EW PALESTINE — It seems strange now, looking back, that Jovanna Hinkle didn’t like art class at all when she was at New Palestine High School.
“I used to beg my mom to write me a note to get me out of art class all the time,” Hinkle said.
The flair for making something creative is front and center in her life now.
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Jovanna, 33, has been in business baking specialty hand-crafted cakes and desserts for several years. Now, with the help of her mother, Darlene McCamey, Jovanna will open up her first bake shop, called The Cakehole.
The open house for The Cakehole is set for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, at 18 W. Main St., Suite B, in New Palestine.
“We’ll have samples to give away and freshly baked items if anyone wants to buy anything,” she said.
Jovanna said she got into baking almost by accident after taking a creative craft class with her mother a few years ago.
That’s when she fell in love with the idea of being able to bake her son’s first birthday cake. After that, things snowballed, she said.
Jovanna has been making cakes for her sons, Jaxon and Jude, and other family members for years. When she posted one of the photos of her work on social media, her baking career took off.
“It accidentally happened,” she said. “I started getting all these phone calls asking me, ‘Aren’t you the cake lady?’”
Baking for her family is one thing, but having the courage to step out and start a business is another.
“This is a hobby, and I am just lucky enough that people want to pay for it,” Jovanna said. “I look at it as art, and I just love it.”
Darlene said her daughter is a high achiever. Jovanna has degrees from college in social work and sign language. While she said she feels her daughter would be successful at anything, creating tasteful, memorable treats is her calling.
“She is very hard on herself, and she won’t let a cake go,” Darlene said. “I’ll tell her it looks great, but she’ll do something else with it and make it look amazing.”
When Jovanna started making wedding cakes, her baking business went to a whole new level, Darlene said.
“She makes things that are not cookie cutter; it’s custom-made for them,” Darlene said.
Jovanna said she creates each cake with feeling, knowing she’s crafting something special for a person’s special day.
She said she could not do the business without the full support of her mother, who is her partner, and her husband, Jeremy Hinkle.
Reflecting on those art classes she tried desperately to get out of as a young teen, Jovanna said she’s come to realize she is a three-dimensional artist.
“If you ask me to sketch your cake, it will look like one of my kids did it; but to make it, as a 3-D artist, that is what I am,” she said.
Most of her customers place orders for cakes, cupcakes, cookies, cannolis and more on her website, thecakehole.net, or through her Facebook page at facebook.com/thecakehole.
She will bring the items to patrons or let them come in and pick it up at the shop from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays.
“We’ll start off that way for now and see how it goes,” she said. “We can always meet them somewhere and drop off the cake.”
She’ll do that in a custom food truck patrons will soon see on the streets of Hancock County.
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Open house for The Cakehole
When: Saturday
Where: 18 W. Main Street, Suite B, New Palestine.
Time: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
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