Gilroy resident Jen Kwapinski, owner of Jen’s Cakes was born in Santa Clara but spent 10 years in Nebraska, returning to California when she was 17. After graduating from the California Culinary Academy where she learned she liked making sweets and was less enthusiastic about cooking main courses Jen started work in a bakery.
Kwapinski is currently a contestant in the TLC show Next Great Baker, a cooking competition show where each week a contestants work on a challenge and each week someone gets cut. Kwapinski is among the final five contestants. The show airs Monday evenings at 9 on TLC.
Asked where her favorite place to get a bite to eat in Gilroy, Kwapinski didn’t have to think long before answering In-n-Out Burger. Her solution for making German chocolate cake icing less runny: cook it about twice as long as the recipe calls for and stir it constantly.
Kwapinski says that during a busy wedding cake weekend she and her staff often deliver eight or nine cakes to five different cities in one day. Once, they delivered 13 cakes in one day. She borrowed her dad’s van that day.
Do you like watching cooking shows? Have you eaten one of Jen’s Cakes? Tell us your favorite thing to bake.
Editor’s Note: After saying she doesn’t like making cookies, I sampled some of her chocolate chip cookies and they were delicious.
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