Miscellaneous Cake Winners
It’s All
In the Game
First Place—When Pen Pe-
rez, Berkeley, California,
was asked to make a birth-
day cake for her friend’s 5-
year-old son, her first ques-
tion was:“What does Miles want on
his cake?”
“Oh, just put gobs and gobs of can-
dy on it. He loves candy,” was her
friend’s reply.
“Instead of piling the candy haphazardly, I thought it should look like the
Candy Land board game,” relates Pen,
who spent 3 hours carefully placing all
of the candies on the cake. The end result? A very happy birthday boy.
“Miles loved his cake…and so did
50 of his friends and family,” Pen says.
“Each slice had at least one piece of
candy on it, so no one missed out.”
An architect turned full-time mom,
Pen began decorating cakes when
her daughters were born.
Turn to page 66 to make your own
Candy Land cake.
Berry Pretty
Second Place—“No
one is sad when they
are eating cake,” says
Sherry Stevens of
St. James, New York.
Sherry’s fresh strawberry Pirouline cake
just might be proof of
that.
“This cake has
‘wow’ power,” says
Sherry.“It’s the one
that gets the most recognition, plus it’s so easy to make.”
Just bake your favorite cake in a square pan, frost the top
and sides and place Pirouline cookies around the entire cake.
Then, tie a bow around the cake, form a square on top of the
cake using melted white chocolate and gently place fresh
strawberries and blueberries around the border.
“Now you have a beautiful, romantic cake,” Sherry notes.“I
also make it for birthdays. I place the person’s age on the white
chocolate. If it is for one of my friends who keeps their age a
secret, I put ‘ 29+’ or ‘ 39+’ and just keep people guessing.”
Sherry recently began working in the cardiac care unit at
Stony Brook University Hospital.“I brought in goodies on my
first day, and now a co-worker keeps hinting that her birth-
day’s right around the corner,” she laughs.
Black-Belt Cake Baker
Third Place—For 22 years, Nora Fitzgerald, Sevierville,
Tennessee, worked in human resources for a manufacturing
facility. When the branch closed, she shifted gears and pursued
a degree in culinary arts.
“I wanted to do something less stressful...something lighter
and different,” Nora says.
One of her favorite classes was cake decorating. Soon, she
was making specialty cakes for family and friends, including
this fondant baby cake. “I
made this sweet little cake for
a friend who’d wanted a baby for so long,” says Nora.“The
cake caused such an uproar
that the mom-to-be refused to
cut it for 2 days.”
Although she’s now certified in culinary arts and business management, Nora is
content helping her brother
and sister run a Christian
karate school. The school’s
95 aspiring students love it
when instructor Nora (a third-degree black belt) brings in
one of her special cakes
for them to try!
