A self-taught custom cake baker from Thompson is trying to move on to the next round of the online Greatest Baker competition.
Mary-Lou Linklater is in the quarterfinal round of the competition and currently in second place in her group. Only the person with the most votes by June 17 by 9 p.m. central time will move on to the semifinals.
Linklater originally got the idea of making custom cakes after she had difficulty getting a wedding cake made. She taught her self the basics by watching YouTube videos and says that since then, she’s usually been successful at making customer’s cake dreams come true.
“I like taking on challenging cake orders,” Linklater told the Thompson Citizen. “If someone comes to me with a custom cake and they want something and it interests me, the type of design they would like, then I take it as challenge and usually, 99 per cent of the time, it’s bang on.”
Linklater was convinced to enter the contest by family and friends.
“A couple of my friends kept sending me the link to register, so friends and family kind of pushed me into it,” she says.
They also helped keep her near the top of the leaderboard.
“I held first place for the first three weeks,” Linklater says. “I was actually really surprised with the amount of support my friends and family have given me."
It’s the first contest Linklater has ever entered.
“I’ve never entered into any other contest ever before so this is all new to me and it’s really exciting.”
If she were to win, she would be featured in Bake From Scratch magazine, win a year’s supply of Stuffed Puffs and $20,000 that she would put towards expanding her custom cake business.
“I would definitely try to start up a bakery for myself, convert my garage or one of my rooms into a little commercial kitchen,” Linklater says.
One vote per Facebook account for day can be cast for Linklater at https://greatestbaker.com/2021/mary-lou-linklater.
