Baking a Balanced Life: An Intimate Chat with Ron Ben-Israel

Have you ever wondered how the world-renowned baker, Ron Ben-Israel, balances his flourishing career with family life and personal well-being? Or how he handled being discovered by the one and only, Martha Stewart? Brace yourself for an intimate journey into the life of one of the baking industry's most influential figures. In today's episode of the Cake Therapy podcast, we discuss Ron's impressive career and the therapeutic power of baking. 

The conversation gets even more exciting as Ron shares his experience navigating gender dynamics in the baking industry, the impact of his mentors, and the importance of continual learning. The wisdom he gleaned from working with Martha Stewart, a relentless perfectionist, is bound to inspire. But, don't think it's all been a cake walk. We also touch on the challenges faced by today's baking entrepreneurs and Ron's personal struggles. His story of finding solace through therapy and physical exercise is a testament to the power of commitment and passion.

Finally, we delve into the life-changing impact of baking on mental health, a subject close to Ron's heart. He talks about how it has helped him maintain a balance in his hectic life. For all you budding entrepreneurs out there, Ron also shares some valuable lessons from his journey in the baking industry. Tune in for an inspiring and heartwarming episode that is sure to leave you with a newfound appreciation for the therapeutic power of baking.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the Cake Therapy podcast a slice of joy and healing, with your host, Dr Altricia Foster. This is a heartwarming and uplifting space that celebrates the transformative power of baking therapy. The conversations will be a delightful blend of inspirational stories, expert insights and practical baking tips. Each episode will take listeners on a journey of self-discovery, emotional healing and connection through the therapeutic art of baking. There's something here for everyone, so lock in and let's get into it.

Speaker 2: 0:43

Hi everyone, good morning. Welcome back to another episode of the Cake Therapy podcast with me, your host, dr Altricia Foster. So today you're up for a treat. Your slice of joy and healing today is none other than Mr Ron Ben Israel, himself owner of Ron Ben Israel Cake. So Mr Ben Israel is a luminaire in the baking community. Of course, get excited, guys. He's the executive chef. He's an executive chef in New York. He's a master baker in New York. He's also a master host. We see him all the time on the food network. According to the New York Times, this gentleman that's in front of you is the Manolablonik of wedding cakes. Imagine that Manolabs are my favorite shoes. So imagine we have the Manolablonik of wedding cakes in the space. I'm excited to welcome one of my favorite cake heroes into the space to give us a slice of joy and healing and some cake therapy. So welcome, mr Ben Israel. Thank you for joining us on our podcast.

Speaker 3: 1:54

It's a pleasure to be here, but my head already is super blown with ego, so be careful. One more compliment and it's going to burst the screen.

Speaker 2: 2:06

The conversation is going to be packed with compliments today, because it's who you are, you know, so I'm really excited that you agreed to join us. So let me share that. We emailed Mr Ben Israel a couple of days ago to invite him to share his form of cake therapy and he immediately said yes to us and we're excited that he's open for this conversation. But as we were delving into his background, guess what Mr Ben Israel is, as his name states, you know he is an Israeli born, baker, pastry chef, master chef, and I want to be intentional you know, with understanding that what's taking place in Israel and Gaza right now. I wanted to pause to check in with you to see how you're doing and how is your family doing, and you know, just share with us how you're feeling at this time.

Speaker 3: 3:03

I would like to do that very much and thanks for having me. But let's set up the rules. If you call me Mr, I'll call you doctor. No, if I may call you al-Trisher, please call me Ron, okay, I also don't use the term chef lightly, because chef means master. So in house we call each other by the first names. It's only when I in public, in a public appearance or a conference, but I prefer first names.

Speaker 3: 3:30

Okay, thank you, we're already going to be great friends, thank you. So I have to barely, barely, barely, touch the situation. It's a huge topic that has been going on for many, many years Before I was born. Unfortunately, probably, it will go away after me. So I'll just say that my heart goes out to, of course, my family and my siblings and my friends and my colleagues in Israel, but also to everybody in the Middle East.

