Business Profile: The Sweet Success of Custom Cakes

Edible Dreams Custom Cakes has brought impressive, imaginative, three-dimensional cakes to Naugatuck and the locals have embraced them.

Edward Hughes, owner of Edible Dreams Custom Cakes, never planned on being where he is now, said his niece Sara Hughes who works in the shop, delivers the cakes and holds consultations with customers.

He didn’t attend culinary school, Sara said, and he has had no formal training in cake decorating. A Naugatuck native, Ed moved to Florida after finishing his education at an arts high school, and spent 10 years there doing window tinting on multi-million dollar homes, Sara said.

“When my Uncle Ed came up from Florida,” Sara said, “My grandmother had been doing cakes out of her kitchen for 20 years.” He started asking questions, he said, and watching what she did, and learning all the while.

With his arts school background and his hands-on job experience, Ed took to the work easily. His mother, Sara’s grandmother, returned home one day to find Ed’s first sculpted fondant cake, an Etnies sneaker, sitting atop the stove.

“One thing led to another and he started getting more and more business,” Sara said. It wasn’t long before the demand for Ed’s cakes was getting too big for his mother’s home kitchen to handle.

“That’s when he started looking for places and ended up here,” Sara said. “Here,” in this case, is the former Rita’s Bakery shop at 51 Spring St., which has been home to Edible Dreams since November of 2008. With a bigger space and the ability to add additional cake decorators, the available flavors, fillings, and other options have increased greatly.

“We will do any cake, any flavor, any filling, for any type of event,” Sara said, “We can literally do anything.”

Though wedding cakes are the most popular requests, Edible Dreams creates custom cakes for birthdays, anniversaries, wedding showers, baby showers, cookouts, civil unions and many other celebrations as well. Using a variety of edible materials and drawing of the strengths on the individuals employed there, the shop sends out some incredible cakes.

“They each have their own special thing,” Sara said of decorators Ed, Ashley and Carlin. “When we get the orders, we kind of try to give the girls and him what they like because they’ll invest more of their time and more of their energy into making the cake personal and special for the customer.”

Ed specializes in car cakes, Sara said, and Ashley loves making the Yankee cakes. Carling jumped at the opportunity to create a Harry Potter cake. No event, theme of request is too much, she said.

“Personally, I think it’s a little weird when people ask for their dogs – when they want a 3D replica of their dogs, because it’s cute but, I mean, you’re cutting into your dog and eating him,” Sara said. “I’d have to say that’s the strangest, but we’ll do it! If that’s what you want, we will do it.”

And it’s that “we can make any cake” attitude, in combination with the incredible products, which have earned Ed the comparisons to other cake greats like Duff Goldman, from “Ace of Cakes,” and Buddy Valastro of “Cake Boss.”

“He likes that people get what he does,” Sara said. “Obviously we aren’t the Cake Boss or Ace of Cakes, but he likes being compared to them because they are very successful and they are very good at what they do.”

Ed was excited to meet Valastro at the 2010 Connecticut Cake Competition, where Ed won first prize by building a 5-tiered toy-themed cake in just 3.5 hours. Valastro was judging the competition, and greeted Ed and his team after the event, signing autographs and congratulating them. A photo of the pair of cake creators and an autographed Edible Dreams T-shirt hang in the lobby of Hughes’ Spring Street shop.

With that many large and intricate cakes going out the doors, grocery shopping becomes an expensive endeavor. Sara recalled having spent more the $600 on cake mix in one trip, and watching the supply run out in less than two weeks. Sara explained that Ed likes to buy as many of the products locally as possible.

“He kind of has the theory of, if you’re going to support us then we’re going to support you,” Sara said. “He likes keeping it local as much as possible.”

In terms of the future, the sky is the limit. Though there is no talk of a show for Naugatuck’s own Cake Boss, Sara says Ed would like to collaborate with Valastro and Goldman for a competition or children’s event of some sort. And, she says, he would of course like to see the bustling business continue to grow and expand.

“Hopefully we will be moving to a bigger facility,” Sara said, “but when we do it won’t be far from here.”

Anyone wishing to have a custom cake for their event should place their order with Edible Dreams two weeks in advance. For standard cakes, one week’s notice is required. Orders can be placed over the phone at (203) 729-0662 or in store at 51 Springs St., and a 50% deposit is due at the time of order.

Check out www.edibledreamscakes.com for more information.