Jerusha Bosarge

The Cakemaster

“Hey Babycakes!” she shouts, eyes wide opened, as I enter. “Come in!”
Nestled between the JPD traffic division and Dave Swann’s gun repair on Old Canton Road, there is a tiny green shop called Obbie’s Cakes and Chocolates. Inside, a tall fair-skinned lady, Marsha Rose Davis, pulls her chestnut hair into a ponytail and is hand-sculpting a pound of white chocolate into a fruit topiary.
I step through the glass-framed doorway and into the foyer, where I immediately smell the familiar, comforting aroma of sweet white almond cake baking. I am reminded of the holidays and family and cheer.
As I look around, the first thing I notice is a giant, life-sized blue M&M standing just to the right of the kitchen entrance. He appears to be waving at me. Creepy. I shift my gaze to the left, and am intrigued by the contents of Marcia’s display case. “Are all of these made of chocolate?” I ask. She glances up from her work.
“No, the petit-fores are just covered in chocolate. They are made of cake and ganache’”
Amazing. On the top shelf, sits a tiny, dark-chocolate pool table, complete with pool cue, and tiny, colorful little balls. Just beside it, is a delightful white chocolate tea-set. Each cup, saucer, and kettle appears to have been hand painted in pastel pink, blue, and green with all the intricacy of Lennox china. As I continue my tour of the display case, I become more and more tickled by the entire collection: a high-healed Chenelle shoe, a Christmas gift, a cradle, an apple, a mounted deer-head, a crown, and a blue-dragon.
“Tell me about your work, Marcia. How do you create things like this?”
“It’s really not that difficult,” she explains as she painstakingly kneads a lump of the sweet-smelling, cream-colored medium into what is beginning to look like a pear. “It just takes a long time. Here, give it a try, Babycakes.”
Babycakes, hum? Maybe I should give it a try, I think to myself as I reach for the chocolate play dough. “It’s greasy.” I don’t really know why that surprises me.
“Try to mold it into a ball,” she offers as I clumsily fumble the illusive substance through my fingers, and eventually onto the gray tile floor.
“Maybe I should leave the work to the professional.”
As I glance around her shop, I can’t help but notice the hodge-podge of accessories that seem to originate from a single red wall in an otherwise white and stainless steel room. Among them, are a collection of plastic M&Ms, numerous smiley-face icons, miscellaneous religious items (both Jewish and Christian), pictures of her two mix-bred dogs Colt and Coco, and a bumper sticker that pictures a can of “Whoop-Ass” and reads “Don’t make me open this!”
“So, tell me about yourself.” I inquire.
“Well, I’m Jewish.” She replies as she tears off tiny pieces of warm, sticky chocolate to mold into grape-sized balls. “I am very close to God, spiritually, but I am not sure I believe everything ‘by the book’.”
“What do you mean?”
She glues the bunch of creamy chocolate grapes onto a sculpted square base with a melted concoction of sugar, coco, and milk.
“Circumstances in my life have sorta molded me into more of a hands-on learner, if ya know what I mean. I just kind of learn as I go. That’s how I’ve made Obbie’s.”
I’m shocked. “Did you not complete culinary school?”
“Nope. I learned a lot while I was there, but that’s not how I learned to bake.”
“If you did not complete culinary school, then how did you learn your craft?”
“Through lots of mistakes, Babycakes,” she laughs as she pulls off another chunk of white chocolate.
“How did you end up where you are today? Are there aspects of your personal life that you feel directly contribute to your art?”
“Everything, sweetie.” She takes a break from sculpting to wash her hands and pull a cake from the oven. “I mean, this is who I am. Everything you see here. Everything I do has led me up to this point. I mean, I don’t have a family. I don’t have children. I just have my work and my boys, so I love them both with all my heart.”
“Your boys?”
“Yea, babycakes! Colt and Coco!” she smiles slyly. “My dogs are my life, man. I don’t know what I would do without my boys. All my friends say my house looks like a pimp pad, with all the animal prints and furry furniture, but I want my boys to feel comfortable. I just try to do everything to the best of my ability, ya know? Here, at the shop, my work is mostly for the kids.”
“Did you ever think about adoption?”
“Oh, of course! I would love to have children. But, I want it to happen the way God intended. I want to have a husband first.” She places a large block of fresh white chocolate into the double boiler and turns on the heat.
“Any prospects?” I intrude.
“A few, babycakes. Nothing final, yet, but a few,” she smiles with a secretive air.
As the day wears on, sunlight beams through the windows of the tiny bakery, illuminating a portfolio of her work.
“Do you mind?”
“Not at all, Babycakes.”
I flip through the pages of the large black scrapbook, and try to imagine the amount of work that must have gone into any one of these cakes. The detail of each piece rivals that of the most accomplished sculptors. I see a castle, with rocks and a mote and windows and grass and everything, down to the finest detail in the mordar. I see an earthquake of a cake, topsy-turvy, on the verge of collapse in hot-pink, cannery yellow, and electric blue with ecru pearls and bright geometric flowers bursting from it like a volcano… truly a party cake. I see a regal military uniform, complete with shiny gold buttons and medals and ribbons. I begin to see a pattern. Each cake is three dimensional, and is focused on the tiniest details.
“I can’t imagine putting this much work into something that is going to be destroyed! Why do you do it, Marsha Rose?”
“I love to cook. I love to paint. I love to create. And I love to entertain. This way, I can do all of my favorite things at once!” Silence. “Walla!”
She finishes gluing the final chocolaty piece of fruit onto her latest masterpiece, and takes a step back to get an overall view. “Not too shabby, is it Babycakes?”
“Not too shabby, at all.”
Marsha Rose Davis is “40ish” years old and moved to Jackson in 1994 from Silver Spring, Maryland. She opened Obbies Cakes and Chocolates in 1996, and has since expanded her business to include full service catering. She attended Baltimore International Culinary College and the School of Confectionary Art in the early 1990’s, and has traveled the country attending seminars under famous chefs like Jacques Torres, Susan Notter, Ewald Notter, and Executive Master Pastry Chef Jan Bandula. She has created chocolate pieces for a state dinner at the white house, her signature dessert is a Chocolate truffled tart with chocolate and peanut butter mousse, and her motto is “I will dip my chocolate in your peanut butter if you stick your peanut butter in my chocolate.”