Speaker 3: 4:00

The situation is dire and it's horrible, and I believe that we are controlled by greed and human nature, and what I pray for and I hope is for peace and coexistence and support, because that piece of land has always been trampled upon by kings and nations and the people who lived on that narrow piece of land the land of milk and honey, were tossed around from the diaspora to diaspora.

Speaker 3: 4:33

So I don't have a solution for the situation and I pray for everyone and of course, I get upset when I feel threatened, but I try to remain human and the world needs to help us because if we lose that piece of land, it's really very significant geographically and culturally and we need to keep it democratic for all sides. So it's very heartbreaking to hear everybody argues in this way, this way, every life matters and killing for killing sake is awful and I wish that we all find a solution, but it's again beyond me. So I pray for peace. But of course I have an identity. My name means son of Israel. Our parents went through the Holocaust and lost the grandparents, so I grew up without grandparents and my parents came as young people to Israel and met each other and fell in love, so my lineage is really son of this place. I was born there and even though I live in the United States, I keep my citizenship, of course, and my ties, and it hurts and it's scary, yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:52

Thank you.

Speaker 3: 5:54

So then, luckily, we have cake and I have business and I'm very busy. Right now it's the wedding, fall, wedding season and work helps for me. I mean, some days I don't want to get up and do work, but actually many, many nights I can't sleep. So I get up early, two o'clock in the morning, and I bake some bread for my crew and for myself and my friends.

Speaker 2: 6:19

You're doing some bacon cake therapy there to get through.

Speaker 3: 6:22

I always said, even before I met you, that cake and bread are therapeutic and I cannot imagine where my life would be in career without the outlet of baking and creating. It's a standing throughout my life, even before I became a professional baker.

Speaker 2: 6:42

That's interesting, that's good, that's good. So would you like to know how I started? I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet, all right.

Speaker 3: 6:51

I'll keep it yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:55

So I started. You have so many shows on the networks, right? You were the host of cake genius, several reality TV shows, sweet genius, sweet genius you were the judge on cake wars and when I started baking I would go to the food network to find recipes solace, just the shows that were around that. And I started to do my research even before we thought about this podcast and I was reading where you once said that when most thoughts your age were making message in the sandbox, you prefer to observe your mom's culinary magic as she whipped egg whites together. Right, I would love to hear about your early life. Where did your love for baking come from?

Speaker 3: 7:53

So when I think about myself as a kid, as a child I was always fascinated by things I don't want to say mechanical things, but things that worked together. It could have been an airplane kit, it could have been woodworking and in the kitchen. I was just fascinated how. And that was my job, because we didn't have an electric mixer when I grew up. So my mother would sit me up to distract me with a bowl and a whisk and I would whip up either egg whites from a rind or whipping cream to sweet cream. So it was fascinating for me to see how, from a simple ingredient, this mound of white sweetness would transform, and I just love the magic of it. It's still, to this day, whipping air into egg whites or cream. Or now that I'm more sophisticated, I would use baking powder or yeast. It's still magic. There are spirits there and we garner them to help us create something magical and tasty.

Speaker 2: 9:02

Yeah, so who are you really? Because we're reading your master baker, your TV host. You were in the military. Share with us your upbringing, what you do. You're a dad, so we've read, so tell us.

Speaker 3: 9:22

So I think that I needed to be acknowledged. That's what I sort of knew all my life and it became very apparent during the COVID crisis here that because we were shut down, we were shut. The building was shut down. We had no bakery, no employees, and I started operating from home. And then, the moment I could come back to the kitchen, I started the little cookie business and treats. It became run with Israel treats and we would take city bikes, which are those bicycle that you rent by the hour and just deliver all over until the post office was reopened.

