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Although the wedding industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, very little of it is geared towards women of color. The popular wedding magazines never feature a black bride, and only occasionally feature one as a bridesmaid. The expensive wedding books written by Martha Stewart and others contain fabulous weddings featuring Caucasian couples, and never address issues that might be found within the black community.
Regina McRae began Grandma’s Secrets 15 years ago with $10 and $9 pies at the urging of others who tasted her desserts and urged her to go into business.
As the business grew, she diversified from pies and traditional cakes into custom cakes, and eventually wedding cakes. While helping the brides design their cakes, she constantly encountered the same lack of information and dearth of available designs. “Even the beautiful cakes in the magazines featured flavors that we do not traditionally eat, such as wasabi infused ganache, and walnut genoise with key lime filling” she laments. Even when able to find resource guides for ethnic weddings, she found that they devoted no more than a few chapters to the cake.
The issues constantly addressed by brides, such as budgeting, flavors popular in our community such as red velvet, cultural designs, and as diabetes in a concern amongst our people, how to feed aunts and uncles with dietary concerns, became the foundation for the book.
Taking the Cake (takingthecake.com) is written in a humorous, yet informative style, as the author guides the bride through the arduous tasks involved in being the architect of the cake of their dreams. Containing beautiful symbols of African, Native American, Hindu and Oriental art to help design a truly ethnic cake, a gallery of beautiful photos, definitions of various icings and fillings, instructions on how to choose your baker, budget, and plan, this book crosses cultural borders to appeal to all ethnic brides.
Whether of African American, Latina, Native American, or Caribbean descent, whether her dietary needs are vegetarian or diabetic, this book has something for everyone. Chocked full of some the recipes that have made her a success, including vegetarian and diabetic cake recipes, this book can even be used by non-brides, by those just wanting a really good cake!
Regina has been named New York Daily News Critics Choice for desserts in New York, and honored as Editors Choice by New York Magazine 5 years running. She has been featured in the New York Post, New York Times, Time Out New York Magazine, Modern Baking, The Times Herald-Record, and Black Enterprise Magazine, and been a guest on CBS Channel 2 News, The Today Show, Good Day New York, the Food Network, MTV, Moscow Culture TV, and Fox 5 News, as well as numerous other publications.
Regina is also host of her own weekly radio broadcast “Business Matters – Where your Small Business Matters”, a forum for small businesses and start ups, addressing issues relevant to the business community.
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info[.]grandmasecrets.com 
