Jed Dean | Lariat Photo Editor
By Kelly Galvin
Reporter
If you find yourself passing out cupcakes to friends and only getting silence in return, you might have used salted butter.
Flower Mound junior Casey Evans is known by her family and friends as the one to go to for an amazing home-cooked meal, but in this case she learned the hard way if salted butter is used in banana chocolate cupcakes, a recipe that already calls for salt, your friends will hesitate eating your food again. Although making the occasional culinary mistake, Evans has won cooking competitions since being at Baylor, including Collins Top Chef, by baking moist banana chocolate layer cake with chocolate fudge icing, and Kappa Sigma Fish Fry, by preparing double fried banana peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches topped with powdered sugar.
“My first memory of cooking was with my pink Easy-Bake Oven, but when I became mature enough to realize my actual interest in food, I would critique how other people made food and started to make it to my own taste,” Evans said.
Evans found her cooking abilities could not only satisfy her want for food, but her want for money.
“My dad said I needed to get a job when I turned 19, and I like to do things on my own so I started my own business called Casey’s Cakes, Cookies and Cupcakes. I made business cards and devoted my summer to specialty fondant cakes and every cookie and cupcake you could think of, and I made just as much as my friends with real jobs,” Evans said.
Evans said it showed her that she liked being her own boss, and thinking creatively with no boundaries was something she knew she wanted in her future.
“I plan to go to cooking school after Baylor, but I want to start my own business that incorporates cooking and baking,” Evans said.
Evans, a general family and consumer science major with a minor in entrepreneurship, said she knows it will help her start a company to have a business background while being able to cook.
Her love of food is something she can’t deny, and when asked to describe her favorite dish her head began to race with recipes and meals.
“My favorite food is anything Italian for whole meals but anything sweet is my forte. But when I’m in a hurry one of the quickest meals is turkey burgers or seasoned grilled chicken. They are easy and delicious,” Evans said.
Evans said she loves food herself, but cooking for others is more fun and helps her clear her mind when she needs to spend time alone.
Waco junior Lincoln Downs, Evans’ boyfriend, receives her cooking on a regular basis.
“My favorite thing that Casey has cooked for me would be her chocolate chip cookies with chocolate drizzle. I took them back to my house and within an hour my roommates had eaten them all,” Downs said.
They both agreed that they share a love for food, and Downs says cooking is something fun that they can do together.
“Casey has taught me that if you make food properly, the leftovers can be good the next day, because usually I hate leftovers,’” Downs said.
Evans might have begun learning to cook from an Easy-Bake Oven, but her mother’s great cooking helped as well.
Jacque Evans, Casey’s mother, said her daughter always had an interest in the kitchen and would help her any chance she could. Evans’ mother said she loves the perks that have come to fruition after teaching her daughter to cook.
“I always love when Casey comes home from college and gives me a new recipe that she has found successful in college,” Jacque said.
Her mother said she is glad Casey has found something she is passionate about and can incorporate into her future.