Speaker 3: 10:02

So what occurred to me is that I really need to be acknowledged, I need to remain valid, and that sense I had since I was a kid. So I wouldn't mind even falling down or making a mistake, as long as I got some attention, but not precocious attention. I needed to do something. So I would paint, I would draw, I went to art school, I started doing folk dancing, I baked at my mother's kitchen. I needed to make things. I wasn't good with abstract thinking. I was good with crafts and making things and entertaining people. So that's sort of my personality. I mean, if I walk in the street here in New York City and I'm talk to people and meet people. That makes me happy.

Speaker 2: 10:48

Right. So at what age did you dance? From what you know, when did you start dancing?

Speaker 3: 10:55

So I actually I can tell you now that I dance until my very late 30s and I haven't done commercial cakes until I was 40. So I really started late because I had almost careers and what happened is I really had my life. I went to art school, then the service in the Israeli military is compulsory, so I was drafted for three years, okay. So only then I was able to continue dancing and take it from occasional folk dancing to real ballet and modern dance and eventually join a company. So before you know it, I was time to retire Old age 40. And I needed an income. Yeah, the cakes came in, okay.

Speaker 2: 11:48

So how, how, how was that transition from military to dance? How did that make that transition? Did you do both?

Speaker 3: 11:56

together or yes or no? Well, first of all, I didn't have a choice with the military. I was drafted like every young person is a man and women so and I was kicking and screaming, but I had to do it, yeah. So I wasn't necessarily enjoying myself, I needed to survive, and for some of those more artistic and imaginative, it was hellish, because I also am quite sub centered and I didn't like to be told what to do and lose my freedom. Oh, I've resisted, but I still served. And okay, what happens is you would get a night off every week or other week, and my father had a subscription to the Israeli Philharmonic and I really appreciated it. So, as a soldier in uniform, when you have a night off, you can go to any concert for free. Yeah, so I started seeing dance companies and concerts while I was in the army and I kept the flame going. My beloved librarian would send me books to keep me in reading. So it wasn't a time that I stopped growing and I could not wait to be released.

Speaker 2: 13:20

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 13:22

Understandably.

Speaker 2: 13:26

So you started dancing. Were you baking as you were dancing?

Speaker 3: 13:32

No, well, I like to have guests and in my humble studio that I shared with my partner, we used to have little dinner parties, but we didn't really have chairs or tables. We sat on the floor in the Arbree in the.

Speaker 3: 13:47

Middle East. You sit on pillows and sort of sysil like a carpet. But we always liked cooking and entertaining and I always loved cooking and showing off. And I realized very early on, because I love cooking as well, that if I bring the dessert, I steal the show. People can slave on a goat curry for hours and hours to tenderize the meat and grind all the spices and blacken the meat. I whip something up and you bring it and forget about the food that was presented earlier and they remember the dessert. Yeah, but it sort of clicked in my mind and I was always reading cooking books and entertaining and figuring things out. But what happened is I did many geographics. I worked in Toronto, canada, I was an apprentice of a dance company in France and when money went out I started working in bakeries and catering and just many, many odd jobs and to my delight I realized I was okay with this, I could manage, I could learn and I just enjoyed it and strived so I could always pay the rent by working in kitchens.

Speaker 2: 15:13

Okay, well, that's good. And our curry gold. Now we have pressure cooker, so we pressurize that meat. It doesn't take as long to whip up.

Speaker 3: 15:24

I love. I have two pressure cookers, smaller and larger, and I do everything in it Soups and meat. It's just an amazing, amazing tool.

Speaker 2: 15:33

It is an amazing tool. It really has helped us Jamaicans to cook our meat and our food, so we're pretty excited for its invention. So I'm really curious to talk a little bit more about your baking journey Because, like you are, I would say, mr Famous Okay when it comes on to baking and the baking industry and a lot of us look up to you. So I would like to know how do you manage your daily life with everything else that you have going on in terms of your hosting?

Speaker 3: 16:12

I wish I had an answer because I know it doesn't always feel manageable. But you know you mentioned Food Network and TV. Yeah, but really I remember watching PBS for reruns of old shows with Julia Child.

Speaker 2: 16:28

And Julia.

