Wynn Magazine - Las Vegas
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/760086
90 PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEFF GREEN LET THEM DESIGN CAKE! Custom baker Flora Aghababyan satisfies sophisticated sweet tooths with her custom-made Celebration Cakes. by Beth Schwartz IT IS A TRUE ARTIST who can capture every detail of a Henri Matisse painting with the deftest touch or re- create a Manolo Blahnik down to the designer's label on the shoe's sole, and yet another kind of artist altogether who can simulate these objects of desire… in cake. Flora Aghababyan is like a fairy godmother who can make any wish—birthday, wedding, or otherwise—come true in the form of pastry's most supreme confection. Whipping up ornately artistic creations is second nature for the self-taught chef who started baking when she was 12 years old as a way to busy herself when she got home from school to an empty house. "I like being challenged. Some people have to perform in a competition to win or lose, but every day is a competition for me," explains the Armenian-born Aghababyan. "I am challenged every day in the pastry kitchen. I love that feeling because I can put my team and myself in a position to create something we've never done before." When the kitchen door swings open to the workshop where Aghababyan concocts her unique brand of mag- ic, essence of lemon is delicately hanging in the air. One of her assistants is expertly covering a cake shaped like a giant rubber duck with a large square of bright yellow fondant. Another assistant, with the nimblest of fingers, is carefully maneuvering a long piece of coppery brown rib- bon made from modeling chocolate into a bow for the top of a cake that is an ornately wrapped gift.