself as I grew up. It’s a labor of love." She is always making cakes and breads, another one of her specialties, to give away. "When Michael (her husband) sees the mix...