Made in Tahoe: Don the Baker dishes up shtick with his sweets

In this life, Don Ewing is a baker. In a previous life, he probably had his own TV show based on his life as a comedian who does shtick based on flour, yeast and water.
While South Shore is lucky to have Howie Nave as the emcee of all things standup comedy, Ewing, known around town as "Don the Baker," knows he can't compete on the same stage.
"I'm not really not funny," he says. "I'm not rich, either. I'm a baker's man who kneads dough."

Don the Baker's customers at Cakes by the Lake more or less remember him for his wit as well as his cupcakes. Bespeckled and covered in flour, Ewing, 51, is the Pillsbury dough boy reversed. He's the hand who sticks his finger into the belly of his customers while forking over the pastries. To order from Don the Baker is an experience that is better done in person, though he takes phone orders with the same kind of relaxed and natural stride.

If the man's got you down and you've been punched in the gut, try a blueberry scone, he says. If life doesn't make much sense, order a lemon cake. Don's delivery, whether its verbally or in the form of a piece of pecan pie, is meant to put smiles on faces. You get this the moment you meet him because everything he makes has a saying and signature behind it. His bag lunches are not just lunch, they are "legendary lunches." When someone calls and asks him about his pizza, he says, "Imagine your face, OK. You know what your face looks like, right? My slices are as big as your face."

Why get healthy amounts of wit when ordering baked goods? Because when people are already stressed out about weddings and birthdays and life, the last thing they want is to order happy food from someone who's either sad as a circus clown or as mean as a snake.

"People come in and say 'Hi Don' and stay a while and then buy something out of pity on their way out the door," he says, with his self-deprecating style. "And they keep coming back and keep saying 'Hi Don' and keep asking for cakes and pastries after staying awhile. So they really must feel sorry for me."

Ewing's credentials are nothing to cry about. He is an American Culinary Federation Certified working pastry chef, having graduated top of his class from Baltimore’s International Culinary College, the top pastry art school in the US at the time. He has worked on both coasts in donut shops, pastry kitchens, restaurants, hotels and bakeries. Ewing has created top rated desserts and cakes for famous clients such as Jay Leno, Graham Kerr, Julia Child, the Prince of Malaysia, Japanese royalty and more.

He has held the position of Pastry Chef on staff at several prestigious hotels over the years including Harrah's and the former Caesar's Tahoe, now MontBleu. Ewing also serves as an instructor Lake Tahoe Community College, helping aspiring new chefs rise to greatness after much kneading. He has also competed, and won, in the culinary Olympics over the years.

For a man who builds from scratch, Cakes by the Lake is the latest incarnation of Ewing's culinary confections and 30-plus year reflection. A quaint building at 661 Emerald Bay Road, Don the Baker's 400-square-foot shop is packed with ovens, mixers, measuring do-dads, gadgets and retail displays that have a home and a purpose, he swears, admitting his kitchen looks a bit disheveled, yet clean enough to eat from the floor, if one is so inclined.

How he landed the sweet spot is a story unto itself, where, as luck would have it, he was at the right place at the right time. For years Ewing ran the wholesale Don's Bake Shop at various locations around town, baking cakes of all sizes and shapes for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays. But when the rent got too damn high, as he says, he closed up shop, packing up and going underground for a while, taking in the occasional odd job.

"And then my wife came home one day and said, 'you have all this equipment in the garage, at other people's houses, and inside our house. Get rid of it, now.' This was her way of saying 'I'm tired of you sulking, start a new bakery already,'" he said.

He found the present location through Tahoe commercial real estate broker Peggy Eichhorn whom he credits for helping get his business back on track.

His wife, Sally, whom Ewing affectionately calls "Silly Sally," is the one who keeps him going, he says. As any smart and wise man knows, the wife calls the shots, keeps the books and him grounded. The Ewings have two children, Christopher, 21, and Melissa, 19, both attending college. Ask Don the Baker about having kids in college and you're gonna hear the stories about rolling in the dough.

Ewing finds his mojo in his "doughjo" arriving every morning at baker's hours — around 3:30 a.m. — acknowledging life around him moves in either banker's hours or Tahoe Time. There are 15 clocks on the wall, and all but 14 of them have the right time, except for one -- his chef's clock, the one he follows. Spend some time with him and you see how he operates on time. He may, as he says, always be running late but his deliveries are always early. While most of us use timers when we bake, Don wings it and it works.

Even when making bagels. It's a philosophy he takes with him everywhere: Be in the moment. Nourish what you have to work with and always give it your best.

"I'm as happy as a pig in mud when my bagels come out right. But when I burn them, I'm the biggest jerk in the world," he says. "My day is ruined and I go home and cry in the shower. So I've learned over time not to burn the bagels."

Cakes by the Lake is also found on Facebook.