Speaker 3: 16:28

Child was about bringing French cooking to America, but she was a gifted baker so I loved her baking shows and then I started watching Martha Stewart. And you know what happened to me. One day I get a phone call and the person on the other line says hi, ron, this is Martha. And I thought it was a joke. I thought somebody was pulling my leg, but it was Will Martha Stewart. Yes, she invited me for breakfast and she said scones that she baked on the air and she was starting a wedding magazine and she sort of discovered me as a beginner and she saw something fresh. And for the next 20 years I made cakes for the magazines and I was a guest on a TV show. So I learned a lot from Martha Stewart. Many, many things Her sense of humor, which is sort of dry, but the ability she really admires people who know what they're doing. So if you'd go on her show and a coffee expert, she would become the ultimate student.

Speaker 3: 17:34

And not only she's a great improviser and a great to the personality I adore and ability to learn. So when I started doing cakes and I realized I don't know enough, I started going to school. There wasn't an official school to enroll in, which is really important because over the years I was able to establish with some of my colleagues, a program for cake design and I could do school in every school. But one could do small courses, some online, which are less believing, but we offer small short courses in our bakery. But find a local bakery, find a local expert and even volunteer to do an internship, even if possible without pay, just to learn from somebody who knows more.

Speaker 2: 18:26

Yeah, that's good and that's interesting. That's a good tip for our listeners who are interested in baking or any art form. Right, it's always to find someone who knows more than you to really be their understudy or to learn from them. So you did mention Julia Childs and Martha Stewart. Are they your biggest influences? Who's inspired?

Speaker 3: 18:51

There's more there's two particular ladies that I consider my mentor For baking. I highly, I mean, I love her as a person as well, but I admire her as a professional Rose Levy Bernbaum, who wrote the famous Cake Bible, which was the first really amazing book that I purchased. So the Cake Bible. Then there's the pastry Bible, the cookie Bible, which I have here, and I have all her books. The Cake Bible is going to come again. This is the cookie Bible, which is relatively new, and the Cake Bible is going to come up with a new, revised printing and edition, which is very exciting. I think it's the 36th anniversary, so it's a great, great book.

Speaker 3: 19:42

So I approached Rose Levy Bernbaum and I wrote a letter and since we both live in New York, she invited me to meet and we became fast friends and conspirators. So I was very lucky and I have another mentor for the design, execution of sugar flowers and cake decorating. Her name is Betty Van Nostrand. She's a very young, active person and she's gonna be 95 this December 1st and she still rules us. She taught thousands of people over the years how to make cakes and how to decorate with sugar dough and so forth. She's really the overall knowledgeable person and she's still pretty feisty. She teaches privately no longer in culinary school, and she is my main influence in the visuals of cakes.

Speaker 3: 20:42

Yeah, and she still tells me if she doesn't like something. And I met so many people through Betty because she all her career she traveled and taught and learned. She was the first American chef to win gold in the culinary Olympics which were held usually in Europe in the 80s. Not only she was the first American chef to win gold, she was the first woman chef to win gold because we were ahead of the European chefs. It was unheard of to have a female chef yeah it isn't it?

Speaker 2: 21:20

Now go ahead.

Speaker 3: 21:22

No, I want to say even today, at least in New York, you see female pastry chefs, but you see more male in the industry. And I don't know why.

Speaker 2: 21:37

Exactly, and it's not just in the baking industry, it's like almost all of the industries where you're seeing more male dominance than female, and the question remains is why. But we'll have to delve into that like another time, because I mean, we need answers, we need to know exactly why.

Speaker 3: 21:57

So you're but I could say this I'm sorry.

Speaker 2: 21:59

No no.

Speaker 3: 22:00

My observation is the liberation of any minority should really come from within the minority. You can't grant freedom.

Speaker 2: 22:11

Yes.

Speaker 3: 22:11

And we can see it in the history of the United States and many others. We have to rise for it and seize it. So sometimes I wonder why women don't object to being objectified, object to being objectified all the-. Actually, most of my employees are women. We really are, have always been a women-centric business, and those ladies tell me when I cross the line yeah, and I love to accept it, I am pretty happy here.

