Pastry chef Kevin
Pavlind s wedding cakes
are a work of art.
■ BY CARLA JEAN SCHWARTZ
Pastry
chef Kevin
Pavlina is
breaking new
ground with his
breath-taking
cakes.
(Below) Wedding
cake photo by
Gorback.
hen Marie Antoinette
said, "Let them eat
cake" as a punishment
to the French people,
she never dreamed of the fantasy
cakes that are now available for
weddings.
Today, wedding cakes are beautiful
to look at, delicious to eat and labors
of love for the pastry chefs. The
baking of wedding cakes is an art
form that is becoming increasingly
expressive.
One of the newest pastry chefs on
the national scene is Kevin Pavlina,
27, from Northville. Like an artist
molding clay, he models dough while
his "paint brush" is his frosting
techniques. "I can reproduce any-
thing out of sugar," says Mr. Pavlina.
His extraordinary cakes have been
featured twice in Bride's magazine,
once in 1989 and most recently in
August 1990. His work was displayed
in Chicago at the 150th anniversary
of Tiffany's.
Mr. Pavlina believes the wedding
cake is the central part of the
wedding reception, where guests can
gather and have a common
discussion point.
The flowers on his cakes are so
realistic that wedding guests have
smelled them and touched them in
amazement. "It sometimes causes an
uproar," says Mr. Pavlina. He recalls
one guest who yelled to her husband
across the room in disbelief that the
flowers weren't real, after which doz-
ens of other guests rushed up to the
wedding cake to examine it.
Mr. Pavlina has a de-
gree in culinary arts
from Oakland Corn-
munity College and
has studied with
pastry chef Amy Rohr
of Chicago. He uses
architectural pastry
design, some from the
1800s, to sculpture his
cakes.
There are different
wedding cake tech-
niques. The Lambeth
technique is a ba-
roque English style