It takes a whole lot of butter, flour, sugar and eggs to let them eat cake!

Mary Rasmussen, baker and owner of Jefferson Market & Cakery, recently had her biggest weekend ever. She and her staff produced cakes for eight weekend weddings, plus graduation parties. Those cakes, she figures, fed a total of 3,000 guests at the various events.

Turning out those cakes required mega ingredients, including :

• 200 eggs
• 72 pounds of butter
• 1.5 gallons of egg whites

Rasmussen measured 694 cups of cake batter during the marathon baking session. A former interior designer, Rasmussen decided to switch careers a few years back. She learned baking in her mother's kitchen, and also studied the baking arts at Washtenaw Community College.

She runs Jefferson Market & Cakery with a full-time assistant. During peak times, she also gets help from her two teenage daughters, as well as her sister, Liz.

Julie Wiernik is on the Community team at AnnArbor.com. She writes a locavore blog and also is our point-of-contact for non-profit organizations. She can be reached at 734-623-2576 or juliewiernik@annarbor.com.