Cake Review

Let them blush over cake
01.09.2004
By Bonnie Henry

'What is it about cake?" - Marie Antoinette.

OK, so maybe the lady never really uttered those exact words.

But you gotta admit there's something about this sweet concoction that seems to follow us through all the milestones of our lives.

Babies pound their fists into it on their first birthdays - and expect more to come all the birthdays of their lives.

Graduates mark every scholarly advancement from kindergarten through med school with some sort of cake.

Brides agonize over the flavor, the size, the shape of their wedding cakes. Do we want bells or flowers, lovebirds or Barbie and Ken on top?

And when the dearly have departed, you can bet the post-funeral feast will feature at least one sheet cake, carrot perhaps.

Then there are the naughty among us, who have called on cakes to convey a message that pastry was never meant to perform.

"Yes, we do have bachelor and bachelorette cakes," says Jennifer Cowgill, owner of Maribelle Cakery & Patisserie, 3308 E. Grant Road.

While the bakery churns out the usual birthday, graduation and wedding cakes, its more titillating cakes are created at the same address but under a different name: Adult Erotic Cakes.

Think of it as a twist on the plain brown wrapper.

"We are discreet about it and it's not on our Web site," says Cowgill, 35, who bought Maribelle Cakery a year ago from Marybeth Zellon and decided to keep its X-rated offshoot.

Zellon, who started the business in 1992, says the adult cakes came through customer demand.

"People would call me and kinda giggle on the phone and say, 'Do you uh, uh? . . .' And we'd say, 'Erotic cakes?' and they'd say, 'Yeah, yeah. That's it.'

"We struggled with adding it, because it was not really our image," says Zellon. "But it fell directly into what we were doing. We have a bride from the time she gets engaged to the bachelorette party to the wedding."

Only two depictions are offered. One features two obvious mounds of femininity, created by slicing in half a cake baked in a soccer-ball pan.

The other glorifies what all those spam messages keep urging men to enhance.

And yes, there are cake pans specifically designed to turn out that last product.

Only one prospective customer was truly shocked, says Cowgill, who spends a lot more time organizing cake-tasting teas for brides and their mothers and grandmothers than she does promoting cake erotica.

"This woman came in looking for adult erotic cakes. I showed her our photos and she said, 'That's not what I want.' "

Customers who do order the adult cakes are about evenly divided between men and women, says Cowgill, with many ordering them up for the big four-oh or five-oh birthdays.

And the cakes do cost a little more because of the extra time spent making and decorating them. Think of it as a sin tax.

Still, they remain but a sliver of her regular business.

"Our most popular cake is the chocolate truffle cake, garnished with chocolate-dipped strawberries and chocolate curls," she says.

Now that's sinful.

One other note: The time-honored tradition of strippers' jumping out of a cardboard cake may be fading away.

"We don't offer it anymore," says Skyy, one name only, owner of Strip-O-Gram Wild Boys & Wild Girls.

"We used to do it, but the cake sort of fell apart and we didn't replace it," says Skyy. "We did have someone who rented a cake and they used that. We'll still do it if you supply the cake."

What a bother. Let them eat cake, instead.

* Bonnie Henry's column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach her at 434-4074 or at bhenry@azstarnet.com or write to 3295 W. Ina Road, Suite 125, Tucson, AZ 85741.