Speaker 2: 22:47

Okay, that's good, and plus, you're in New York. Those women are Fears. Yeah, we are fierce women out there, so that's good. So tell me a little bit more about your experience working with Martha Stewart.

Speaker 3: 23:06

So I mentioned that she loves to learn and to my surprise I was a little bit shy and you know she put me in ease and she said just ignore the cameras and just let's do what necessary. And I also learned that if you make a mistake and something doesn't work, you do it again and you make it into a victory. But I did ask her something, because you asked me earlier how do I manage everything? So one day we were kneading the dough and making little flowers and cameras around us and I said to her Martha, how do you manage everything? But she's really a super-chiever and such a business. And she says we work on the schedule, we set it all up and then I follow one thing after the other.

Speaker 3: 23:54

I think that's the way she put it together, explained to me, and it's so true. You know you so often feel that you can't handle it, it's too much. Whether it's dealing with your, I could imagine the kids and career and social life and rent and disasters like wars and hurricanes and COVID. And you put you organize the schedule. We only make cakes once we have a deposit. So actually there's a financial commitment, so we have to do it and I like that. We don't have a bakery, that everything is lined up. People come and buy it. They have to pre-order by appointment and then we commit months and months, sometimes years and events. So once there's a commitment, we figure out how to do it, we follow the schedule. We follow the schedule.

Speaker 2: 24:46

Yeah, so there's really one thing that I love about your cakes it's like when you see them, you know it's yours Because there's the movement, the signature sugar flowers, Like it's all you. When you see your cake, we know it's you. So how was it?

Speaker 3: 25:03

Wait, I think you're great. Now I have to comment about your cakes. So I was following you on Instagram and I saw that you went to Toronto to my friend, this amazing, amazing artist, who visited our bakery. We went for classes at Lima Cakes, yes, and you came up with such amazing and creative and happy cake, especially the cakes that look like blocks of stone but with bright colors Amazing. And then you made flowers. You made sugar flowers. Yes, I did.

Speaker 2: 25:39

I made it.

Speaker 3: 25:39

I made it. So you see, I appreciate it, because we need to take challenges and go through them.

Speaker 2: 25:48

Yeah, and, like you said, find someone who knows more than you and learn from them. So I took all that challenge as well. So, yeah, lima was that experience was really good for me. It really has helped me to transform my cakes and my mindset on how I approach cakes, so I was really excited about so thank you for that compliment. So I wanna know from you, right, how has baking impacted your life? I mentioned that when we see your cake, we know it's your cake. Movement of your sugar flowers. You were in Bride Magazine, modern Bride Town and Country. Martha Stewart Insta. The New York Times life changing.

Speaker 3: 26:32

It's true, I have to acknowledge how much I miss being in magazines, because it used to be almost a weekly occurrence with so many creative magazines and unfortunately we don't have that many Bride magazine or magazines at all. So we have more online, but everybody could publish through Instagram or Facebook. But I miss working with creative directors and editors. But I forgot what was the question. Yeah, yeah, I was.

Speaker 2: 27:06

No, that's fine. It's how it impacted your life. Like we've seen you. We know that you are committed to this art form, right. We've seen you appearing in several magazines. You're featured in TV shows. You're hosting shows. How has it impacted you, especially as it relates to your mental health and how you're coping with life's challenges, if you have any challenges?

Speaker 3: 27:33

Of course we all do so. First of all, I feel that the commitments that I have to make are scary sometimes, but unnecessary. You need to schedule things up and you need to commit in order to do it. So, and the difference between an adult and a child is that I still have the childish feelings of how is it going to take it Then nobody's going to like me, I'm not going to do it. Well, you know things like that. But you do one cake and then two cakes, and then three, and then 300 and 3000. Who knows how many thousands are made. So there is a repetition and practice. One gets better. We establish systems very early on.

