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Dessiree Salaverria lives by the three Ps: perseverance, practice and prayer.
Those three tenets helped the Palm Bay woman pivot from engineering to Zumba to crafting spectacular cakes on a Netflix baking show, enabling her to live a life she describes as blessed.
Last summer, Salaverria, owner of SugarDreams, spent a month in a California studio competing with eight other bakers in the new series "Is It Cake?"
You can figure out the premise of the show by its name. Bakers, chosen from around the country, create cakes that look like everything from toys to fashion accessories. At the end of an eight-hour bake-off, judges try to tell the cake from the plastic dinosaur (or conch shell or handbag).
Hosted by Mikey Day of "Saturday Night Live," the show is fascinating and quirky and packs a bigger sugar buzz than a slice of, well, cake.
But more on that later. First, let's talk about how Salaverria ended up on television turning cake into an adorable pair of rubber duckies.
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From engineering to Zumba to ... baking?
In 2004, Salaverria earned a degree in computer engineering in her native Venezuela. Her husband, Armando Amaro, had relatives on the Space Coast, so the couple moved to Florida in hopes of finding a safer place to live.
To work as an engineer in the United States, Salaverria was told she needed to complete more schooling, something she didn't have the money to do.
She was working in an electronics assembly facility when she discovered Zumba.
"I'm a Latina," she said. "I love to dance."
She enjoyed teaching Zumba, and she was good at it. Then in 2017, a meniscus, tear resulted in knee surgery. The injury forced her to change course again.
"That was the end of my Zumba career," she said.
She'd baked for years, making cakes for family and friends. No longer able to teach Zumba, she decided to give professional baking a try.
She learned by watching YouTube videos and Google searches. She took a couple of classes in Miami, including one where she learned to make realistic-looking flowers out of sugar.
Her cakes went on to be featured in Cake Masters magazine, and her Instagram page is like flipping through a cake decorating equivalent of Vogue.
Last year, she received a direct message through Instagram asking if she'd be interested in participating in a baking show.
She'd gotten a couple of similar messages before, so she wasn't sure if it was legit. She's not sure why, but she responded to this one. It wasn't until she was flown to California to begin taping that she learned the show would air on Netflix.
Even months later, she's giddy about the experience.
"Everything was awesome," she said. "They are such wonderful people."
She spent a month on the West Coast. Filming took place during the pandemic. There's no studio audience. Precautions were taken to ensure everyone remained safe and healthy. Cheers and applause during the competition came from the other contestants.
Salaverria said she was nervous at first, especially because she's not always confident in her English. "I sound like Sofía Vergara," she said.
It didn't take the bakers long to develop a closeness that's evident when watching the show.
"This competition, it was supposed to be a battle," Salaverria said. "But we're friends now. This is family now."
'I don't want to make cakes you see on Pinterest'
Her favorite project on the show was her creation for Episode 3, a sand bucket and shovel that would look perfectly at home on any Space Coast beach.
She made the pair of rubber duckies out of vanilla cake with cookies and cream butter cream, brownie chunks and chocolate chip cookie dough for Episode 7 with her daughter Amanda in mind.
"You guys tricked us too hard on this one," said judge Heidi Gardner of "Saturday Night Live" after trying to figure out which yellow ducks were plastic and which were cake.
The response to the show, which debuted March 18, has been overwhelming, Salaverria said.
"It's a 360-degree change in my life."
It's been a blessing personally and professionally.
The boost to her business, which she currently operates out of her home kitchen, has been great. But she's most touched by the messages from local people thanking her for representing their hometown, and the ones from mothers who sent pictures of cupcakes their kids baked after watching the show.
Salaverria said her older brother is an artist, and she grew up watching him paint. That artistic ability is reflected in her cakes. So is her engineering background, when it comes to attention to detail and some of the gravity-defying effects she uses.
She enjoys making cakes that look like other objects. She's particularly proud of a guitar she made for a 91-year-old musician. She has pictures of him holding the cake like an actual guitar.
She also loves making wedding cakes. She talks with couples to get an idea of who they are to create the perfect confection for their big day.
"I don't want to make cakes you see on Pinterest," she said.
She's not sure what comes next in her career.
She would love to have a storefront bakery, but even more, she'd love to open her own academy and teach.
She wants to share her talents and story with the hope of encouraging others to keep at it, even when the situation seems dire.
The sugar flowers she made when she first started looked horrible, she said. With perseverance, practice and prayer, she mastered them.
Did she win the competition? You'll have to watch the show to find out. But if you ask her, she'll tell you without hesitation:
"I'll never stop saying this is a blessing."
Learn more about SugarDreams at thesugardreams.net. Follow Dessiree Salaverria on Instagram at instagram.com/sugar_dreams_by_dessy.
Suzy Fleming Leonard is a features journalist with more than three decades of experience. Reach her at sleonard@floridatoday.com. Find on Facebook: @SuzyFlemingLeonard or on Instagram: @SuzyLeonard
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