ith her mother, Betty Boney, Coleman talks about memories of
gathering with family and friends over coffee and bite-sized desserts.
They both recall Laurie Wyly Holland, Boney’s mother and
w
Coleman’s grandmother and wife of a Marietta, Georgia, Presbyterian minister, as a
woman who loved to serve coffee and small cookies or cakes to the constant stream of
church members who came through her door during the 1960s and 70s.
“Mother entertained for the church frequently,” Boney says. “She had teas, she had
dinner parties; she had everything.”
“I think that’s a Boney thing,” her mother laughs.
Holland’s flair for entertaining meant she knew that bite-sized appetizers and desserts
made guests feel they could eat and talk while moving around the room easily.
“I think people like small things, they don’t want tremendous things. They’re too
awkward to handle,” Betty Boney says. “So you want something bite-size so you can talk
and enjoy at the same time.”
Coleman has taken after her grandmother, adapting her half-pound cake recipe into the
petit fours and small cakes she makes for weddings, Valentine’s Day and birthday parties.
The idea for Coleman’s heart-shaped petit fours comes from a metal heart-shaped
mold she inherited from her husband’s grandmother, Martha Cook Coleman
88
WBM october 2013
Anderson, known to the
family as “Bubba.” Anderson
was a Greensboro caterer who
also loved to cook and enter-tain
people in her home.
When Anderson passed away
about 15 years ago, Coleman
inherited sheet pans, cake pans
and molds from her catering
business. That’s when
Coleman’s creativity with
bite-sized desserts took off.
Coleman’s friend and neigh-bor,
Anna Echols, also shares
a love for baking. Echols, co-owner
of One Belle Bakery in
Wilmington, often trades cake
pans and utensils with Coleman.
Echols started baking as a
hobby after she graduated from
Meredith College in 2006,
and heard about Coleman’s
cake business while enrolled
at Le Cordon Bleu College
of Culinary Arts in Orlando,
Florida. When she moved back
to her native Wilmington in
2011 she met with Coleman to
“talk cake.” The two became
fast friends, bonding over a
mutual love for sweet treats.
Echols says her style and
cake decorating techniques
are constantly evolving based
on current fashion and design
trends.
“I would say I’m known for
Mrs. Harry Holland often
served coffee and tea on
her silver service with
rosettes, delicate cookies
sprinkled with powdered
sugar. Betty Boney and
Suzanne Boney Coleman
remember men from the church leaving the
house with powdered sugar peppering the front
of their black and navy suits.
“My father, my brother, everybody would
laugh about that,” Coleman says. “That was
my first memory of my grandmother, mother,
and baking.”
During visits with her grandmother, Coleman
also remembers crowding into the kitchen and
eating Holland’s rosettes as she dipped them
into a hot frying pan and sprinkled them with
powdered sugar. As a special treat, Holland
served the grandchildren “coffee” out of a
delicate porcelain cup.
“We thought we were having a real cup of
coffee when in reality we were having some
hot milk with a spoonful of coffee and lots of
sugar,” Coleman laughs. “It was a real treat and
a special memory.”
The grandchildren, Coleman among them,
would also steal sugar cubes from the intricate
silver bowl and pop them into their mouths like
candy while the adults talked in her grandmother’s
living room.
Coleman’s love of sweets and entertaining
people comes not only from her grandmother
but also from her father, Charles Boney, now 88.
“My dad has a sweet tooth also. And daddy
will often want a little something sweet, just a
bite. So he plays into this too,” Coleman says.
CAROLINE HOOD