The Lovin' Oven Cake Co. was started by a busy single mother of 6 which has evolved into her being known as "The Cake Lady" around the N. Balt Co area. My name is Debbie Swift and twenty years ago I went from being a stay at home mom raising my 6 children in a 5 bedroom house on a 20 acre farm in Parkton, MD to becoming a single mom raising my 6 children in a 3 bedroom apartment, on welfare and looking for a job.  

I eventually found a job in the BCPS school system working with children with special needs. I was only making minimum wage which ended up being quite a challenge providing for my 6 children.  

We were blessed with the fact that I had the support of a wonderful extended family and friends who were there to help in any way from preparing my taxes to helping with daycare to driving my kids to lacrosse practice and that list went on and on.  

I continued to be overwhelmed with their love and support and was trying to think of ways to show them my appreciation.  Then one day as I was preparing dinner for my kids, I decided to double the recipe and started making dinners for the people in my life to say “thank you” for all their help.

This turned into to a small weekend business I ended up calling “Debbie Does Dinner”.  And for the next 10 years I put out a monthly menu for customers who wanted to order a home cooked dinner, complete with dessert, which could be picked up or delivered on Mondays only.  

Some of my desserts started to become very popular with my customers.  One of my cakes in particular, a cinnamon hot milk cake, became a favorite.  

This led to some of my customers placing orders for just the cinnamon hot milk cake. The cake was being used for everything from birthdays, Christmas gifts, people recovering from an illness, “thank you’s”, etc.  One of my customers even bought the cake for himself and said that he would hide the cake from his family and when nobody was home he would get it out and enjoy it all by himself!!

In 2008 a friend of mine, who works in the restaurant business, told me about a new restaurant opening up in Greenspring Station called Tark’s Grill.  He suggested that I contact the manager and take some of my cakes over for him to sample.  To my surprise, my coconut pound cake was a hit.  Their first order was placed on February 2008. The cinnamon hot milk cake was added to the dessert menu on June of 2008.

This lead to “Debbie Does Dinner” closing it’s doors and “The Lovin’ Cake Company” was open for business!  

The coconut pound cake is now known at Tark's as their signature cake and I am know known as the “cake lady” around town!

“IF YOU SERVE IT, THEY WILL COME”!

**When all of these changes took place in my life 20 years ago, I began collecting ladybugs because I was told they were good luck.  This is the reason I chose to use a ladybug as my logo for my cake business.  I designed a heart shaped ladybug because of all the “lovin’” in my heart I have for my 6 children. There are six black dots on the ladybug which represent each of my kids. The pink colors...well, that is just because it is my favorite color!!