Confluence: Former math teacher succeeding in cake business

By Rebecca Dell

Decorated cakes wait for delivery at

Sugar Flower Cake Shop in the Fashion District.

MANHATTAN – High school math teacher Amy DeGiulio was bored.

Her previous experience as an actuary helped her develop efficient work habits. So while many other teachers had to take work home at the end of the day, she took up hobbies, eventually starting her own business: Sugar Flower Cake Shop, a decorated-cake shop located in the Fashion District.

It all started in the early 2000s when she took a series of four baking classes that ended in a lesson on making sugar flowers.

"That's kind of where my eyes just opened up," DeGiulio said.

She bought books and kept practicing, learning by trial and error. In 2006, she started her own business. Her first customers were bakers and brides. DeGiulio explained that as the economy took a downturn, do-it-yourself projects became more popular. Young brides who wanted to save on a cake could have a friend make it and decorate it with DeGiulio's flowers.

Now DeGiulio bakes cakes and decorates them with buttercream frosting as well as rolled fondant, a clay-like sugar mixture. She carefully dusts colored powder on leaves and petals made out of sugar paste, gently blowing off extra powder to get the right hue. Intern Katie Bosch sits across the room cutting a playing card out of rolled fondant for an Alice in Wonderland-themed cake.

Bosch, a former pastry student at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, is involved with everything from baking the cakes and making the buttercream to rolling fondant for the decorations.

"I like having a project," Bosch said. At a pastry shop, she might be cooking the same thing all day—what she described as "seven hours of chocolate chip cookies"—but at Sugar Flower Cake Shop the work is always evolving.

While DeGiulio isn't sure whether the business will expand into a store front, she is interested in working with television to produce a show. She's committed to providing a high level of service to customers and she's passionate about her commitment to local and sustainable cake ingredients.

Rebecca Dell can be reached at becca_2@myfairpoint.net