Flour Power

PHOTOS By Jason Chow

There’s nothing retro about the incredible custom-designed cakes, monogrammed cookies or whimsical our-special-day cupcakes at Flour Confections in Pickering. Owned and operated by award-winning pastry chef Lisa Bugeja, Flour Confections delivers cutting-edge, one-of-a-kind creations for today’s discerning bride. Enlightens Bugeja, “Cake-based TV programs have turned mainstream consumers into very savvy clients who know what they want.”

And it’s not one’s mother’s wedding cake, cookie-cutter-looking cookies, or too-spongy-looking boxed mix cupcakes, either. Adds Bugeja, “Today’s brides do their homework. They seek a cake artist that will not only work within their budget and vision of their special day but will “share” in it as well.”

Point well taken. So in demand is Bugeja’s talent that she’s attracting brides from Toronto’s GTA and beyond as well.

By way of back story, Bugeja graduated with a degree in baking and pastry arts from George Brown College before freelancing at various bakeries within the region and becoming a first-time mom. In 2004 she found her niche. At the urging of her soon-to-be-married cousin - who wouldn’t consider any other pastry chef to create the cake for her special day - Bugeja opened for business, working out of her dedicated Flour Confections kitchen in the basement of her home. Bugeja chimes, “My daughter was the flower girl. I couldn’t say no.”
Ever re-creating herself, Bugeja, in April of last year, opened Flour Confections’ commercial kitchen and retail shop and launched its fourth website,
flourconfections.ca. Whether a diehard cake baker and decorator looking for state-of-the-art equipment and must-have supplies, or a novice yearning to learn more about the art form, Flour Confections is one’s one-stop shopping and learning destination.
Bugeja confides: “An innate understanding of cake structure is essential to creating any cake. With cake-focused TV shows and televised cake competitions, consumers know a lot about cake. But the expectations are higher now, too. Cake shows are all edited down to make it look easier than it really is [to create tiered and/or structural and three-dimensional cakes]. They make it look as though the cakes were made in an hour.” A typical three-tier fondant covered cake, estimates Bugeja, takes between eight and 10 hours to create. And she’s talking a trimmed-down creation with an economy of embellishments.

To meet clients’ wishes to learn cutting edge cake decorating techniques, Flour Confections hosts a roster of Iron Chef-calibre guest celebrity pastry chefs. Just recently on offer was much-sought-after James Rosselle’s sold-out three-day “To Have and To Hold Sugar Flowers” class. By the time you read this story, Food Network’s champion baker, Bronwen Weber, will be en route to conduct her advanced cake decorating class that teaches 12 different decorating techniques on a three tier square Caddy Wampus stand. And Lorraine McKay’s one-day

“Sugar Craft Cake Topper Modelling” workshops are sure to sell out fast, too, especially when one factors what it would cost to attend these workshops at the individual chefs’ ateliers - some as far away as Los Angeles and Dallas - into the mix.
For wedding or speciality cakes in excess of 70 servings, consultations at Flour Confections are by appointment only with scheduled “tasting” dates happening one or two times per month (on Sundays from November until April) or until all available dates are booked. And with signature flavours like Vanilla Orchid; Midnight Chocolate; Pink Lemonade; Banana Rama; Ebony & Ivory; Lemoncello; Gianduja; Calypso Coconut; Lemon & Lavender-scented Provencal; and the perennial favourite, 24 Carrot, and suffice to say, time with Bugeja is well spent.

Flour Confections
Confectionery School & Shoppe
1750 Plummer Street, Unit 19,
Pickering, ON L1W 3L7
lisa@flourconfections.ca
www.flourconfections.ca
(905) 492-2692