The Sweeter Side Of Life with Gwendolyn Rogers

It’s nearly impossible to live in the Carmel area and not know about The Cake Bake Shop by Gwendolyn Rogers in Carmel City Center, or its sister location in Broad Ripple.

From birthdays and anniversaries to brunch and afternoon tea, Cake Bake is the go-to spot for a celebratory atmosphere with a full tantalizing menu and a plethora of decadent desserts. It’s more than a bakery of exquisite layer cakes — it’s a concoction of festive foliage, shimmering chandeliers and tiny twinkle lights that dazzles one's senses. From the moment you arrive, the elegantly appointed staff makes sure your experience is, well, magical. 

It’s no wonder that the newest Cake Bake location just opened in the fall of 2024 at Disney’s Boardwalk in Walt Disney World Resort, “the most magical place on earth.”

It’s also no wonder that “cake-baker to the stars” Gwendolyn Rogers’ journey from mom to maven has been what some might call magical as she continues to find happiness in the most unexpected places.

With the continually climbing success of The Cake Bake Shop, now employing 450 nationwide, one might think Rogers always wanted to be a baker. 

“I never thought, ‘Ooh, I’m a great baker,’” Rogers says. “I had three boys, and I was lucky enough to be a full-time mom. I just wanted to make breakfast, lunch and dinner. All I wanted to do was be with my kids.”

Rogers also expected to rear her boys and grow old with her husband in the home they built together in Idaho. But when circumstances changed, they had to rent out their dream home to make ends meet. Rogers’ family ended up moving to Indiana. 

“I was in my mid-40s,” she says. “I didn’t have many friends, so I volunteered at the kids’ school a lot. If the kids had baseball or violin or choir, I would bring stuff to every event because it was after school, and, of course, they were hungry.”

She began making treats for teacher appreciation and school events. Word spread. 

“It eventually just snowballed,” Rogers says. “I couldn’t afford to keep doing it, so I had to start charging people. That’s when I was like, ‘OK, I could actually do something with this.’”

For more than eight years, she baked out of the tiny kitchen of their rental house. Finally, in 2014, she opened Cake Bake in a house she had renovated from the ground up at 6515 Carrollton Ave. in Broad Ripple.

Rogers describes the experience as “diving into an empty pool, hoping it fills up before I hit.”

The pool filled up! People lined up out the door, and Rogers quickly had to hire more employees.

Though she didn’t necessarily plan to open a second location, the Broad Ripple location kept having to turn people away. 

In 2018, Cake Bake opened in Carmel City Center with just more than 4,500 square feet and a 2,000-square-foot professional kitchen below the restaurant where every item on the menu is made from scratch, never compromising quality.

“I feel so blessed,” Rogers says. “But it’s super hard work. It’s not an easy job at all. I’ve seen so many restaurants open and close.”

Certainly, the tried and tweaked recipes Rogers has collected over the years contribute to Cake Bake’s draw, as does her tradition of filling every nook and cranny of the shops with elaborate seasonal decor. 

But the true recipe to Rogers’ success? A dash of serendipity and a heaping helping of making the best out of unexpected situations.

“I don’t quit,” she says resolutely. 

When a friend who lived in Florida was having a top name from Disney to her house for dinner, she suggested that Rogers send her a cake. Cake Bake had never shipped a cake. 

Instead of turning down the offer, Rogers went to work. For months, she ordered cakes from bakeries across the country and dismantled them to try to learn how they had been prepared for shipping. She then began shipping her own cakes to herself whenever she traveled.

“The first one was a disaster,” she says. “It took me 25 tries to figure it out, but that’s still how we ship cakes to this day.”

Gwendolyn’s Famous Earl’s Court Chocolate Cake arrived in perfect condition for the Disney dinner. As cakes often do, one piece led to another. 

Invited to meet with more Disney execs, Rogers filled her Suburban with anything she could fit that would represent Cake Bake. Once in Florida, she spent two days baking cakes, pies, macarons and more in her friend’s kitchen with a professional mixer borrowed from the neighbor. She set up a pseudo-shop in the Disney board room. 

That was almost 10 years ago.

That borrowed mixer now sits in the nearly 10,000-square-foot Disney location of The Cake Bake Shop by Gwendolyn Rogers.

“You think you’re headed in one direction, and all of a sudden you get thrown a curveball, and you’re like, ‘Wait, this is not supposed to be happening,’” Rogers says. “My life is over here, and suddenly it all goes left. But if it didn’t go left, I wouldn’t be where I am right now. If I had never moved to Indiana, I wouldn’t have started baking out of my house. Now, all the stuff that led up to me being here makes sense.” 

For all the change in Rogers’ life, all the moving and adapting, one aspect has remained the same. 

“My family is the most important thing,” Rogers says. “I have them with me everyday, which is fantastic.” 

All three of Rogers’ sons work for her as adults. Not only that, even as the family now splits its time between Indiana and Florida, they still make it a goal to prepare a family dinner together multiple nights a week. 

“I wake up happy every day,” Rogers says. 

One of her goals is to spread that happiness.

Rogers especially loves partnering with the Make-a-Wish Foundation. In the past, she created a special Wishes Cake to celebrate the birthday of a Make-a-Wish child. She helped another child bake cakes for her care team. Most recently, she welcomed her first Make-a-Wish child to the Disney location, and she looks forward to helping grant more wishes.

So what’s next for Cake Bake?

Rogers looks to expand the reach of her brand of happiness as The Cake Bake Shop Rosé Bubbles and Chocolate Truffles debut this month on the Disney Cruise Line. 

Rogers believes this is just another step in creating a “great big brand that makes people happy.”

“I had three boys ... I just wanted to make breakfast, lunch and dinner. All I wanted to do was be with my kids.”

“My life is over here, and suddenly it all goes left. But if it didn’t go left, I wouldn’t be where I am right now."