Member Spotlight: Janet Ben-Ami, Hey! Cookie

Janet sculpting a life-size lion cake! Photo courtesy of Janet Ben-Ami, hey-cookie.com

Member Janet Ben-Ami, Pastry Chef/Owner of hey!cookie has a strong art background but she began her journey in sugarcraft as a culinary chef, working for a caterer on Long Island. Chef Janet would frequently be called upon to "fix" the local baker's wedding cakes. Janet took the Wilton Method of Cake Decorating classes and fell in love with cake decorating. She took additional classes, read books, and practiced every free moment. Janet even taught herself how to bake just so she could decorate! Fortunately for Janet, her boss was extremely generous and let her create desserts for their events so she could practice and perfect this new art. Janet decided to make cake design her career when she realized that instead of reading a novel, she would find herself reading cake decorating books and thinking about cake all the time!

Photo of Janet's leopard cake, courtesy of Janet Ben-Ami, hey-cookie.com

Janet fell into sculpting quite by accident. In fact, in art school, Janet never thought she had a knack for sculpting; she thought of herself more as a painter. Janet began sculpting cakes at the request of her customers and now she looks forward to those 3D cake sculpting projects. In fact, Janet has been called the master of purses, cars, and animals cakes!

Photo of Janet's cute frog cake, courtesy of Janet Ben-Ami, hey-cookie.com

Janet's most difficult 3D cake project was constructing the 5 foot, 3D lion depicted in the first photo. The lion cake had to be transported to New York City from Long Island and delivered to a boat!! YIKES! Needless to say, the cake was the hit of the party! Whew!

Sonic the Hedgehog cake photo, courtesy of Janet Ben-Ami, hey-cookie

Another awesome cake design project was the Sonic the Hedgehog's 15th birthday cake contracted for the Digital Life convention at the Javit's Center in 2007.

Janet's philosophy is always to give each project 100%. Every detail matters. Never sell out. Her mission is to make each customer feel that the success of their event is as important to her as it is to them. One of the obstacles Janet had to overcome in opening her business was the fear of failure. However, the strong and unconditional support of her dream by her family gave Janet the confidence she needed to overcome her fear.

Janet sees more and more requests for sculpted kids' cakes in her business, and she believes that we may see a trend towards more ornate piping and icing work on wedding cakes. The scrumptious confections made at hey!cookie are certified Kosher Dairy (Parve upon request). Hey!Cookie is located at 3264 Hemptead Turnpike, Levittown, New York 11756. You can place an order at 516-796-3033. Good Eating!

Janet is scheduled to teach her amazing cake sculpting techniques at NYC Cake Decorators "Best of the Best" Meetup.