Getting Fancy with Cakes
In case you missed my Nov. 11 story on cakes, one of four events with the Let Them Eat Cake series Nov. 17-22 will be a decorating demonstration by chefs of Dewey’s Bakery.
Within the last two years, Dewey’s has hired two highly trained, experienced pastry chefs to modernize and improve its line of custom wedding and other special-occasion cakes.
Katy Hites studied pastry and baking at Johnson & Wales University and has owned her own restaurant and catering company. Alison Turner studied pastry at Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School and also ran her own cake business before coming to Dewey’s this year.
In the past, Dewey’s has stuck to traditional designs for special-occasion cakes. But, Hites said Dewey’s has recognized customers’ need for “custom cakes that are more reflective of what they’re’ seeing on TV, in magazines.”
Hites, who specializes in wedding cakes, now can do things like the Mad Hatter design of tilting layers in a cake that seems as if it might topple any minute. Turner, who does birthday and other special-occasion cakes, has recently done a pirate-ship cake and one with a camping scene with people in sleeping bags around a campfire.
“We’re able to create virtually any cake when people bring in a picture,” Hites said.
For their demonstration Tuesday, Hites and Turner will start with a plain cake and show people how to properly stack a cake and how to give it a professional icing job.
Hites and Turner also will show people how to work with fondant, a sugar mixture that is solid and firm but pliable and is essentially used like sculpting clay to create any number of cake decorations. “We’re going to do a Christmas cake so we’ll make snowflakes, maybe an angel or Santa Claus,” Hites said.
“Our approach is to give people a peek into how we do it, how we make the magic,” she said.
Cake-decorating demonstration: noon Tuesday, Blackhorse Studios, 310 E. Third St.
The cost is $20 a person. Seating is limited. To make a reservation contact Katy Hites at 397-5587 or kate
@deweys.com.
