Sugar and spice at Main Street Cake Shoppe

For April Murray, making and decorating elaborate cakes for friends' celebrations was nothing more than a hobby. Then, it developed into a passion — and a career.

Murray is the second-generation owner ofJust Pizza and its sister business, Main Street Cake Shoppe, both in Gibsonville.

Murray's parents opened Just Pizza when she was eight years old. Today Murray and her husband, Mark, are the owners of Just Pizza as well as Main Street Cake Shoppe, located inside of the restaurant.

Murray has made and decorated all of the cakes at Main Street Cake Shoppe since the business started three years ago. Her husband comes and gives her a hand when he's off rotation from his full-time job as a Burlington fireman.

"My husband is a great dishwasher," Murray said. "He is very, very supportive in that and he's very good at having a critical eye for things and how they flow We complement each other."

All of the cakes are made-to-order by appointment and vary in styles from sheet cakes and birthday cakes to wedding cakes and corporate party cakes. From towering, fondant-covered topsy-turvy cakes to delicately frosted buttercream confections, there are as many types of cake as there are pizzas. Murray also makes custom cupcakes and sells cupcakes at Just Pizza Tuesday through Sunday. The cakes and the pizzas are baked using the same oven.

Murray makes all of her cakes from scratch using her grandmother's and great-grandmother's recipes.

"We want everything to taste as good as it looks; that's why we use second and third generation recipes," Murray said.

She said she enjoys making "old-school southern" recipes like red velvet cake.

"A lot of people say they wish they could do something," Murray said. "I say, then just do it."

Murray is mostly self-taught in the art of making cakes. She even failed an art class her senior year of high school.

"I can't draw," Murray said. "You tell me to draw somebody's face; I cannot draw your face. But stuff like swirls and cake designs I can do."

She has taken some basic classes at Swank Cake Design in Raleigh and also learned from bakers from Food Network.

"The thing about cake that's cool is that it's constantly evolving," Murray said. "There's always something different coming out like new techniques or new patterns that people are using."

She explained that cake design is really inspired by fashion. Murray loves looking at fabrics and patterns, which influence most of her designs.

Now that the cake shop has been up and running for a few years, Murray has had many orders from people besides her friends.

"We had a guy call from the United Kingdom to deliver a cake to his girlfriend who was a graduate student at Elon for her birthday," Murray said.

The man found Main Street Cake Shoppe on Facebook, was excited that they had more than 1,400 "likes" on their page and decided to call them.

"We actually thought that it was a prank call," Murray said, since the number was blocked and her husband's friends from the fire station like to pull pranks all the time. "He was a very persistent and polite young man. He called back three times."

Murray said that she has gotten quite a few orders from people related to Elon including parents sending birthday cakes and Greek organizations.

The customer from the United Kingdom is one of many people who use the Internet to stay up-to-date with the cakeshop.

"We do post on Facebook every day the flavors of cupcakes we have," Murray said.

They post discounts on their Twitter and customers will get a "buy-one, get-one free" cupcake if they check into the shop with Facebook or Foursquare.

Murray said she loves what she does.

"If you don't enjoy it and it's not fun than why do it?" she said.

She also said she is confident in their choice to open the cake shop.

"It was the path that led us to where we were supposed to be."

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