Davis creates art that’s sweet to eyes, tastebuds at CakEffect

Komeh Davis went to law school after graduating from Alabama A&M University and thought she wanted to be a judge. But her passion for art steered her in a new direction, and now she’s creating art that’s sweet to both the eyes and tastebuds.

Davis is the owner of CakEffect, a cake decorating business in the new Village at Brock’s Gap shopping center in Trace Crossings.

She started the business in her home in 2009 and moved into a 720-square-foot commercial space in downtown Homewood in 2011. But she was looking for a larger location and thought Hoover would be a good fit.

Her husband, Cardell Davis, is a vice president with the eds-America company that is developing The Village at Brock’s Gap, and she felt like all the traffic around that center would be beneficial for her business. She opened up in an 1,840-square-foot space there in early March.

Komeh Davis makes all kinds of cakes — 3D cakes, 2D cakes, cupcakes, pound cakes, wedding cakes, birthday cakes and more. But she probably does more birthday cakes than anything, she said.

Her cakes are more like artwork, and she can make them look like pretty much anything.

She has made an Oscar the Grouch cake from Sesame Street, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, superheroes and Harry Potter-themed cakes. She has made cakes that looked like a turtle, pizza, a deli sandwich with chips, nachos, shrimp, designer purses and a toolbox with tools.

Laura Crumbaugh of Birmingham has ordered five cakes from Davis, including a Dallas Stars hockey jersey and an ice bucket with Landshark beer in it. Davis made an Ole Miss college backpack cake for Crumbaugh’s daughter’s graduation and another that looked like a Michael Kors purse for her daughter’s 18th birthday.

When Crumbaugh’s daughter got married, Davis made a groom’s cake that resembled different types of food the groom liked — a crawfish boil, a burrito and a hamburger.

“Her attention to detail is just phenomenal,” Crumbaugh said.

One person who saw the shrimp part of the groom’s cake thought it was actually shrimp and picked up a piece, she said. 

It’s also fun working with Davis, who manages to voice her opinion about cake ideas without being pushy, Crumbaugh said. “She does a good job of guiding without telling.”

Davis said some customers come in knowing exactly what they want, while others just have a general idea for a theme. What Davis does not do, however, is copy someone else’s cake design. She will do something similar but doesn’t want to steal someone else’s art design, she said.

Davis has gotten some attention for her work. In 2017, she was chosen to be on an episode of “Bakers vs. Fakers” on the Food Network. She also was featured in Fred Hunter’s “Absolutely Alabama” program on WBRC Fox 6, and in 2017 the Alabama Retail Association named her a Retailer of the Year for businesses with less than $1 million in revenue.

Davis started drawing with colored pencils and crayons as a kid and learned how to paint at the Alabama School of Fine Arts. She graduated from Huffman High School in 1991, got her bachelor’s degree in commercial and advertising art from Alabama A&M and then got a law degree, following in the footsteps of her mother, Naomi Truman.

But while studying for the bar exam, her mother told her to come watch an episode of “Cake Boss” on The Learning Channel one day, and Davis fell in love with the idea of cake decorating. “I did not pick up another law review book,” she said.

She learned how to ice cakes, put them together and carve them and launched into business. Now, she makes six to eight cakes a week — or about 400 a year, she said. And she stays pretty well booked up. She asks people to submit orders at least two weeks in advance, but a lot of people will put their orders in one to three months in advance to make sure Davis can fit them in.

For more information about Davis’ business, go to cakeffect.com.