Cake Bakers' Masterpieces Will Be Featured Saturday
Edible Bridge Replica To Highlight Banquet
By Paul Gingras

This 1958 photograph was the inspiration for a cake contest that will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Mackinac Bridge Saturday, July 28, at Bridge View Park in St. Ignace. In the photo, celebrating the bridge's first birthday, are (from left) bridge designer Dr. David Steinman, St. Ignace Mayor Alexander Phillips, bridge engineer Charles Edwin Haltenhoff, and Prentiss M. Brown Sr. The baker of the cake is not known, said this year's contest organizer, Anne Ottaway. (Photograph courtesy of Michigan Department of Transportation)

Within view of the Mackinac Bridge, a contest involving delicate gourmet cakes with bridge themes will sweetly highlight the 50th anniversary celebration of the span Saturday, July 28, at Bridge View Park in St. Ignace.

Local and downstate bakers' creations are to be judged by renowned cake maker Kevin Pavlina and cake artist James Aslanian at the park Saturday at 5:15 p.m.

"I am really excited and honored to do this," Mr. Pavlina told The St. Ignace News. "Having been judged myself, I will appreciate the blood, sweat, and tears."

Expert cake makers James Aslanian (left) and Kevin Pavlina are in the process of creating a massive Mackinac Bridge cake, to be unveiled at a banquet celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the bridge at Kewadin Casino in St. Ignace Friday, July 27. The bakers will also judge a cake contest at Bridge View Park Saturday, July 28. (Photograph courtesy of James Aslanian and Kevin Pavlina)

After the judging, volunteers will serve pieces of the cakes to the public.

There will be at least eight entries, and organizers are calling on resident and commercial bakers for more submissions, said organizer Anne Ottaway of Cedarville and Ann Arbor. Cakes can extend up to 24 inches in any direction, which should give bakers plenty of room to express their creativity, Ms. Ottaway said.

Mr. Pavlina and Mr. Aslanian will base their decisions on how well each cake captures the anniversary theme, its overall appearance, and the neatness of its decorations. They will also assess bakers' originality, creativity, skill, difficulty of technique, the neatness of their cake boards, and of course, the taste of their efforts, Mr. Aslanian said.

Cakes will be judged on a fivepoint scale in every category, Mr. Pavlina explained, allowing bakers' high scores in certain areas to compensate for areas that are less developed.

Pastries are to be brought to the covered tables at Bridge View Park for consideration at noon on Saturday, Ms. Ottaway said. For more information about the contest, leave a message at (986) 484- 7889.

Mackinac Bridge 50th Anniversary Committee Chair Barbara Brown added that the cakes should be of "professional quality."

The contest was inspired by a 1958 photograph taken on the bridge one year after its completion. The picture depicts a tall, white cake celebrating the Mighty Mac's first birthday.

A single cake honored the bridge's first year, so organizers found it fitting that a collection of cakes should celebrate its 50th, Ms. Ottaway said.

In keeping with the theme, Mr. Pavlina and Mr. Aslanian will reveal an elaborate and weighty offering of their own at the Friday night celebration banquet at Kewadin Shores Casino. There, they will reveal a large replica of the Mackinac Bridge, made of cake, complete with a sugary depiction of running water beneath. The creation will serve as dessert for the banquet.

Banquet tickets are sold out.

"We are working on the sugar pieces right now," Mr. Aslanian told The St. Ignace News Wednesday, July 18.

"It is coming along slow, sure, and steady, and that is the best," Mr. Pavlina added.

When completed, the bridge cake will be six feet by three feet by 4.5 feet tall. Like the bridge itself, it will be heavy, with the cake, filling, and decorative pieces weighing 200 pounds.

There will be columns of sugar, a bridge of sugar, and a substance like sugary clay will form objects on the scene, such as flowery landscapes into which the road disappears at each end of the bridge. Fifty gold candles with flames made of sugar will adorn the creation, and miniature cars will be placed on the bridge.

"It is very technical," Mr. Aslanian said. "We do not just make [simple] cakes anymore."

