Top 3 African American cake designers,where one grew up designing cakes and is still presently doing so!

I love cake. I specifically love key lime pie the most. I love what kinda
pies and cookies I can get my hands on. From time to time, I have
late night cravings. It’s very rare when I give into them. But it’s a
good thing for people to own businesses, but I am happiest
when I find things black owned. It’s not enough black owned
businesses. If you find them, it’s best to highlight them
and go to them because we need all the help we can get…

If you are a sweet lover, they have sweet potato cheesecake,
which I’ve never tasted, strawberry buttercream and red velvet
also two more treats I’ve never tasted. Those are just some of
the desserts at 3 African American owned cake shops in
Brooklyn and Washington, DC.

I always wondered what New York Cheesecake is like….
I always passed it up for something else.

Anyhow, Shakoor Watson, Warren Brown, and Raven Patrick
De Sean Dennis, III come from different roads of life, which all
have showed their love of all things sweet into a full force
business.

Warren Brown says ” I was a health care lawyer, but I didn’t totally
enjoy it. “My passion is really for food and I began baking at home
after work.”

Cake Man Raven spent a lot of his time in South Carolina, decorating
cakes a child. “My parents sent me to my grandmother’s he said.
That’s when he began helping out in the kichen.

Just like the others, Shakoor Watson accumulated some cooking
skills during his earlier days. “As the youngest, son, I was always
around my mom cooking, Waston said. “I learned a lot of my crafts
under my mother’s wing.”

Running a cake shop is something that the 3 men put their hearts
into. This is especially for Watson, who opened up his bakery
after a few years in prison for drugs and crime. ‘I made up my
mind I’m going to change my life” said Waston. “I wanted to
come out of prison running, not walking.”

After turning his life around, Watson opened up a storefront in Brooklyn’s
Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood, the same area he used to
hustle in.

In a second part of Brooklyn, Cake Man Raven’s fresh red velvets are a
favorite in his Fort Greene neighborhood and beyond.

Washington, D.C. is the foundation to Brown’s first Cakelove shop,
which is located on U Street, historically a cultural center
for the African American community.

Cakelove has branched out like trees to 6 locations in DC, Maryland,
and Virginia. His success though was not instant. “It took a lot of
time, Brown said. “I was juggling lots of things in between
filling orders, keeping the business running, tryinig to write
a business plan and get financing.”

When Cakeman Raven was in the 6th grade, he sold his first 2
coconut pies to his elementary school teacher for just $5
each. When he was a kid, he really impressed judges with
his talents at cake shows and competitions.

Each shop has something it’s specifically known for.
CakeMan Raven thought has become known for his red velvet,
which came to be in the south during the Civil War Era. “The ladies
used to keep their men home by cooking the red velvet cake,
he confessed.

Watson’s specialty is the sweet potato cheesecake. He blended
her recipe of cheesecake, sweet potato butter pound cake,
sweet potato dream cake, which is made of a sweet potato
layer cake with cream cheese frosting, roasting pecans and
almonds” he stated.
‘
Okay folks, how do you like your cakes and pies?

Black woman who has 19 feet hair locs, the longest hair locs in the world!

I’m always amazed when I hear great news…. I’m impressed
when I hear good news. But I’m very stunned when out of
it all…there’s a story talking about something out of the ordinary.
That’s what sparks attention like fireworks lighting up the
sky and the boom that you can feel outside from it.

So let me introduce you to Asha Mandela, who is a black woman.
She has the longest hair locs in the world which makes her an
official Guinness World Record holder.

Her locs measure 19 feet,6 inches…..so forget waist length hair….
waist length hair ain’t got nothing on this woman. Her hair weighs
4 pounds when it is dry.

Asha says locs are more than a hairstyle, it’s a way of life and
expression of self.

I quote her as saying this” When I started growing my locks, I
suddenly became very overprotective of them, as I felt they beheld
all my energy, wisdom, knowledge and understanding and my over
all strength. So I twisted, groomed, and maintained them for
myself..to the present,” she said in a recent interview by
email.

To take such care of such long length requires a heck of a lotta time
and a lot of products. See how many bottles of shampoo she uses
to wash her hair.

She uses Allways Natural Isogro Conditioning Hairdress… Question
Is there something in that bottle that makes her hair grow like a
bean stalk? No just kidding, I don’t know. I know I hear a lot of
how dreadlocks cause the hair to grow…

I always wonder if dreadlocks get split ends because they fit
so tightly together like puzzle pieces.

I was contemplating hair locks.I have family members with hair locks
and it looks like it don’t shrink that much.

Do you know of people wearing hair locks? Do you want to
lock your hair?

http://www.bvhairtalk.com/2010/07/14/the-worlds-longest-locs/