Our second version of the Strawberry Shortcake cake was created for a little older birthday girl than the more popular Strawberry Shortcake #1 design. This 3 layer 12 inch cake features strawberry cake, with made from scratch vanilla butter cream layers of icing and serves 25-30 guests. The strawberry shapes are made from vanilla fondant. While Kenfections does not normally create cakes for a gathering of under 40 guests, we would love to talk with you should you need a completely customized cake in the Charlotte NC area.

This three layer boys birthday cake is the second one we have created for Colleen M from Davidson NC. The cake represents construction, cars and a truck.  It’s a chocolate cake with Almond flavored icing throughout the cake. The one added tweak to make the cake stand out is the use of fiber optic lights that we placed within the cake itself. Special effects are our specialty so if you are looking for something unique to feature at your next child’s birthday,  drop us a note via our Contact Us page to start the process or throw an idea our way.  The sky really is the limit.   Colleen’s last cake was the Sesame Street Cake we did last year.

The Web Team at Lowe’s Home Improvement is growing by leaps and requested their biggest cake yet.  This logoed cake serves just over 300 people and represents the My Lowes keyfob that you slip onto your keychain. Let us know if you’d like us to create a one-of-a-kind custom cake for your next office party or milestone. Half of the cake is vanilla while the other half was chocolate. Weighing it at just over 55 lbs, this cake contains over 10 pounds of icing alone!! We specialize in corporate events and office meeting/celebrations that needs a cake “for the masses” and delivered.  The word is getting out about our corporate cakes and we are negotiating a deal with a Wichita, KS company to build a cake at their national convention in March of 2012 that will serve a few hundred guests as well.

     Before you jump into our Gallery of Cakes we’ve created for hundreds of clients, keep in mind that what Kenfections does is an art form in it’s purest sense.  (A pretty flavorful one, but still an art form) Our focus is to inspire visitors like yourself with design ideas and build a client list of cake fanatics that expect ONLY THE BEST Quality, Service and Aesthetic product.  We do specialize in special effects such as lighting, animation and smoke, to name a few.

We are tremendously blessed to be in a very unique position where we only select cake projects that we know will amaze you, your guests and our followers.  Yes, it is an unconventional way of doing business but we simply intend to be THE PREMIER BAKERY in Charlotte that can hyper focus on our client’s expectations and ‘WOW’ them each and every time.   So when someone says ‘I got a Kenfections Cake’, everyone will RSVP.  If we select your project, you and your guests can be assured in knowing that you will be tasting one of the most amazing cakes you will ever put in your mouth.

So what criteria do we look for in selecting the ‘Right’ project?

• Uniqueness – Does the concept have the ability to ‘WOW’ you, your guests and our site visitors?
• Will it serve at least 45 guests?
• How soon will you need the cake?
• How far away from the Charlotte area are you? – we simply cannot ship our creations through the mail.

So, with that said, jump into our gallery of cakes and take a look around.  If you feel we are the Bakery for your special Birthday, Wedding, Corporate Event, Graduation or Celebration, we’d LOVE to hear from you. Just eMail us here.

Over this past weekend, one of our clients had her mother turn 90 years old so she was looking for just the perfect balance of taste and nothing too elaborate. The cake is our coconut flavored specialty and iced using our butter cream icing. As we come to expect, our clients spoke raves regarding the coconut flavoring without the flakes. The chocolate butter cream icing is made entirely from scratch using actual Nestle cocoa powder.  Would you like more information on what we can do JUST for you? Anniversary coming up? Need a grooms cake? We specialize in the most flavorful custom designed cakes you could ever imagine. Be sure to visit our gallery for more inspiration.

Our can of Spaghettio’s cake is enough to serve 25 guests and makes for a great fan of this lunch and dinner favorite. The 10 year old who eats these by the caseload belongs to us at Kenfections. Born just a few hours prior to the 9-11 attacks, he is the one thing that makes us most proud on that day and honored to have shared a momentous day with so many hero’s that sacrificed their lives for and in defense of our country over the past ten years. It is also why we started to support the 9-11 Memorial and Museum each year with a donation in our son’s name.

The cake however was a chocolate fudge cake with Almond buttercream icing.  The Spaghettio’s were made from gumpaste as well as the a majority of the other details. Fondant was used to make the lid of the can.  As you can see, this is another ordinary product that we can turn into a custom cake for any birthday, groom, or baby shower.