Speaker 3: 28:22

I had to bring people in. I brought my students to help out the bakery and they developed and became creative and knowledgeable and reliable. So things grow and it's always interesting. I don't, you know, because I have challenges that I need to address. I don't usually sit and worry because you know I have things to do.

Speaker 3: 28:50

Now it's a little bit difficult because I've been spending sleepless nights. So what I do is I set up a bowl of dough, sleep a few hours, let it rise, get up and actually punch the dough down, shape it into little loaves or fill it up with a sweet apple or pumpkin filling. Let it rise, go to sleep so I don't waste my time. I don't like to hang out so much, I like to keep busy.

Speaker 3: 29:18

But in terms of mental health it became very apparent that I need to go to therapy early on to handle the pressure and to handle the challenges, especially since my parents passed away pretty early for me. So I needed support and I was also in a new country without close family, so talk therapy has been really great, but also physical therapy. I have been practicing this system called so it's not dance anymore, because I like the studio, I was told, but I can't do ballet anymore. It's called gyrotonic. So there's two systems. One is called gyrotonic, with machines Gyro comes from Greek to rotate, g Y, r and if you look at my stories you'll see those and gyrokinesis, which is also done in a group, and that has been very helpful. So five times a week after work I go to the studio and practice.

Speaker 2: 30:23

Right, okay, well, that's good. So really any art form or any form of repetitive movement or therapy is good for the soul, so I'm glad that you're feeding your soul outside of the cake studio as well, and maybe featuring some of those nontraditional forms of therapy on-cake therapy as well. So hope our guests stay tuned to learn and even to learn more about gyro-tonics. So I'm excited about that for you. What is one of your biggest and most valuable lessons that you've learned from your journey?

Speaker 3: 31:07

I think, not to speak too fast. One key thing for business that I learned is to say that's interesting. Let me get back to you so when a new offer to take, for instance, now we are overbooked and either you spend some months in the winter with not enough work and are worried about paying the rented salaries, and then you have the busy season, spring and fall and we are overbooked. So it's very tempting to take more jobs and sometimes there's pressure from past clients and event planners and we just and I consult with my employees and sometimes we accept extra jobs and sometimes we say I'm sorry, I'll have to refer you to somebody else, but I can't take it so restraint of pain and tongue I'm not perfect at it but not to react immediately and to say things like I'll get back to you.

Speaker 3: 32:07

Now, the form of it is saying I understand that you would like a different price tier, but unfortunately I can't. And further on is my employees deserve to make a living wage. So, because many times a client would be concerned about budgets, but we need to you know, it's not just me and the bigger the business, the more established it is, the more expensive insurances are and we encourage our employees which I think it's the only company that I know of to save in our simple IRA, which we match one to one. So if an employee puts a dollar a week, they get $2. One for month.

Speaker 3: 32:58

So, even if they're much younger than me. So I've committed. The commitment is not to respond emotionally, even though sometimes I do. If somebody meets us and comes for a tasting, which is complimentary, and we spend time designing, then they decide to go somewhere else. We respond as a company. We wish them the best and assuring them that they would enjoy the results, rather than say how come you did not book a meeting.

Speaker 2: 33:30

Right.

Speaker 3: 33:31

So a little maturity slips in and the feeling that I of course I worry sometimes, but I also accept that all this time we survived. Yeah, so we are here to stay.

Speaker 2: 33:47

Well, that's great. So these are like some amazing lessons, but not just budding entrepreneurs, they're amazing life lessons too. But and then you teach as well, right? Do you still teach at the International?

Speaker 3: 34:02

Yes.

Speaker 3: 34:03

And unfortunately, during COVID, the International Cooling Center is shut down. Yeah, very certainly. A lot of the intellectual property was passed on to another school in New York City the only school we had in the city itself which is called the Institute of Culinary Education. So a lot of the teachers went to move to teach there. Okay, what I've decided is to teach in our own studio bakery, so I don't have to travel. People come to us and there's an advantage of teaching in our own space because when we do the wedding cake boot camp, the students for three days can move between different stations. And what we tried this year, which was very successful, every one of our employees, chefs and artisans can relate to the different students. Okay, so they get a little bit with me, a little bit with the creative director and so forth.

