Profiles in Cake Couture | Who Made The Cake!
Designer: Nadine Moon with Who Made the Cake! | Photo: Steve Lee Photography
Nadine Moon’s road to her current role as one of the nation’s reigning queens of cake design has taken many unexpected turns—from medical school to retail management to finance. Yet it is precisely this diverse background that has positioned her as not just a consummate designer of some of the most spectacular cakes on the planet, but also the head of one of Houston’s most successful woman-owned businesses: Who Made The Cake. Here, we take a peek into Moon’s masterful cake artistry, and find out what cake trends she’s tapping for 2016 weddings.
Star Student
“My mother always baked when I was growing up. I was very artistic and she often had me do freehand designs for her cakes. I went to Brown University as a seven-year med student, but after a year, I found all the science classes stifling and changed my major to semiotics. After college, while pursuing a career in retail management and then in financial services, cakes became my creative outlet. I taught cake-decorating classes and decorated cakes for fun for 12 years as a hobby. In 2002, my passion became my full-time job when Who Made The Cake officially opened.”
Fab Fondant
“Who Made The Cake is known for beautiful cakes in which flavor and design are equally important. To this day, we limit how many cakes we do each week so that we can control our quality. Our cakes are known for being fresh and moist, so that guests always remember that the cake didn’t just look good, it also tasted incredible. Everyone is always amazed by our white-chocolate fondant, which is incredibly soft, and not that inedible thick shell that people typically expect from fondant.”
Personal Touch
“After 13 years in the business, I still personally meet with each couple to sketch their cake design. I started in this business because of my love of art, and if I had a sales crew designing my wedding cakes for me, it would no longer be my creative outlet and an expression of my artistic vision. Every Saturday, and throughout the week, I am in the kitchen, placing sugar flowers on the cakes, adding decorative details and ensuring that each cake is exactly what the couple wants.”
2016 Trends
“This year, I have more brides asking for bold, colorful accents, as well as off-white and ivory cakes, touched with bling. I am also seeing interest in a lot of metallic accents (gold, platinum, silver). And for 2016, sugar paste flowers truly are part of the art of a stunning cake. Take a basic rustic buttercream-frosted cake and add a few bold sugar paste flowers, and it changes the look from homemade into couture.”
