X-rated baked goods?

Nothing is too risqué for Stephanie Smith.

She’s a favoured baker when it comes to bridal showers and bachelor parties.

The 48-year-old puts her imagination to work and allows her baking skills to do the rest.

“It is that wow factor that I go for,” said the owner of SJS Creations. “For them to taste it and like it makes it even better. ‘I dare to be different’, is my business motto.”

She launched the business 22 years ago. She was newly divorced and had to support her young son, Brandon.

“I was struggling to make ends meet,” the trust administrator said. “I needed a second job, but I didn’t want my son to grow up to be a latchkey kid or lost to society. I needed something I could do at home.”

She turned to baking, an old high school passion. SJS provides baked goods, event coordination and decorating services.

Ms Smith said she was inspired by her late grandmother, Helen Adams and Duff Goldman, the host of a cancelled TV show, Ace of Cakes.

“She was of Portuguese descent,” she said. “As I got older, I was allowed to help make malasadas (doughnuts) and biscoitos (cookies) at holidays. That really fuelled my interest in baking.”

She was surprised when Mr Goldman responded to an e-mail she sent to his Philadelphia bakery, with an invite to come for a tour. “It was awesome to meet him,” said Ms Smith. “He was so down-to-earth. At the bakery, he showed me some tips and tricks.”

It helped her realise that when it came to cake design, the sky was the limit.

Her clients keep her on her toes with their unusual requests although they aren’t all racy.

“One group asked me to make a cake for one of their co-workers,” she said. “She was celebrating her fifth anniversary being breast cancer free.”

Ms Smith made a cake with breasts poking playfully out of a pink bra and a necklace with the breast cancer pink ribbon symbol.

“I just got a request from a lady who wants a Midori liqueur cake,” she said. “It is the complementing flavours you need that are hard to decide on. From a drink perspective, there has to be pineapple somewhere. It is a matter of playing with it to make sure one flavour doesn’t overpower the other.”

One of her more challenging projects was making a cake shaped like the Incredible Hulk’s fist. She used Rice Krispies treats, and dyed them green.

Cakes revealing the gender of a baby are popular shower requests. She uses pink or blue colouring inside the cake to tell guests what sex it is. “Sometimes the only person who knows is me and the expecting mother,” she said. “Once I was accosted by a grandmother who yelled at me that I was mean because I wouldn’t tell her. Keeping a secret like that can be a little stressful.”

Over the years, she’s had her disasters. Bermuda’s heat and high humidity can be a baker’s nightmare.

“I had one just the other day where the girl wanted a cake for her daughter’s first birthday,” said Ms Smith. “By the time I got it from my house to hers, the icing started to melt. All you can do is go home and try again.”

But the worst cake disaster she confronted was not her own.

She’d been hired as a wedding co-ordinator for a Bermudian couple marrying in Montego Bay, Jamaica. The cake she’d ordered over the phone appeared in the wrong colours and “didn’t taste good”.

She found herself in the hotel kitchen on the day of the wedding making frantic repairs. Purple plastic flowers, a smoother, icing and a piping bag covered the imperfections.

Ms Smith didn’t tell the bride until after the wedding.

“You spend thousands of dollars on a wedding and you want everything perfect,” she said. “It was my job to make her day stress-free.”

Her cakes range from $50 to around $700. “It depends on what the person is willing to pay for,” she said. “If I am sculpting out of gum paste, fondant or modelling chocolate, the client is going to pay for my time.”

Her son Brandon, who is now 23, will often help her in the kitchen.

Contact sjscreationsbda@gmail.com or find SJS on Facebook.