One of our longtime customers asked if we could breakout the specialty flavors for another Baby Shower themed cake for the 4th time.  Lia and  her friends requested our special recipe flakeless coconut cake covered in our signature butter cream icing. The shavings on the top of the cake are freshly shaved Ghiradelli White Chocolate.  Every guest who has told us that they hate coconut flavor has come back and said “Whoa, THAT is so better than I ever imagined it was going to be. Gimmie another slice.” We simply capture the coconut flavoring and NOT the textured flakes which  usually take a week to chew.  If however you are flakes fan, and have a big ol set of choppers, let us know and we can certainly accommodate.  Have a birthday or baby shower coming up? Get a hold of us early because we get booked up pretty quick.

Our version of the Bridge of the Star Trek Voyager in Cake is finally complete.  This Funfetii grooms cake covered in our butter cream icing and topped with a replica of the Starship Voyager command room constructed of gumpaste, fondant and sugar paper, served as the centerpiece for Trula & Jim H.’s son’s rehearsal dinner cake.  Some of the steps on how we created this unique cake can be found in the cake’s preview.  As you can see in the close up view of the scene, the cake also includes fiber optic lighting within the two of the display monitors.  While we have incorporated smoke and other lighting effects with our cakes, this was our first foray into fiber optic lights being featured.   In case you were curious on how much this cake cost, it is the second highest priced creation behind the cake we created for Jimmie Johnson and Team Lowe’s Racing in 2009.

The Death Star cake from Star Wars is one of the crown jewels of any Star Wars fan’s Birthday, Groom or even a wedding cake. This planet has been replicated thousands of times yet the one we are working on for mid October 2011 will be unlike any other. If you like special effects, it’s got em.  If you like flavor, it’s most certainly got it. Kenfections version of the Death Star will be large enough to accommodate over 30 guests and will likely be our most technically challenging cake design since the Sprint Cup Trophy cake we completed in 2009.  If you are a Star Wars fan, this will be a MUST SEE. We promise not to disappoint.

OHHHHH MAN, soooooooo close! Any Regrets? No way. Disappointment? Surprisingly, NO.  The Next Great Baker show was an AWESOME experience that boosted my confidence in knowing that my work was even good enough to be considered for a nation competition in just 2 YEARS of starting this cake company.

I just want to extend an enormous and sincere “THANK YOU” to each one of you who took the time out of your days over the last two weeks to vote and often repeatedly vote for yours truly.  It just must not have been God’s timing for me to get there yet and I just want say how incredible this NEXT GREAT BAKER chapter was,  especially with how fast this all came about after less than two years of hijacking the wife’s hobby.

Think about the significance of all of this.  Decorating cakes was never even a thought until my wife took a class in 2009.  This whole thing started by accident and with the help of a few key individuals.  I was able to make it through thousands of other entries from around the country to then be featured on TLC’s website for a spot on a national forum!  Only in America!!! How cool is that?  The audition in New York afforded me the opportunity to visit Carlos Bakery,  hang out with some of the cast of Cake Boss, visit my brother who lives in Hoboken and spend a day with him at one of the most influential and historically sacred places on the planet, Ground Zero.   That place really puts things into perspective as to how privileged each of us are to live in a country that you can have opportunities like the one’s I’ve had and remember back to sitting in a hospital room holding your hours old first grocery goblin while Islamic cowards are crashing planes on behalf of their “peaceful” religion.(Yeah I’m pretty passionate about that as you may have heard)

I owe some VERY special Thank You’s to some very key people who really deserve the credit for me getting the Next Great Baker opportunity.

1. Deborah “Fred” Bembenek for her persistence in insisting that TLC recognizes my work.
2. Stefan Brandow for his fantastic videography, creativeness and so much of his time.  Super super talented video guy even though TLC asked him NOT to edit the video the way he hoped he could.
3. My sister Kristin Leonard, Karen Heneks, Michelle Elwell & Katrina Hull- The official groupies of Kenfections that helped reach countless people from all across Facebook and afar. Karen even started a Kenfections cake Event Page for our Next Great Baker effort.
4. Donna Bedford for her encouragement and unwavering support.
5. Lauren Domm from the Examiner for her GREAT article on our grooms cakes.
6. Sandy Culver for her inspiration to ALWAYS GO BIG.

And certainly my wife Janah for putting up with the late nights, weekends and her daring me to take a cake class that I led me to hijacking her new found hobby and letting me go crazy with it.

So, what’s next?  EVERYTHING is next. Nothing bad came out of the experience and I’ll keep diggin with wherever these cakes take us.  It’s a great hobby that is really relaxing if you like to build things, which I do more than anything.

Thanks again everybody and try to check back soon to see a Star Wars Death Star Cake unlike any you may  seen before.

Sincerely,

Ken