Designs on desserts

PLYMOUTH -- She had only three hours of sleep the night before.

But Alexis Sideris Davis worked diligently in her spotless basement workshop putting the finishing touches on 75 2 1/2-by-2 1/2-inch individual cakes for the Smith-Baker wedding reception in Fort Wayne last Saturday.

"Baking is a science," Sideris Davis said. "The fun part is the art of decorating."

Painstakingly, she bedecked the delicacies with the couples monogram and sprays of a leafy design.

The artistic touches took her about 9 hours to complete.

The little cakes themselves were made of three layers. Two were of torte filled with chocolate mousse and one was of chocolate ganache, rolled in chocolate fondant and frosted.

Placed in plastic gift bags, they complemented a four- layer, 45-pound wedding cake. Two layers are of the bride's favorite, an original recipe of praline pecan; another, a citrus pound cake filled with a peach compote and the fourth, a vanilla bean specialty.

"There is some anxiety due to the pressure of exploring uncharted artistic territory," she granted. "It's one thing to sell the client on the concept.

"Now I actually have to do it."

The large cake, a show-stopper, is a very elaborate and intricate hand-painted creation covered in sage green rolled fondant with white painted embroidery on each tier.

Alexis spent more than 14 hours just decorating the big cake.

"I hope it doesn't rain," she said, looking up from her painstaking work. "It is an outside wedding and most icings don't do well in moisture. They get sticky."

Alexis is a 1982 graduate of Warsaw Community High School.

She began her culinary career while still in high school.

Her mother, Nancy Sideris, started Nancy's Fancies Gourmet Catering, in Warsaw in 1980, and Alexis worked with her side-by-side. That business, after 24 years, is still going strong with Sideris Davis' handcrafted wedding and specialty cakes sold under the name Elegant Indulgences.

Sideris Davis spent her college summers in the kitchen, honing her cooking and baking skills.

After graduating in 1986 from Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., with a major in art, Alexis moved to Austin, Texas, where she was an assistant chef at The Purple Plum restaurant and prep cook for Lincolnwood Country Club.

"I always did the desserts," she said.

How, one wonders, does she keep her size-4 figure when around delicious sweets all the time?

"Well," she explained, "when you smell chocolate three days in a row, you don't have much appetite for eating it."

After working for a time in Chicago, she attended classes at renowned culinary schools, including Peter Kump, New York; Le Cordon Bleu, London and Villa Crocialoni, Italy.

In 1995, she and her mother opened the Mosaique Restaurant, 108 S. Buffalo St., Warsaw.

It is there that Alexis creates and bakes her cakes in the spacious ovens.

She does most of the finishing touches in the Plymouth home that she shares with her husband, Kirk, and their two daughters -- Allegra, 7, and Giuliana, 5.

Folks on Bluebonnet Court in the Pilgrim Meadows subdivision love it.

She trims her cakes and saves the scraps, sharing them with her neighbors.

"Most of my business is in northern Indiana," she said. "Patrons find me on the Internet. Some brides I never meet.

"We do it all by phone or e-mail."

A recent contact was from Jennifer Radcliffe, the spouse of Mark Radcliffe. He is the executive producer of the Harry Potter movies, and the Radcliffes commissioned Alexis to do the cakes for a graduation party at the LaSalle Grille in South Bend for her son and his friends.

The unique cake was a hand-painted (in frosting) replica of the Golden Dome on the Main Building at the University of Notre Dame with individual cake-favors decorated as classic leather books.

Mark and Nancy McDonnell, friends and owners of the LaSalle Grille, commission Alexis often.

On one Saturday this month, she supplied the cakes for two wedding receptions on the same day.

"A local man sells me home-grown raspberries," she said, "and it was nice to have on the LaSalle menu 'fresh Marshall County raspberries' for my cake."

She always delivers her own creations. She has a 'first aid' kit she takes with her that holds edible paints, brushes, spatulas and spare decorative items.

"I take the cakes, set them up, repair any defects, garnish with flowers or whatever and make sure everything is perfect."

The cost of a cake starts at $2.30 a serving, ranging up to $5.50. Small individual cakes can cost as much as $7 apiece. A full-size wedding cake generally runs from $350 to $550, depending on the flavors and size chosen.

Alexis' cakes are distinctly different from the typical wedding cake fare.

Grace Blanding, who has tasted one of her chocolate cakes, said: "Delicious. Very moist; it melts in your mouth."

Sideris Davis maintains that domestic diva Martha Stewart had a lot to do with getting away from standard wedding cakes, referring to a large book of Stewart's recipes and photographs.

It is a very lucky bride who shares her wedding day with such uniquely beautiful edible art.