Looking at Michelle Perez's award-winning cakes, one might think she has spent years studying to be a chef.
But this mother of two has excelled the old-fashioned way: natural talent and practice.
"I had two kids, and I started making cakes for them when they were babies," she said. "The more I learned, the better I got."
Perez has gotten so good, in fact, that she won the silver award at the International Hotel/Motel Restaurant Show, held every November at Manhattan's Jacob Javits Convention Center, two years in a row. Her first winning cake was mint green with sugar roses cascading down the front, and the second was a chocolate cake decorated with a mosaic tile made of sugar paste.
Perez started her own cake business two years ago, naming it "Just In Cakes." A one-woman show, she makes one to five cakes a week for weddings and other special events in lower Westchester, Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens and Long Island. Prices for her wedding cakes start at $3.75 per serving.
Although she has been making cakes for eight years altogether, Perez has never used the same design twice. By blending what the customer wants with he own vision for the cake, she is able to make an original design for each event.
"I never make one exactly the same," she says. "It's a combination of what the person wants and what I come up with."
Some of her more unusual designs have been for wedding rehearsal dinners, where Perez says the cake is considered to be for the groom. The cake at the actual wedding is considered the bride's choice.
"Usually for thee groom it gets more personal," says Perez. "The bride gets it as a gift for him for the rehearsal dinner."
For such dinners, Perez usually gets requests for sports-oriented cakes. She has made several cakes shaped like stadiums, such as Boston's Fenway Park, and others shaped as a cowboy hat and an Irish scroll.
One of the designs that Perez says is always a hit at weddings is her miniature wedding cake. She makes three to four inch replicas of the actual wedding cake for each guest, and serves them in boxes or bags. They are covered in white chocolate or fondant, a European frosting with a cookie dough consistency that gives the cake a smoother look.
"In Westchester they're popular," says Perez. "I've done a lot of them."
The small cakes are such a novelty that some wedding guests hardly want to eat them.
"Oh, they love them," says Perez. "Because it's something still not that big yet. They look really nice and it's something you don't even want to eat."
The bride and groom are given a bigger version of the mini-cakes for the cutting ceremony. Then Perez usually wraps and freezes the top tier of the cake for the couple's first anniversary. She also includes a complimentary six-inch heart shaped cake for the newlyweds to take on their honeymoon.
Perez tries to make each of her cakes not only beautiful, but also tailored to what each couple wants.
"I'm a perfectionist," she says. "So I really make the cake something they're going to enjoy. It's got to be as delicious as it is beautiful."
cake tidbits
Since starting her business, Michelle Perez has begun teaching others the art of making cakes. She offers classes at libraries and craft stores, and shares what she's learned over the past eight years. Here are some interesting cake tidbits Perez has picked up during her eight years of experience:
The most popular cake flavor is white or yellow.
The "groom's cake," or wedding rehearsal cake, is often chocolate or carrot cake.
A simple cake takes Perez two to three hours to make, but a wedding cake can take up to two full days because they are bigger and have more filling. Of the whole process, Perez says he favorite part of constructing a cake is making the delicate and vibrant flowers that top many of her cakes. "All the flowers on my cakes are edible," Perez says. "It's nice to see people enjoy something that you make."
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