From an early age, making cakes and Christmas cookies with her mother was just a joy for Judy. Whenever she heard the baking forms clatter in the kitchen, she ran to offer her help.

Baking remained her favorite hobby throughout high school, college, and a successful career as a paralegal. In 1993 Judy enrolled in a 3-month baking course at the California Culinary Academy and then worked with well-known bakers in the Berkeley area. She began her own company, True Confections, in 2006, and produces exclusively wedding and special occasion cakes, cookies, and chocolate truffles. "Everything chocolate," she told me, "dark and white, rolled chocolate, ganaches, and mousses."

I sampled her most popular cakes. One of my favorites was the delicious yellow butter cake, filled with fresh Meyer lemon curd and Meyer lemon mousse. Another one was the chocolate butter cake, filled with chocolate ganache and chocolate mousse with fresh strawberries. What makes her cakes so special is the organic, fresh fruit she uses, primarily from her own garden.

Besides enjoying the art of baking and decorating, Judy likes the science that goes into the baking process. When a customer brought her a picture of a red velvet cake from the South, she experimented with the recipe until she got it right. I learned about her extensive knowledge when we talked about the different organic and non-organic cake ingredients.

Her largest cake so far was the reproduction of the St. Basil Cathedral in Moscow. It measured two feet across the base and stood three feet tall.