Speaker 3: 34:59

So, it's just trying something new and it's being very successful. The challenge is to find the time to do the classes.

Speaker 2: 35:08

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 35:10

But obviously, without students we'll have no future, because people who are students eventually will either grow up to have their own businesses or come to work here. So it's very, very important.

Speaker 2: 35:23

Yeah, it definitely is very important. I know this might be like a hard one to answer, but let's try it. What's your favorite thing to bake overall and what is your best kind of students? What types of students do you like teaching?

Speaker 3: 35:39

No, it's a good question. What I love to bake are cakes or breads that rise with yeast, and the reason is because it's slow. You incorporate live organisms and there's a magic that happens and they keep on growing and growing, and I prefer to give them slow rise and shaping. So it's very magical and of course, the whole house smells beautifully and it's something I love to do when I'm in the house. So we don't sell those for our cakes. We use buttercream and sponge cakes and so forth.

Speaker 3: 36:17

But for myself and my friends and my family, then the ideal student is somebody who is really, really eager to learn and has the need to perform repetitive movement and really get into it. What's not so ideal is a person who calls himself a chef or an artist, because once you address yourself with those titles, what are you going to learn? So I feel that I don't address myself as a chef. I mean, other people can call me that, but really I'm wrong and I keep learning and I keep teaching and I keep making mistakes, and luckily they're not fatal. To be in the process is the best thing. Once you arrive, where do you go from there?

Speaker 2: 37:11

Yeah. So that again is just great advice for the community, but I would love for you to share with me. You are full of information and knowledge. You've had such lived experiences in the baking field, but you run a successful business out of New York. What, in your own right, what are your top two things, or top two pieces of advice for young entrepreneurs? You just gave us, like information, your advice for your students, the type of student that you like to teach, but what are the top two pieces of advice for young entrepreneurs?

Speaker 3: 37:51

So pretty easy. When you start practicing, you look at established styles and trends and try to replicate them. So I guess it's necessary. It's like going to a museum and looking at the old masters and learning to sketch by repeating somebody's work. Yeah, but really the ideal way would be to develop one's own style and persona and sensibilities, even with flavors. So get a great cookbook like the Cake Bible. Get your own copy of a book. Don't just rely on recipes on the internet, unless you go to the Food Network or reliable blogs, but if it's just somebody, don't just take your recipe. Get a good book and learn it and then make your own variations based on understanding the recipes and try to do the same thing visually. We learn how to make sugar flowers, but don't necessarily copy what the teacher is doing and then the other. Develop your own personality, style, sensibility, so people will recognize the cakes for the creator and not just a copy of a trend. Make the trends rather than follow the trends. That's a good advice.

Speaker 3: 39:12

Also, in terms of baking and flavors, let's look at where one comes from culture, background, where's the physical, geographic location? So if somebody's from Jamaica or the islands, why not take some of the spices we use in jerk cooking. You know, and I started adding a touch of cayenne pepper to my carrot cake many years ago. And just a little cayenne. You don't even taste heat, it just opens up the flavor. You know, don't be afraid to use salt in sweet preparation Herbs and spices. You know how we do pumpkin pie with this combination of cinnamon and nutmeg, ginger, allspice cloves. So why not do a vanilla cake? That is a little spicy.

Speaker 2: 40:04

Yeah. So the encouragement here is to just be open-minded in your space, like challenge yourself to reach into your cultural flavors and your cultural flavoring without just walking into someone's own recipe and replicating it. So that's great advice for new bakers and stuff. So it was written a few years ago that your art is both reverent and joyful at once. Your dedication is both reverent and joyful, and so my question to you is you said that with each cake it's like a performance. Is it still a performance with every cake that you make? Are you still there? Do you still get that?

