Cake Buzz: Blowout July 4th Sale at Oasis Supply!

Got special occasion cake, cupcake, and cookie orders coming up? Stock up now at Oasis Supply.
Oasis Supply has a full line of products including cake boards, fondant, gumpaste, and tools.

Starting July 1st, EVERYTHING IS ON SALE!!! Oasis Supply is our Major Sponsor and has provided support for our 3rd Annual Day of Sharing.

Happy Caking!

Leadership Team
Dina
Ayana
Marisol
Zakia

Member Spotlight: Wonderfully Made Cakes

Member, Christina Andrews is the cake designer and owner of Wonderfully Made Specialty Cakes & Desserts in New York City. She began her career working in advertising after earning her Bachelor’s Degree in Mass Media Communications. Known throughout the firm for her love of pastry, she became the “resident baker”, baking cakes and cookies for her colleagues as well as their families. During her spare time she took a number of courses with well known cake artists, learning various aspects of design. Christina has a degree in Hospitality Management from New York City College of Technology and fine tuned her skills by managing the kitchen of How Sweet It Is, an upscale custom cake studio and bakery in New York City. Now the owner of her own specialty cakes and dessert company, Christina combines her communications background with her pastry skills in order to create expressive and delicious cakes and desserts for everyone to enjoy.

This picnic table cake laden with all our cook-out favorites was designed by Christina. It is the perfect cake for any picnic, cook-out, or July 4th celebrations.

The picnic table is a half sheet cake and everything is edible - either cake, rice krispy treats, or gumpaste. Christina used an airbrush [purchased at our class with Bronwen] to airbrush the food and condiments.

The tablecloth is made from a rectangular piece of fondant, that Christina taped every other 1" with painters tape vertically; airbrushed, pulled the tape off, and then did the same thing horizontally and viola! a checkered tablecloth. It was actually a lot easier than Christina thought it would be.

Happy Birthday, Frances!

Have you ever played with fondant, airbrushed a cake, or painted a design on a cake? Well, if you said yes, you owe it all to Frances Kuyper, The Cake Lady™ .

Frances Kuyper was the authority on fondant, airbrush, 2D carving and painting on cake in the 1950's-1980's and is an icon. In fact, sources say that Frances is credited with introducing these techniques to American cake decorators. She currently sells her books and DVD's online.

Frances also founded the Mini-Cake Museum in California. In her 90's, Frances resides at Hollenbeck Residence in California. It's her birthday today. Send Frances a birthday greeting on her FB page!

Casting Call - Cake Decorators and Bakers

Member Chef Janet Ben-Ami's award winning cake.

NYC Cake Decorators received this notice today:

"NOW CASTING! FROM TLC AND THE CREATORS OF “CAKE BOSS” COMES A NEW BAKING COMPETITION SERIES.

ARE YOU THE NEXT GREAT CAKE ARTIST!

ARE YOU A NATURAL BORN BAKER OR ARTIST? CAN YOU MAKE AMAZING MASTERPIECES, CRAZY CONFECTIONS OR OVER-THE-TOP CAKES? COULD YOU BE THE NEXT PASTRY GURU?

IF SO, THE PRODUCERS OF “CAKE BOSS,” ARE CURRENTLY CASTING OUTGOING AND COMPETITIVE UP-AND-COMING BAKERS WHO WANT THEIR BIG BREAK WITH THE HELP OF THE “CAKE BOSS” HIMSELF!

TLC and Buddy Valastro (The Cake Boss) are looking to launch the career of a promising cake decorator and baker on a new baking competition series. Break into this highly competitive culinary world with the help of Buddy and his team! Do you believe you have the skills and drive to graduate top of your class?

This new baking competition series, hosted by Buddy and team will feature weekly lessons, challenges, and eliminations. 10 hopeful contenders will vie for cash and prizes. No culinary experience required!

If YOU or someone you KNOW can OUT BAKE the competition apply now! Email: jjenkins@highnoontv.com with your story and recent photos".

Central New York Cake Competition!

Photo courtesy of Linda Milea Grand Prize Winner, 2009.

The Central New York (CNY) Cake Competition started in October of 2009 in Ithaca, NY. With a desire to promote the art of cake decorating and classes across CNY Julie Ehrentraut and NYC Cake Decorators Meetup member Nancy Buttino came together to launch The CNY Cake Decorating Competition.

On September 25th from 10:00pm to 6:00pm at The shops at Ithaca Mall they will be hold their 2nd Annual CNY Cake Competition. Bring your whole family to enjoy a day of fun, education and excitement. For further details, visit their website, CNY Cake Decorating.

Celebrate Sugar Art at our 3rd Day of Sharing!

This year's DOS is going to be the icing on the cake! Julie Bashore, Ruth Drennan, Charmaine Jones and Ximena Sempertegui are the guest presenters. Additionally, we have accomplished in-house award winning cake designers Natalie Johnson, Connie DiTomasso, and Annette Villaverde. Oasis Supply is our Sponsor for this event. For more information and to register, visit our non-member Registration website, NYC Cake Decorators Sugar Art Classes. Hope to see you there!

Juneteenth Celebration Cake Ideas

Photo courtesy of the Rum Cake Place.

Afrocentric cakes can be quite elegant as shown by this beautiful cake designed by The Rum Cake Place. Another cool idea is to incorporate animal prints and tropical plants your design. Enrobe a classic red velvet, sweet potato, or grandma's best butter cake with fondant to make your Juneteenth Day Celebration cake special.

Member, City Cakes NY, Featured on TLC's "Fabulous Cakes"!

