Dewey Tilton Research Paper

ideas for pretzels, truffles, cupcakes, cake pops, pound cakes, petit fours, macaroons, marshmallows, pies, and so much more. All this started nearly 86 years ago, with the at-that-time outrageous dreams of a 15 year old boy, working in a candy factory, wondering about what the cake world could become.

Dewey McKinley Wilton was born at the turn of the 20th century. Dewey was born into a very poor family, with 2 brothers and one sister. When his mother died in her 30s, Dewey's father had to provide for his relatively large family by finding work, however strange, wherever he could. Dewey’s career began when he was only 15, just a poor teenager working in a candy factory. Who would have known that a poor fifteen-year-old trying to provide for his family
As he worked with these hotel pastry chefs, he noticed that the hotel pastry chefs, (mainly European immigrants), were curious about decorating with pulled sugar. Because of this, Wilton decided to start a cake decorating class in 1929, teaching his own method for decorating with pulled sugar. In their dining room in Springfield, Illinois, he and his 4 kids, Mary Jane, Norman, Wesley, and Martha, taught mainly European pastry chefs. Wilton taught them his own method for cake decorating with pulled sugar, and they showed him how to decorate with buttercream icing. For $25 a lesson, the Wiltons taught just a few students “The Wilton Method of Cake Decorating”, Dewey’s own style of cake decorating, a combination of beautiful European art and the American desire for simplicity in everything. Up until then, very few home bakers were decorating cakes. It was simply a business left to the professionals. Wilton dreamt of a world where homebakers everywhere could easily decorate just like the professionals. Dewey's eldest, Norman recalls seeing people wandering in the streets outside their house. He remembers running out and asking, "Are you looking for the Wilton school?" When they said yes, he would reply, "It's