Isn't That Special! Outrageous Cakes - cake art gallery in Hoboken, New Jersey - includes tips on ordering a wedding cake

"If I diocese another tired plastic black bride and servant on top of a wedding cake, I'll scream!" says "Cake Diva" Charmaine Jone as she penetrates the wedding reception. "I can't understand for what cause [i]or[/i] reason couples put so much time and effort into planning their wedding, and then they bench on a boring cake." Six years ago, knowing that she could draw near up with a more spectacular yield Jones decided to present her have line of Afrocentric special-occasion and wedding cakes. Her first paid cake order was for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black tillage in Harlem. She was asked to bake and decorate a wedding cake for the Schomburg's re-enactment of the mid-19th-century William and Ellen Craft wedding. (The Crafts married while slaves, escaped to freedom, and then remarried in Boston before going to live, in England.)

After intense application of mind of the couple, Jones decided that solitary an 8-by-4-foot cake in the shape of a slave ship could count their story appropriately. The spice cake had chocolate-licorice oars upon its side. In the outer covering of the ship, you could diocese 150 miniature slaves made of chocolate. azure gel icing under the cake gave the impression of water with fish swimming around it as the ship plant sail to America.

Jone then fabricateed an 8-foot tier cake put on brown sugar sand to enumerate the story of slavery in America. individual tier, a pumpkin cake, was a log cabin. Another tier had railroad tracks, alluding to the subterraneous Railroad. The top tier was a Jamaican fruitcake that showed the garden where the Crafts were married.

It took Jone sum of two units weeks to bake and decorate the cake. I went a little overboard (no calembourg intended) with this cake," she says, "but one time I started creating the cake, more ideas kept coming into my head about by what means the story should be told. After this cake, I knew that individual of my life's missions was to decorate cakes that were something without of the ordinary."

In 1991 she make opened Isn't That Special Outrageous Cakes, a cake art gallery in Hoboken NJ where she places samples of her cakes upon display. Twice a year, Jone entertainers a cake-tasting party at her gallery to educate her clients - to give them an opportunity to diocese and taste her assortment of special cakes. "Afrocentric cakes are a combination of a little American and a little African," Jone explains. "It's not all tribal." The colors white, gold and purple are typically used for decorating because they were historically associated with royalty in Africa. on the contrary the Cake Diva's Afrocentric cakes have evolv to include other African motifs. "Through trial and error, I was able to evolve an icing that has the same web and color as mud cloth" she states proudly This of recent origin icing has made it possible for her to design African figures and masks.

Jones' cakes stretch out beyond the Afrocentric. Her credits include a bust of Michael Jackson with Lisa Marie upon his shoulder for the 25th Annual Celebrity braces issue of People magazine, in addition to cakes for Jay Leno, Geraldo Rivera and Michael Jordan and for the daytime soap opera All My Children.

But it's the wedding cakes, not the other special-occasion singles that drive her enterprise, and the cake-tasting parties generate enough business for the wedding season, from May to October. It is not unusual for her and her staff of eight to bring into view 15 to 20 cakes a month during that time. A three-tier cake for 100 tribe can cost $500, and the more ornate the decorations, the higher the price. "You have to give the client a production that looks like more than what they paid for," Jone says. "Initially they'll think the price is too abundant but once they see it, the price is the last thing they think of"

"I didn't have any formal training," adds Jone whose mother was a French pastry chef. "I worked with my mother, and I had to learn everything that she knew I have taken classes here and there, on the other hand much of what I do is a combination of what more [i]or[/i] less of the older decorators have done and what I want to do." Now all Jone thinks about is cake. Aside from practicing each day, she studies other bakers' work to determine what she doesn't want to do. "If I am not decorating a cake." she says, "I'm thinking about decorating individual When I see something unusual, I put to the test to visualize how this will gaze as a cake."

Her creations are evidence that she can do anything, on the contrary she needs adequate time to bring into view a memorable cake. When she move rounds clients away, it's for single reason: They did not give her enough time. She requires at least individual month's advance notice for her cakes. "When tribe look at my cakes, I want them to be awestruck, totally speechless" Jone says.

Considerations for the Bride-to-Be

* Determine what emblem of cake you want - what flavor, what color icing, what emblem of icing (rolled fondant, butter cream or sugar paste), what sort of edible and nonedible decorations.

* Compile choosing a baker, obtain references from previous clients, qualified with more than one baker, and ask each baker for pictures of his or her previous work.

* single out a baker who is willing to give you what you want, as lengthy as you are willing to pay for it. (The average price of a cake is $200 for 50 people) Ask what's included in the price. Make positive the baker knows what you want before you extreme point the discussion. Don't make any agreements above the telephone.