Who wants cake?
Meet Dinika Johnson, athletic trainer by day and extraordinary creator of sweet treats on the side. A native of Charlotte, NC, Dinika is a 2007 graduate of Wingate University and completed her MS at Georgia State University while working as a graduate assistant at Georgia Tech. You probably know her as the Head Athletic Trainer for Georgia State men’s basketball and women’s golf. We want to introduce you to her sweeter side.
Dinika grew up with two grandmothers – Eva Mae Johnson and Christine Sanders – who both had a sweet tooth and a love for desserts and treats. So in April of 2020 she ordered some baking supplies and began testing recipes and practicing her cake decorating. By July 20, 2020 “Eva Christine’s Sweets” was an LLC all its own.
I love desserts and the reaction from having people enjoy them. I feel like my purpose in life is service. This purpose applies to my career in athletic training with servicing athletes and in my baking with serving delicious desserts. – Dinika Johnson
Dinika does all of the baking right in her own kitchen, and she says she now has more baking items in her kitchen than regular cooking items. She can’t put a number on the dozens of eggs or the pounds of sugar and butter that have gone into her cakes, but she does claim Sam’s Club as a best friend during the busy stretches. Her most popular items are decorated cakes and her Dip Cake Bowls which are undecorated cake layers in a bowl. Dinika draws decoration inspiration from many different things – old wedding photos, art work, shapes/colors in nature, a party decoration theme or colors. She works with customers to get their vision then put our special touch to the desserts. The cakes that call for fondant decoration can be rather tricky, as fondant takes time and care to get the decoration precise – but by looking at the pictures we think she’s got a pretty good handle on things… Wow!
With all that she’s juggling, what keeps Dinika going? Baking takes her into an entirely different world. Time management has played a huge role in keeping Dinika going as a full-time athletic trainer while still getting all the Eva Christine’s Sweets baking done to complete orders in a reasonable time. Some days she has to bake early in the morning before work and then decorate when she gets home from work. It really comes down to making the time to get it done, but she always finds a way. With the many challenges that come with being an athletic trainer – especially in the last year – baking is an outlet that she truly enjoys putting her energy into outside of work. And there are times when she may be baking and get calls about Covid, but she knows there’s something sweet at the end of those hectic moments.
What started as a hobby for Dinika has flourished into a full-time business. She utilizes a website, EvaChristinesSweets.com, as a platform for customers to place orders for the goodies she currently sells and she has a long list of ideas that she wants to explore when she has more time. So far, Dinika has limited what she sells with Eva Christine’s Sweets especially with being in season but the “what’s next” options are endless. Once the season is over she looks forward to introducing some new desserts just in time for the summer!
We volunteer for taste testing! Oh, and - for anyone with a sudden craving for cake - did we mention that you can get some of her sweets shipped right to your door?! Find Dinika and "Eva Christine's Sweets" on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to follow along for sweet updates.
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