The Asheville Cake Lady Is Baking Artwork Into Every Bite

Shana McDowell has had an entrepreneurial spirit for as long as she can remember. In her pre-teen years growing up in Asheville, North Carolina, McDowell says she sold various cosmetic and beauty brands and cleaned the homes of her mother’s friends for just $25 each.

“I’ve always been an entrepreneur,” McDowell says. “My mother was a single mom, and I never wanted her to struggle. Whatever I could do to alleviate some of that stress, I did.”

Now, as the owner and one-woman baker of Asheville Cake Lady, she works seven days a week at her shop on New Leicester Highway as a most sought-after cake designer. Around town, she’s affectionately known as “The Cake Lady,” thus, inspiring the name of her business. From her famed banana pudding and carrot cake to flavored cookies and colorful cupcakes, McDowell is proud of the aesthetics as well as the taste she offers.

“My cakes not only look good, but they taste good,” said 43-year-old McDowell, who has masterfully designed cakes in the shapes of cartoon characters, sporting goods, and trendy sneakers.

“I am able to create what customers are looking for.”

When celebrating a major life event for customers, they send McDowell a photo of their vision; she then carefully weaves artistry into her baking expertise to create a personalized touch for each order.

LaVie Montgomery has known McDowell for several years and has ordered a range of sweet treats, including birthday cakes for her and friends, three-and four-tiered cakes, assorted flavors of cookies, and even 1,000 cupcakes with logos for a recent company event.

“Her treats are simply amazing,” beams Montgomery, also an Asheville native.

As a member of a community investment committee seeking to close the racial wealth gap by strengthening local Black businesses, Montgomery says she often refers the baker to a diverse group of colleagues and frequently supports other Black owners of food services businesses.

“If there’s an opportunity to put a Black name out there, that is exactly what I do. She’s the go-to person,” Montgomery said of the Asheville Cake Lady.

From side hustle to full-time business

An at-home mom and blogger for a couple of years, McDowell launched her business by decorating shortbread cookies. She wanted to step up her game and took a local decorating class, which required her to design cakes instead of cookies. Quickly mastering her new talent, she began baking cakes and initially gave them to customers. Around this time, she returned to work full-time at a warehouse while baking cakes on the weekends.

“I was definitely a full-time employee on someone else’s clock, and I was making more on the weekends than I was at my job,” said McDowell, who was easily earning upward of $800 by producing a half-dozen cakes each weekend.

Realizing how lucrative her side hustle had become, McDowell left her warehouse job to become her own boss, completing her LLC in the spring of 2018, securing a storefront space in November of that year, and officially opening for business in March 2019.

In just a few years, Asheville Cake Lady has quickly expanded. McDowell opened a second brick-and-mortar location in 2021, run by her father. Her daughter, Lizzy, became her business partner during the pandemic while finishing high school and today, the younger McDowell makes vegan treats upon request and for special events. Although the second location closed earlier this year, Asheville Cake Lady is still whipping up lots of orders thanks to DoorDash in the Asheville area, an active social media presence, word of mouth, and shipping select treats across the United States. Each month, she sells roughly 20 custom cakes and 1,000 cupcakes.

Melanie Hartles’ first visit to McDowell’s shop in early March was in search of the cake lady’s banana pudding “that I hear is out of this world” as a treat for her husband’s birthday.

“I was intentionally researching Black-owned businesses, and the Asheville Cake Lady was on that website,” Hartles explains. “I just think that we’re in a day and age where we need to be making historical wrongs right, and I think the Black community in Asheville is large but may be sometimes hidden and separated, and I feel like I want to be part of bridging that gap.”

 A “walking statistic” changing the narrative

A self-described “walking statistic,” McDowell says she’s a Black woman without a college degree and five children and lives in public housing. “There is no way that I should own a business,” McDowell maintains. “There are locals here that know that. They walk in, and they are like, ‘If she did it, I can do it.” And that is what pushes me. That’s a win for me.”

She’s proud to run her own business in the city where she was born and raised. McDowell is hopeful for the future of area Black businesses.

“Asheville is a beautiful city if you come here…it’s a fun culture,” she says. “As a business owner, I would hope that Asheville could continue to grow with minority-owned businesses—with businesses that look like us.”

From the plus-sized clothing consignment shop More to Love, to handmade wearable art by Black women at Dope Divas Accessories or It’s Amira M, these are just a few of the many ways visitors can discover the unique Appalachian culture while supporting Black-owned businesses in Asheville. Plan your next visit by visiting ExploreAsheville.com.

As for McDowell’s advice to folks who look like her, particularly single moms and Black women who want to launch their own business: “Yes, you can, and I’m proof,” she says. “Don’t let anyone tell you what you can’t do.”