A Kelowna baker has taken her talents to the national stage for everyone to see later in the month.
Kathie Dionne, the owner of Kakes by Kathie, is a self-taught baker and cake decorator. Locally, she’s known for her elaborate and delicious cakes and cupcakes.
Dionne and her cakes have been featured many times in various wedding magazines and sites throughout the country, but this is the first time she’s showing off on TV.
She said she had been contacted by the Food Network to participate in their shows several times but she had always refused.
“They’ve been asking me for years to participate, but I’ve always run into challenges before,” she said.
“Typically, they want to film during wedding season which isn’t feasible for me… and then (the shows are) usually for teams of three, and I am Kakes by Kathie. I’m a one-girl operation, so that’s always been a challenge.”
But this time, something was different: the network told her that they wanted to film a Halloween segment in January, meaning she would avoid the wedding season.
“At that point, I just had to plan out and find a team.”
That is when her two friends came onto the scene. She said she called a baker friend, Joanne and cake decorator Kaleena.
Together, they became Team For Goodness Cakes, competing in The Big Bake: Halloween.
She said finally getting to go was a good experience in its own way, but the fact that it was during the height of the pandemic also made it feel different.
“Anytime they weren’t filming, everybody was in full protective gear… it was almost like you were walking into a space scene, it was a little surreal,” she said.
“But even on set, the judges normally would come right up to check your work, but they were keeping their six feet.”
She can’t quite say what the outcome of the competition was for her until the episode airs, but Dionne is happy and proud of how she and her friends performed.
Most of all, she said she’s grateful for the chance to take her talent to a national show and put Kelowna’s cake scene on the map.
The Big Bake: Halloween runs from now until October. The episode featuring Dionne will air sometime later in the month.
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