Good news for us cakers! It seems like America can't get enough of cake and cake designers! Cake Buzz has it that members Chef Benny Rivera and Chef Marc Matthias, owners City Cakes NY (formerly Diverse Desserts) will be featured in a new summer series on TLC called "Fabulous Cakes". City Cakes NY is one of three businesses featured on the show.

City Cakes NY is a custom cake business located at 251 West 18th Street Lower Level, New York NY 10011 . They produce amazing sculpted cakes, wedding cakes, cupcakes and cookies by appointment. City Cakes NY also offers selected classes in cake decorating and sugar art.

Chef Marc Matthias was one of the judges of our in-house Sugar Art Show in 2009. For info visit, City Cakes NY or email info@citycakesny.com.

Happy Father's Day Cookie Treats!

NYC Cake Decorators are also crazy about cookies! This cool Father's Day idea is totally inspired by Bakerella. The free paper tray and fries holder templates were downloaded from Bakerella's website and were a snap to put together.

The directions for making this fast food meal are easy enough for kids to follow, and would make a wonderful family project just before Father's Day.

Vanilla cookies were used instead of cupcakes for the bun. Bakerella uses a brownie for the burger patty; here a chocolate roll-out cookie was used. A bamboo skewer was used to mark the dough with "grill marks" and after the cookies baked and cooled, a little petal dust diluted in almond extract was brushed onto the cookies to give them a "juicy" burger look.

The lettuce was made with green colored buttercream and a 104 tip; the sesame seeds are fondant pushed through an extruder, cut into small pieces, and rolled between the fingers; the tomato is a small red fondant circle, and the fries were made according to Bakerella's directions--the cookies really look like fries. A touch of cocoa petal dust on the tips of the fries, really fool the eyes. This idea can also be adapted to any picnic, barbeque, or Fourth of July celebration.

Member Published in American Cake Decorating Magazine!

Member Natalie Johnson, owner A World of Cakes, LLC, was selected to work on a project for American Cake Decorating Magazine's "By the Book".

Natalie's thorough book review of "The Art of Royal Icing" by Eddie Spence MBE can be read in the current issue of American Cake Decorating Magazine.

Natalie took on one of the cake projects presented in the book and created a fabulous piped Fan cake. Natalie also offered tips along the way. A must read! Kudos, Natalie!

Memoirs of a Geisha - Cake Class with Bronwen!

Photo courtesy of member Jade-eye

NYC Cake Decorators were so excited to attend the Geisha Airbrush Class with Bronwen Weber and husband Francois Long on June 6th. The event took place at University Settlement, 273 Bowery--a really great rental space! The event painstakingly coordinated by Assistant Organizer Ayana was a great success! Bronwen was thorough with her instructions and we all had time to carve and cover our cakes with fondant and to complete some airbrushing.

The completed Geisha cake shown was created by member Jade-eye. Jade-eye is a talented sculptor of clay who is really getting the hang of carving cake. Check out Jade-eye's other creations at Marzipan Dolls. She is also on Facebook.

Cricut Cake Demo by Members Dolly & LaTasha!

Photo courtesy of Sponsor NY Cake & Baking Distributors

Cakers have been buzzing about Cricut Cake for months now and I'm very happy to say that our very own members Dolly McClendon and LaTasha Powell will conduct a 2hr demonstration of Cricut Cake at NY Cake and Baking Distributors on June 12th from 1:00pm- 3:00pm.

The Cricut Machine is a Personal Electronic Cutter. You put fondant or gumpaste in and it cuts out images of your choice as small as 1/4" up to 23.5". You can print out letters, monograms, anything!! This machine is designed for decorating cakes, cupcakes, cookies, brownies......

Bring any questions and concerns you have- they have the answers!!! The price of the Demonstration is $35.00. Don't miss this opportunity to see the latest trend in Cake Decorating.

Please RSVP with NY Cake by visiting their website or emailing classes@nycake.com. Congrats Dolly & LaTasha and big THANK YOU Lisa Mansour!

Here Comes the Cake!

June is wedding cake month and what a stunning cake designed by member Yahaira.

Wilton Gets a Makeover!

Just about every cake designer owes a debt to Wilton for starting them out in cake decorating. Well, Wilton Method Cake Decorating Classes have gotten a major facelift! The new streamlined curriculum promises to afford more hands-on activity and practice time, exciting new techniques and easy ways to decorate cookies and cupcakes.


What I love, love, love is that the Wilton Rose is absent from this first course. I have always felt that the Wilton Rose is too daunting a task to tackle in the first course, and has often been a source of frustration for newbie students. Years ago in the 1990's, when I took the Wilton Courses, the rosebud was taught in the first course. I could not understand, why the rosebud--which I feel is easier to learn than the Wilton Rose on the flower nail, was placed in Course II. Wilton has finally got it right!

The Flowers and Cake Design Course concentrates on all types of flowers; some of the fondant flowers are quite creative, beautiful, and easy to execute. Sure to bolster the confidence of students to tackle even more complex techniques.

Wilton's Gumpaste and Fondant Course is sure to be a fun course where students can really become an Ace of Cakes! The fondant rose, ribbons, and bows are easy enough for beginners, and the cake designs in the coursebook give great ideas for special occasion cakes. I saw a website where you can download the retired Wilton Course Books for free. Please let me know if you take one of the new Wilton Courses or downloaded any of the course books and how you liked it. - Dina

Duff Goldman Fondant & Bakeware at Michaels!

Duff Goldman, Ace of Cakes, has a line of assorted flavors of fondant aptly called Duff Fondant and bakeware at Michael's Craft Store! Anyone try the fondant? The buzz is that it tastes great but may be a little tricky to work with. It's also a bit pricey, but you can always wait for Michael's discount coupons or a sale. And shhhhhh! if you didn't know already, Michael's Craft Store accepts A.C. Moore coupons.