January 2012. Outside of St. Martinville two sisters have reinvented themselves.

When sisters Martha Hebert and Rebecca “Becky” Guidry had problems to solve, their Cajun grandmother would say, “Do what you gotta do.” In other words, get the job done.

In 2004, when the sisters from St. Martinville found themselves in financial straits, they did exactly that.

“Mom and Dad raised us to have good work ethics, and we’re not going to sit around and do nothing,” Guidry said.

So the two took a cake decorating class to get themselves out of the blues. It wasn’t such a great idea to Guidry, who claims her early cupcakes came out of the oven resembling manatees.

“I said, ‘I can’t do this,’ ” Guidry recalled, but after some practice, “…we did fairly well and I was actually pretty good at it.”

One class led to another and the retired schoolteachers decided cake decorating could be their new career. They took one last advanced cake class, purchased a pre-fabricated tractor barn from Home Depot and baking equipment from garage sales and business closeouts. Guidry lived on her father’s farm and Hebert moved next door, and together they began baking in the barn.

It didn’t take long after Hebert and Guidry started their business for word to get out that something special was baking in that tractor barn outside of St. Martinville. On a lark, Hebert applied to the TLC cable channel reality show Ultimate Cake Off.

“I said, ‘They aren’t going to call,’ ” Guidry recalled. “We’re just two grandmas cooking in a cane field.”

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