Doug Ashbury
Northern News Services

NNSL (July 09/99) - She iced Kenny!

Lynell Broadbent will bake cake creations for any occasion. A cake-shaped Kenny -- Kenny is a character from the animated show South Park -- is one of dozens of her works.

Often the designer cakes are for weddings, birthdays and anniversaries. All of them have more than flour, eggs and icing sugar in common -- they're all fun.

How can they not be?

When someone orders a cake from Broadbent, she knows its going to be part of a celebration.

"Many times I won't know the person. But it's for a happy occasion so that work's to my advantage," Broadbent, who started decorating cakes when she was 12, said.

"All the cakes are made from scratch," she said. No two are the same.

Often, the recipient of the cake will have a hobby or interest that's easy to key in on. For kids, the design often follows certain toys or cartoon images. Among her latest renditions -- the R2D2 cake.

One of her biggest efforts was a multi-layer wedding cake with a fountain and stairs. One wedding cake, made for a relative, was also a wedding present to the bride and groom.

Broadbent said she also gets ideas while surfing the Internet. Designing cakes is a weekend job. By day, she works for the Government of the Northwest Territories in computer systems.

So far, Broadbent's artistic displays amount to only one or two cakes a weekend. And so far, that's about how many she wants to create.

Asked if she wants to take the cake decorating business further, Broadbent says she's comfortable with how many she sells currently.

One day, she said, she may try and expand the business.

And on that rare occasion when someone orders a cake designed by Broadbent and fails to pick it up, it's not hard to figure out what happens.

"We eat it."