FAMOUS wedding cake designer, Sylvia Weinstock died at the age of 91.
Known as the “Queen of Cakes”, Weinstock died “peacefully in her home in Tribeca, surrounded by her loving family,” on Monday, said her representative in a statement.
She recently came out of retirement last month to design a six-tier floral cake for Jennifer Gates’ wedding.
Weinstock is credited for modernizing the traditional white-tiered wedding cakes due to her signature sugar-flower work.
“We never count the flowers on a cake…rather we add, and add, and add until it pleases the eye,” she told InStyle in 2014. “That could be hundreds or thousands. To put it in perspective, one artist can create 100 roses in a typical week.”
She believed that a cake was more than just food. Weinstock wanted her cakes to be the centerpiece of an event and it had to be memorable as it would be the last thing a guest ate.
Shockingly, Weinstock didn’t start baking professionally until she was 50-years-old. Originally, she worked as an elementary school teacher in Massapequa, New York.
While recovering from breast cancer, she and her husband, Benjamin, moved to Manhattan and started their custom cake business.
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She began selling cakes to restaurants in Hunter Mountain, where her husband would go skiing while Weinstock stayed behind to bake and test her recipes with the French chefs who worked there.
Well-known dessert maker, William Greenberg told her to go into the cake business, so she did. Her first store opened in 1980 and sold cakes by appointment.
Over the years, Weinstock’s wedding cakes became so in-demand that a three-floor store on Church Street was eventually opened.
“One floor was used to greet people and where the flowers were made. Baking, icing and cake structure was done on the third floor. The elevator would take the cakes to the basement, which we turned into a walk in refrigerator. I lived on the fourth and fifth floors.” she told The Times.
Her cakes have appeared in weddings all over the world including the US, Japan, China, the Middle East, the Caribbean and Europe.
She announced she would be stepping away from full-time baking in 2016 to teach her techniques to other bakers. She appeared on food competition shows such as Top Chef, Nailed It! and Chopped Sweets.
Her retirement allowed her to spend more time with her husband, who she was married to for nearly 70 years before his death in 2018.
Weinstock is survived by her three daughters—Ellen, Amy and Janet— her sons-in-law, and her six grandchildren.
Sylvia Weinstock dead at 91 - Queen of Cakes and legendary baker passes away in New York City surrounded by familyWe pay for your stories!
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