Imagine Steel Magnolia Hair Salon, only instead of tall hairdos, the conversation revolves around cake batter.

If it weren’t for the cake pans being flung around to stir the batter by women with white hairnets, you would think you were in an old-fashioned beauty parlor. The quintessential Southern grandma is the closest way to describe the women in the clean and spacious room baking their hearts out at Dean’s Cake House in Andalusia.

Dean’s Cakes from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.

Perhaps the only thing sweeter than the wonderful smell of berries, cream, vanilla, chocolate, butter and sugar is the pleasant banter among the women in the shop.

The grandmotherly women talk about their latest hairdo, exchange some small-town gossip, brag about their granddaughter who won the spelling bee – “Ooh, would you believe she knows how to spell ‘acquiesce?’ I can’t even say that word!” – or assess a neighbor’s substandard attempt at making a cake. “Poor thing, bless her heart!”

That last comment drew some giggles.

Cooking up a storm

Amid the conversation, these hair-netted forces of nature are constantly stirring batter, shaking cake pans, applying icing or whatever else needs to be done to keep up with the demand for the popular cakes.

Dean Jacobs worked in the deli of a local grocery store in the early 1990s. She would occasionally bring in one of her cakes and people would compliment her. Some asked for the recipe. So in 1994, she opened Dean’s Cake House.

“Well, I have 17 employees, and most have been with me the whole time. All I know is this: If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have this business. We talk about everything. Every once in a while, they get loud and I have to calm them down!”

Dean’s Cake House produces 400-500 seven-layer cakes a day, and 200-300 two-layer cakes. In addition, it makes brownies, fudge and cookies.

“Everything is made from scratch, and the pound cake is very popular. During the holidays, we make pecan pies and sweet potato pie,” Jacobs said.

You don’t hear much about sweet potato pie any more, but in Andalusia, it is still a hot item. More than half of them are sold outside Alabama.

And if you wanted to know why seven layers, Jacobs said the answer is quite practical.

“Everybody asks me that,” she said. “The dome the cake sits in fits only seven layers, and it stuck. It is a good conversation piece.”

Marinated in tradition

Jacobs has many favorites, including lemon cheese cake, which contains no cheese. Chalk it up as another Southern thing.

“Whoever made that cake first named it that,” she said. “I guess we need to come up with a better story.”

Some of her best-sellers are the chocolate and caramel seven-layer cakes.

“We have customers from all over the country and the world. I love seeing them come back,” Jacobs said. “My two favorite words are ‘I’m back’!”

Jacobs sponsors the “Don Cotton Gospel Show,” which airs on Opp’s 102.3 FM radio station every Sunday morning. During the “Birthday Party” segment, listeners can win a cake by calling.

When you are driving through Andalusia on your way to the beach this summer, stop by and check out the women flinging the cake pans around and gossiping like they stepped out of the “Steel Magnolias” set.

Breathe in the aroma. Tune into the talk. Believe you stepped back in time, when life stirred a little slower, a little yummier.