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Cosmic Works of Edible Art
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It’s official.
Zeus has declared Oksana’s Sweet Life confections the new nectar of the gods. When you experience her dulcified delights, you’ll feel like you’re dining at the table of Athena and Apollo.
Oksana Shchelgachova’s cakes are so sculpturally exquisite, it almost seems a sacrilege to cut them. She loves to share her passion for art and food, and frequently offers samples of her glorious, glazed delights to family and friends. They are her taste testers, and who wouldn’t stand in line for a slice of divine.
After receiving an art-design degree, she married and started a family. But a childhood exposure to fine cuisine and the arts led her to pursue a second vocation, this time at Escoffier School of Culinary Arts (Culinary Baking and Pastry Arts). Pastry craft merged with her exceptional gift for 3-D design and voila! Sweet Life Confections was born.
Oksana specializes in mousse entremet (cakes), eclairs, petit gateux (mini cakes for one to two persons), and bouchee, a sweet-filled pastry. She also bakes traditional cakes and pies.
To glaze her celestial creations, she chooses one of two techniques. First is a chocolate velvet cake coating called callebaut couverture (dark, milk, or white chocolate 30 percent) with organic callebaut mycryo, cocoa butter 60 percent. “Oh, so yum and healthy,” she reports. Second is a chocolate mirror glassage, a super shiny glaze and fruit nappage.
In spite of the fancy French names, the desserts are not overly sweet or buttery. Oksana’s go-to fillings are: custard, cremeux, confit, compote, creme brûlée,
jelly, and marmalade.
How does she get that sparkle in her glazes? Sometimes seven or more layers of glazing are applied, each with a lengthy setting time. It takes about three days for her to craft a cake. The results of that labor pay off in dazzling beauty. For her, taste and aesthetics reign.
She is available to do jaw-dropping sculptural works of edible art for the holidays, including Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chanukah, New Year’s, and Valentine’s, along with birthdays, anniversaries, and weddings. Allow two weeks when ordering.
Contact her on Facebook at Sweet Life, or call (828) 200-2700, (828) 526-6549, or email: [email protected]. You can Instagram sweetlifehighlands. And don’t be surprised if next year you find a new teahouse in Highlands serving soup, salads, and a full array of Zeus’s favorites, soon to be yours.
