Member Spotlight - Sweet Grace, Cake Designs

Member Spotlight: Sachiko's "To Die For" Cupcake Toppers!

Member Sachiko Windbiel's garden themed cupcakes take the cake! Sachiko, originally from Japan, graduated from a vegetarian cooking school three years ago but her true passion is playing with sugar.

Besides turning out delicious and fabulous cupcakes at her shop Mimi Cafe Union, Sachiko also makes exquisite cupcake towers  and toppers to show them off.  You can order cupcake toppers and cupcake towers on her website or her online store at  Etsy.

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.

Member Spotlight: The Cake & Cookie Closet: All Dolled up In Sugar

Our new member Debra J. Mosely, is an author, teacher, and caterer who just loves playing with sugar!

Come with Debra into her cake and cookie closet where you'll find easy to make cake and sugar cookie designs that will be a feast to your eyes and make your tummy happy.

Debra's book The Cake & Cookie Closet: All Dolled Up In Sugar, is scheduled to release this spring, and includes both buttercream and fondant cake designs and sugar cookie designs. Satin Ice and Fondarific fondant were used exclusively for the sugar cookies to make decorating quick and simple. Debra's book features edible doll cakes, beautiful hat cupcakes and cookies, dress cookies, shoe cookies, purse cookies, pants cakes and cookies, and diamond ring sugar cookies (Debra could not forget the bling) and chocolate shoes.

Whether you want to surprise a special woman with tasty treats or celebrate a birthday or other event, you will find something that will suit your needs. When you get a chance, check out Debra's website at www.thecakeandcookiecloset.com and her fan page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TheCakeandCookieCloset.

Member Spotlight: Irene Likokas Launches Cake Biz in Bay Ridge!

The dream of many cake designers is to one day open their own custom cake, cupcake, or cookie business. With the support of family and friends, member Irene Likokas (Adven68 on Cake Central), was able to realize her dream when she recently launched her custom cake business, Sweet Irene.

Sweet Irene is a jewel box located along a highly trafficked shopping district in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn: 8811 3rd Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11209, 718-921-1307.

Irene's extraordinary signature topsy-turvy cakes and 3D cakes developed a strong customer base over the years, and despite the slow economy, Irene is happily experiencing no lack of business from loyal fans and customers.

NYC Cake Decorators Meetup was fortunate to have Irene teach several techniques for members over the past two years, including a topsy-turvy cake, pillow-cake, designer shopping bag, and designer handbag cake class. All classes have received rave reviews from members who are excited to learn from such a talented and gracious lady.

Besides cake design, Irene is a talented fine artist in several mediums. Irene is proficient in stained glass work and her murals have been commissioned by well known corporate clients such as Metro Tech BID in Brooklyn. Check out her amazing cake designs and fine art at her website, The Painted Eye.

A "Man's Shirt & Designer Tie in a Box" cake class, is in the works. NYC Cake Decorators hopes to offer the workshop just in time for Father's Day, June 2010.

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.