Blue icing will top the pastry, mixed with green, blue, and brown gel to form the watery landscape of the Straits of Mackinac.

"Cakes like this take on a life of their own," Mr. Pavlina said. Constant experimentation and innovation has been required to fulfill the bakers' original vision of the bridge cake.

"It is fun to see them evolve, because [large projects] have this kind of momentum," he added. First, there is a sketch, then there is reality, he said, explaining that some ideas do not work, and constant adjustments must be made.

"Each cake is a learning experience," he said.

The most rewarding aspect of the endeavor will come when the bakers finish the masterpiece and people appreciate the effort, he said, which ultimately honors the bridge and those who worked to create it

"It is amazing how a cake can capture a theme, how it can highlight [bridge workers' efforts] to create it, and highlight why we are all [at the celebration]. It is nice that people will be astonished, and we are pleased to do this for such an esteemed happening," Mr. Pavlina said. "When we come out of retirement for the 100th anniversary, we will have to think about how we will out-do the 50th."

The work of Mr. Pavlina and Mr. Aslanian has appeared in national magazines, and Mr. Aslanian helped Mr. Pavlina prepare for a competition he took part in on the cable Food Network. Mr. Pavlina has been involved in the craft since the 1980s. Mr. Aslanian began working with him four years ago.

"We are always looking to do something we have never done before," Mr. Aslanian said.

The bakers' chance to build their first bridge cake is the result of a camping trip Mr. Pavlina and his father took near St. Ignace this summer.

While passing through town, they noticed banners announcing the bridge celebration, entered the municipal building, and spoke to city officials, who directed them to the Mackinac Bridge 50th Anniversary Celebration Committee. Mr. Pavlina and Mr. Aslanian returned to town for a meeting and were granted the opportunity to build the Mighty Mac pastry for Kewadin's banquet.

The first time he saw the Straits area, "I really wanted to move there," Mr. Aslanian said, adding that it is ironic that he is building a bridge cake, owing to his phobia of bridges.

Ms. Brown of the Celebration Committee said she wishes there were more seats available for the banquet, which has been limited to 450 guests.

Members of the public without tickets to the banquet will not miss out on extreme cake-making, however, she said. In view of the bridge itself, the public will taste the creations of area and regional bakers competing in the cake contest at Bridge View Park.

Although she must complete five other cakes during the same weekend, baker Brenda Spencley of St. Ignace-based Bren's Cakes is offering for the contest a 12-inch by 18-inch Bavarian-cream cake, complete with fresh berries.

"I am not building a bridge or anything; mine is more about flavor," she said.

The cake will be dedicated to the memory of her stepfather, Joe Lambert, who worked on the bridge. She will place a photo atop her creation that depicts ironworkers who helped build the bridge. Some of them still live in the area, and some have passed away, she noted.

She never expected to create a cake with a Mackinac Bridge theme. When she was six years old, she remembers taking a school bus ride over the bridge, just after it was completed.

"It is pretty cool" that a celebrity cake-maker is coming to judge the bridge cakes, she added. "I am glad that the Upper Peninsula is being noticed."

Erin Sonntag, a former baking intern on Mackinac Island, now owns Classic Confections in Monroe, and she has elaborate plans for the contest. Although not inclined to give away the details, she said her cake certainly keeps to the bridge theme, and it also plays on the nickname "Mighty Mac."

When organizers asked her if she would contribute, she jumped at the chance.

"I love it when people tell me to make something that is not round," she said.

Ideas on how to make a unique cake sprang to mind immediately after she heard about the contest. Ms. Sonntag has made pastries in many shapes and sizes, depicting objects like shopping bags and purses.

"I am excited" to have Mr. Pavlina and Mr. Aslanian judging the cakes, she said. Ms. Sonntag hopes the exposure will help her get her foot in the door at the Food Network, where she seeks to enter baking competitions. Network competitions push bakers to create cakes in eight hours that could normally take 50 hours to produce.

"I love that intensity," she said.

Ms. Brown said she hopes many visitors come for the judging and free cake. After dessert, they can continue to the fish feast at the St. Ignace Marina, she suggested.