Behind the counter at Westwood Ralphs bakery

It was early – too early, thought Brenda Castellon. The usual crowd around the Ralphs bakery counter was thin. After all, it was 4 in the morning, and Castellon stifled a yawn as she watched the cake decorator. He looked glum, thumbing through the thick stack of pink order forms.

Castellon felt a sudden urge to help. Even though she was the manager, she felt bad leaving the cake decorator alone for hours with the colored bags of buttercream frosting. She picked up the bag with apprehension, as it was her first time swirling icing on the cake. The decorator, noticing her fear of damaging the cupcake, told Castellon to relax.

“The design comes from the tip (of the pastry bag), so I just let myself not be afraid. I started with cupcakes, then I picked the (icing) spatula up,” Castellon said. “I grabbed a small little cake and started doing simple things. All of a sudden, I’m now doing all of the cakes.”

Castellon has been the cake decorating specialist at the Westwood Ralphs for the past three years and has worked with the company for a total of 27 years. She is assisted by a team of employees in the bakery department who take custom orders, handwrite messages on cakes and act as a support system for each other.

Decorating the special-request cakes and cupcakes is the sole domain of Castellon, who is the only person in the Westwood Ralphs with the knowledge and skill to do so, said Jasmine Melendez, a bakery department employee who has been at Ralphs for six years.

Castellon arrives at the store at 3:30 a.m. to begin decorating the cakes and cupcakes. In anticipation of the holiday season, Valentine’s Day, Halloween and Mother’s Day, she arrives at 2 in the morning to accommodate the increased demand.

She decorates cakes with regard to the pickup time: Her customers, who are often people working in the surrounding office buildings, sometimes pick up their custom cakes between 4 and 6 in the morning before they go to work.

The usual clients who order from the bakery department are from UCLA faculty, the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and homes in the surrounding neighborhoods, said Vicky Cervera Enriquez, a bakery employee who has been working at Ralphs for nine years.

Melendez said fraternities and sororities hosting large events and students celebrating birthdays will order cakes, but those instances comprise a smaller percentage of orders.

Cervera Enriquez said she tries to assist with frosting and writing messages when the orders back up. Before she became an employee at Ralphs, Cervera Enriquez trained as a pastry chef at Le Cordon Bleu.

Until a year ago, Cervera Enriquez worked in restaurants such as Bottega Louie in downtown Los Angeles concurrently with her employment at Ralphs in Westwood. Cervera Enriquez left the restaurant for Ralphs in search of a more laid-back lifestyle after the chaos of plating desserts at Bottega Louie burned her out.

Cervera Enriquez said the strangest request she received was when a customer asked her to write “isoos iirooi” on a cake with a smiley face underneath the words. Cervera Enriquez, not knowing the language of the message, asked the customer if the message was spelled correctly. The customer told her it was correct and left, leaving Cervera Enriquez utterly confused.

For Castellon, piping elaborate whipped cream designs on cakes comes with challenges. Castellon lamented her chipped burgundy nail polish, a result of her intense hand-washing during continuous cake icing.

“I can’t have jewelry or cute (designs),” Castellon said. “Don’t spend too much money on your fingernails. It’s money wasted.”

Both Cervera Enriquez and Melendez hope to open their own bakeries in the future. Melendez aspires to own a bakery attached to a flower shop to cater to weddings and other special occasions.

Cervera Enriquez grew up in a baking family. Her grandparents, who owned a small bakery in Mexico, would bake pastries for her when they visited. She hopes to open a family business someday – her mother bakes, her sister is involved in marketing and Cervera Enriquez knows how to plate desserts and decorate pastries from her days at Bottega Louie and Le Cordon Bleu.

Castellon, however, sees cake decorating as a job to support her family as a single parent. Because she is constantly working inside a building, she hopes to spend her days outside gardening, painting or driving a bus when she retires.

Meanwhile, she said she has made a conscious decision to be satisfied with her job, which allows her to unleash her creativity on a daily basis.

“Either you decide to be unhappy or you decide to be happy,” Castellon said. “I decided to be happy, and I am happy with my cakes.”