Pickles and bell peppers for dessert? Yes, please!
Luke Vincentini, a 23-year-old baker from Lanoka Harbor, NJ, is known for his cakes, made to mimic everyday objects and other foods — from a bag of Doritos to a Chinese takeout box filled with greasy-looking noodles.
On his Instagram page, which boasts 305,000 followers, he recently shared what appears to be a shiny can of mango-flavored White Claw Hard Seltzer. The can, which is actually eight layers of chocolate cake and white icing, garnered nearly 60,000 likes.
“I thought it would be smart to do because there are shortages of White Claw in the US,” he told Insider.
“It’s insane,” he continued. “I thought that it would get the usual response from my followers, but it ended up blowing up.”
The longtime baker, who taught himself how to make desserts with the help of cooking shows and YouTube, said his culinary career kicked-off over a decade ago. That’s when he took two master classes at Hoboken’s Carlo’s Bakery, owned by Buddy Valastro, who rose to foodie fame on TLC’s reality show “Cake Boss.”
Then, in 2016, Vincentini was hired at Carlo’s, and says the two and a half years he spent there helped take his technique to a whole new level.
“I wanted to make something that people would see and just be like, ‘What the hell?’ ” he said. “One day, I was looking at a bag of Doritos and was like, ‘I can probably do that.’ And I did, and that’s how it all started.”
Inspiration strikes at any given moment: “I could be driving and see something I like, and go, ‘That looks cool,’ and it becomes a cake.”
Toiling up to 14 hours on his hyper-realistic treats might work-up an appetite, but he’s not satiating with sweets.
“Ironically, I’m not a huge cake person, but people seem to love the taste,” said Vincentini, who told Daily Mail he strives to make a delectable dessert even though he doesn’t eat much of it. “You can’t have a great looking cake that isn’t delicious!”
The real reward for his tedious work, he said, is seeing the surprised — and sometimes bewildered — faces of those who dine on his delights.
“They usually go nuts,” said Vincentini, “but there have been people who say it makes them uncomfortable to watch.”
