Cynthia's Cakes will be on MTV reality show tonight

Cynthia Ebrom once baked a cake for the president in a mobile home.

It was the ‘90s, and President Bill Clinton visited the Rio Grande Valley. The University of Texas-Pan American wanted to deliver special treat for him. They called Ebrom.

For the past two decades, Ebrom has owned and operated Cynthia’s Cakes in Edinburg. Back when President Clinton came, her shop was in a mobile home parked on Doolittle Road. Inside that tiny locale, she created a three-dimensional, edible rendering of the White House – enough cake to serve 900 people. It was widely praised as delicious.

“I never got to meet him personally, but the cake was for him, and I know he got to take some cake on the plane home,” Ebrom says.

She’s come a long way from that mobile home. Her shop is still located at 4310 N. Doolittle Road near the intersection with Monte Cristo Road. She now has a stationary cake shop. It’s a small yellow house built in the Victorian style. The mobile home sits nearby, converted into storage.

And she still bakes high-profile cakes. She baked a cake for a new show called Quiero Mis Quince, a variation of MTV’s My Super Sweet 16. This new program focuses on quinceañeras rather than birthday parties.

WATCH THE SHOW
Click here to view a preview!
WHEN: 8 p.m. tonight, Monday, Nov. 23
WHERE: MTVTr3s, cable channel 618

For the uninitiated, this show follows parties from beginning to end. Cameras chronicle the planning, the nerves and the drama that inevitably stems from the whole thing. The stars of the show pretty much always have too much money, and they pretty much always spend it freely. Episodes of My Super Sweet 16 have shown parents forking over nearly $1 million to fly in tween pop bands like Cobra Starship. These kids pretty much get their cake, eat it too, and then get more cake.

The celebrations on Quiero Mis Quince rank just as lavishly. Ebrom baked a cake for a girl from April Guzman, a debutante from Zapata, which is just west of Starr County. Until the show airs Nov. 23, Ebrom can’t reveal much about the cake.

Guzman threw a medieval-themed event, inviting dozens of her friends and family.

MTV and its camera crew descended on Ebrom’s shop for four hours, filming the baking process. The network, of course, did not show Ebrom the footage before it aired.

“There’s drama no matter what,” Ebrom says. “That’s what you get for a TV show with MTV involved. They want drama. It’s for young kids, over-the-top stuff. It was an experience that was pleasant. I have no idea what they’ll edit out.”

When it all ended, Ebrom felt satisfied with the cake she delivered. A family friend made the centerpiece cake for the party. Ebrom baked a three-dimensional cake for the upstairs VIP lounge. Yes, the 15-year-old girl’s party had an upstairs VIP Lounge.

“She wanted something unusual. She wanted a topsy-turvy look. Something that no one else had ever done,” Ebrom says.

This marks another step in Ebrom’s baking career. She started her craft in 1983 with a $5 beginner’s kit. At the time, she had divorced her first husband and set out as a single mother in Yoakum, Texas. She worked as a seamstress, and the money wasn’t good. So she started baking.

At first she exchanged her cakes and pastries for things she needed. Things like pans.

“I did it the hard way,” she says.

Occasionally friends would offer her money. Ebrom refused, saying her cakes weren’t worth it. That changed. She got better.

She moved to the Valley in the late ‘80s and opened the shop. She made connections at the university, which hired her to bake cakes for distinguished speakers and guests.

Cynthia’s Cakes also crafted a computer-shaped cake for the head of Dell Computers. Ebrom didn’t know it at the time, but that cake would later lead to one of the greatest experiences of her life.

In 2007, Dell held a contest for small businesses. A group of winners would receive an advertisement in New York City’s Times Square. Ebrom sent in a picture of a three-dimensional cake that was shaped like slices of a larger cake. She won.

The woman who started baking with a $5 kit traveled to New York City. Standing there amid the bustling traffic, she watched as an advertisement for her business appeared on one of the building-sized flashing screens.

“You’re there with all these people and you see your ad pop up,” she says. “I started with $5, and here I am, a multi-million dollar ad pops up on Times Square. It really hit me hard how far I’d come since I’d bartered with those pans.”

Zack Quaintance covers features and entertainment for Festiva. You can reach him at (956) 683-4447.