People do need to stay healthy and eat right to keep the body fit and functioning. But, our sweet tooth is a part of this wonderful machine, so we have to honor it and spoil it from time to time... to time.
— Ron Ben-Israel
I have a very strong sense of who I am as a Jew and a strong sense of belonging.
In a bar mitzvah, you do the candle-lighting ceremony with the cake. Every birthday, the cake is the big moment.
I grew up going to bakeries in Tel Aviv; that's where we got our birthday cakes, they were always European baking and butter creams. We have such good baking in Israel, and we have the Diaspora of Jews from all over, and we learned early on to adapt and absorb flavors from all over.
I was drawn to bakery and pastry. It's the same discipline you employ in dance - you take the instruction, and you keep on practicing, seeking perfection. You never achieve it, but you strive.
I went to art school first and thought that I'm going to design theater sets. That was my path.
The product I deliver is a luxury item. It's not cupcakes. A team of 10 works on my cakes.
Really, a wedding is the first and biggest party people throw in their lifetime, so there's a lot of challenges and a lot of pressure.
I had - like a cat with nine lives, I've had so many different careers and tried so many different things.
Pastry is different from cooking because you have to consider the chemistry, beauty and flavor. It's not just sugar and eggs thrown together. I tell my pastry chefs to be in tune for all of this. You have to be challenged by using secret or unusual ingredients.
I like crazy, childlike, candy bar-filled cakes with gooey caramel, chocolate-covered nuts, marshmallows, and the like.
I have a crusade against fondant, also shortening. There's no reason why wedding cakes can't taste good if you know what you're doing.
I did a cake for the 60th birthday of Elton John, for Britney Spears' 27th birthday and for the 'Circus' album she put out - the cake had circus themes. I prepared a cake for a surprise 82nd birthday event for the architect Frank Gehry; the cake was comprised of mini-replicas of his buildings.
There are divisions between a culinary chef and a dessert chef, also called a pastry chef. There are specializations within the pastry chef field. Some pastry chefs specialize in baking breads, while others are master cake designers. Each field requires an exceptional level of creativity and attention to detail.
I don't follow trends. I make each cake for a particular wedding, or event.
I imagine I appear very outgoing, and I do enjoy people and parties and being involved in life. I am also a very private person, and I value my quiet time. I think people assume I am just a party animal, and in truth, I need to recharge my battery just like everyone else.
I've always been hooked on baking.
My parents were artists, so my salvation was to make pretty things - and ultimately delicious things at the same time.
My background is inseparable from my work.
I always loved cake. I loved the chemistry of it.
Pastry chefs are very particular people - we like a controlled environment; we don't like an audience.
Over the years, quite a few TV producers proposed that I do a program, but I refused. I didn't want to work on a set that looked like a theater; I wanted a kitchen of the sort every chef dreams about.
Martha Stewart convinced me to have a business. She sometimes takes a very personal interest, and she kept saying, 'You have to open your own business,' and gave me chances. She took my cakes on 'The Oprah Winfrey Show.' I met a lot of people through her.
'Sweet Genius' viewers will be on the edge of their seats as we continue to push the limits with inspirations and ingredients, while showcasing the talents of some of the best pastry chefs around. As a result, the desserts that the chefs create are truly outrageous.
Your best creative assets do not occur unless you do a mental shift. You have to be in a positive frame of mind because inspiration is fleeting. I walk to work for inspiration and to clear my mind.
For months I've been working on creating techniques to reproduce Swarovski crystals in sugar using the real stones to guide me.
Sometimes I have a tough time getting along with myself. When I was a child, I needed a lot of attention... and I don't have a small ego. For me, appearing on a stage or presenting a cake is the same thing. You need a crowd around you to do it.
Regrettably, people today don't watch many programs that actually teach people how to cook, so I agreed to do a competitive show that I think will provide inspiration.
Repetitiveness and discipline are the secrets of cake decorating. The art comes from the meticulous technique, the way it does for a dancer.
Just like I am a food snob, I am also a rabbinical snob.
The process of making a wedding cake is complex on its own, from designing, mis-en-place, baking, frosting, structuring, decorating, to delivering.
I find that my Israeli background actually helps me to break some boundaries because we don't have such long traditions. We took traditions from Europe, from the Middle East, and we were encouraged to explore and adapt things.
I'm very much Israeli and American; I never was tempted to change my name. Some people suggested I should have a different name, and I said absolutely not. That's the name I inherited, and it's meaningful: Israel is on every cake that I present.
I have this problem - I don't have hobbies. Everything that's interesting becomes a vocation.
A chocolate cake can include almond praline or blackberry, and a vanilla one can have cinnamon, cappuccino, or pistachio... Each is distinctive, and I bake only to order.
On 'Sweet Genius,' you have to be tough with the chefs, but my goal was to guide them and choose the genius who will win $10,000 - not a bad sum at all for one day's work.
For years, I survived as an artist on grants and touring as a dancer with dance companies, and I was living underground like so many artists, hand-to-mouth and so forth. And I never had the power to make decisions.
I have a showroom where we experiment with twelve cakes. We develop sketches and ideas for cakes for the next season. We work with the top fashion designers to see what type of lace they are using or work with the top florist for us to be able to make various sugar roses or flowers.
We used to be referred to as bakers and then we became known as cake decorators and now we are known as cake designers. I teach at the French Culinary Institute in New York and cake design is a legitimate profession.
In the past few years, we've been doing amazing stuff with desserts. Pastry chefs have been using herbs and spices in their desserts. So vanilla cake doesn't have to be just vanilla, it can have a little thyme. Or you could have a custard with a little lavender in it, which is just amazing.
When I celebrated my bar mitzvah, there was no cake. Today, there is no such thing as a bar mitzvah in the United States without a special cake. It can be even more complicated and expensive than a wedding cake, because bar-mitzvah cakes are often based on a particular theme.
The most successful person is the one who is most inspired. That is true in food and in life.
After I quit dancing, I tried a lot of jobs. But I could always bake.