Speaker 3: 40:54

Of course, I feel it. Every cake is like opening night. So this past weekend we had seven weddings, which is a lot, and we worked the whole week on producing the weddings and they're all boxed and rested overnight in the walking refrigerator and then the cold vans arrived. Even in the winter we'd live in cold vans for stability and then I was in charge of distributing them with my crew and it was so exciting. I don't get to do it every weekend because I take some time off and we split the burden, but it was so joyful to see the families, to see the locations, to see the flow is set up and the event planners and the music, musical instruments warming up. So I feel very much I was gearing up to a performance, except that we had few of them, and I still get excited.

Speaker 2: 41:52

So in what we're promoting here in the Cake Therapy Foundation is the use of this art form. We want girls to feel this same energy that they. You know this art form is a performance to them so that they can find some form of joy and healing in the space as they bake, because you know what you get. You know you get that sense of peace and tranquility in your space. I get that same pleasure from baking as well, so I'm trying to teach others how to be able to learn the arts and receive the same pleasure that we have. My question so, as we're trying to folk, we're trying to uplift girls, women, girls, gender nonconforming youth. What is your message to them If they're thinking they need to find a place of solace, but what would be your message to them about baking as their place of solace?

Speaker 3: 42:51

So dive into the process and don't think too much about the results, because you can't change, you can't affect the process, you can't affect the results by thinking you don't want to think about the ready-made cake. Let's start with the ingredients. Read the recipe many times, line out any questions as a sense of understanding. Line up the ingredients in order they're written. Follow a procedure. Don't just throw everything into a bowl. Get a scale, because I believe accurate baking needs a scale and they're not that expensive anymore. For a few dollars you can get quite accurate. So a scale, rather than measuring everything in cups, because you need teaspoons and tablespoons for the small ingredients. Electric mixer is great, but if not, just follow the procedure and then you'll get the good results. Now, if the results are not as expected, then we can analyze it and go backwards and see what went wrong, and many times it's because we skipped a part. Of course, the recipe has to be from a credited source.

Speaker 2: 44:07

Yes.

Speaker 3: 44:11

So I have few recipes published in the Food Network page like it can be searched. What happens is, with the big networks, the recipes are vetted in the food kitchen, test kitchen. So that's what I mean reliable source and many times a good baking book will be reliable, as opposed to just finding somebody's blog which you don't know. If they measure the ingredients by weight, you have better chances of success.

Speaker 2: 44:40

Okay, thank you. Thank you for coming on and sharing your slice of joy and healing with us here at the Big Fair Food podcast. I enjoyed having you here. I love learning and I've learned a lot from you this morning and I hope that our guests have you know. In turn, also learned from you in this space. Thank you for sharing and continue to share your knowledge with us here and, yeah, I'm happy. I was excited about today's conversation with you.

Speaker 3: 45:15

Thank you, altruisa, thank you for having me and thank you for the amazing work you do. It's very inspiring. I would love to learn more and hopefully we'll get to meet each other in real life and see, have some cake together.

Speaker 2: 45:30

Yes, that will happen, I bet you. So thank you for coming on and I wish you a successful fall season. And you know, go do your thing. You've done it and we're excited about it and we love you. So thank you so much for joining us today.

Speaker 3: 45:46

Thank you, and we'll stay in touch.

Speaker 2: 45:47

Yeah, we'll definitely stay in touch. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3: 45:51

Thank you.

Speaker 2: 45:52

Bye-bye. Thank you guys for listening. Today I'm a Cake Therapy podcast. I'm your host, Dr Al Prischa Foster, and I'm signing out.

Speaker 1: 46:04

Thank you for tuning in to the Cake Therapy podcast. Your support means the world to us. Let us know what you thought about today's episode in the comments section. Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcast and if you found the conversation helpful, please share it with a friend. Also, follow Sugar Spoon Desserts on all social media platforms. We invite you to support Cake Therapy and the work we do with our foundation by clicking on the Buy Me a Coffee link in the description or by visiting the Cake Therapy website and making a donation. All your support will go towards the Cake Therapy foundation and the work we are doing to help women and girls. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll catch you on the next episode.