Gaby Scelzo Bakes New York's Coolest Cakes
Inside Gaby's Cake Empire and why she thinks New York is the 'Perfect City'
GM everyone hope you’re having a great week getting to the money.
Today I have a very special interview with
, the baker behind some of New York’s coolest cakes you’ve seen at parties and pop-ups, and writer of the weekly restaurant advice column .I first started reading Gaby’s column when I moved to Williamsburg and needed a new roster of restaurants. Her thoughtful recommendations I’ve been loving include: Court St. Grocers, Lilia, and of course my neighborhood haunt, Bernie’s.
We chat about her cake baking empire, recent great eats, and why she thinks New York is the perfect city. (Spoiler alert: it is)
In Today’s Newsletter
An interview with : the baker behind New York’s most delicious looking cakes and writer of the restaurant advice column, Perfect City.
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An Interview with Gaby Scelzo
JAKE BELL: First, can you give an intro to yourself for my readers?
GABY SCELZO: Hi, I’m Gaby. I bake cakes and write a weekly restaurant advice column called Perfect City on Substack. I grew up in New York, so I’m a Knicks fan and a Yankees fan. If you ever want to fight about that, it’s one of my favorite things to do.
JB: Talk to me a bit about your career background? How did you first get involved in the food / social media space?
GS: I studied journalism at SUNY Purchase for a year until my professor told me it seemed like all I wanted to write about was food. She was right, and I really missed the city, so I transferred to NYU to major in Food Studies, which was a cool combination of culinary, food writing and food policy classes. I went out to eat a ton once I was back home and shared where and what I was eating online and found this little community of people who also love food and cooking and restaurants. After school, I always had some sort of food-adjacent job — my first full-time job out of college was at a cookware startup and I’ve worked on the marketing teams of a few restaurant groups, too.
JB: When did you first start baking cakes?
GS: I’ve been baking since I was maybe 12. One of my oldest, best friends reminded me recently that whenever we watched Food Network together as teenagers (almost every day), I would frantically research whatever recipe Giada DiLaurentiis or Bobby Flay or, our favorite, Guy Fieri, was making and compare it to other versions online so that by the time the episode was over, we could try making it ourselves. I loved testing and tweaking recipes and hearing feedback from my friends until I had recipes I was happy with that I could confidently return to.
JB: And when did you decide making cakes could be a full-time gig?
GS: I started baking more seriously than just for friends and parties almost three years ago when I started a pop up bakery series. My best friend
really helped bring it to life — she drew me a gorgeous crest and designed my first menus, got Kerrygold to sponsor me, came to my apartment while I baked for hours and hours the night before my very first pop up at The Six Bells. Since then, I’ve sold fat slices of cake and cheesy scones (a sleeper Gaby classic) at Susan Alexandra, Colbo and Happier Grocery. Earlier this year, I was starting to feel sort of burnt out and bored by my social media job and I just had a feeling it was time to do something a little risky. So I took the jump and put all of my time and effort into building my cake business, and as soon as I did I got a big influx of custom cake orders. I feel like one of those annoying people who says “everything just fell into place at the right time!”JB: It's always hard to pick a favorite— but do you have a cake that stands out as one of your favs you ever baked?
GS: One of those first custom orders after I left my job was this cake for the Minted NYC team to celebrate their Saucony collab. Carl Maynard ordered it, and he wanted to incorporate earl grey and vanilla so that the flavors/colors would match the shoe that was dropping. I love being given a fun, super specific direction like this. We landed on this delicious earl gray cake stacked with brown butter cream cheese filling and frosted in vanilla bean buttercream. I usually bring my friends deli containers full of any cake scrap, but I saved all of these for myself — every bite tasted like a milky, perfectly brewed cup of tea.
JB: I am always seeing you post the most delicious looking cakes on IG. Talk to me a bit about how you get inspired in the kitchen and your testing/experimentation process.
GS: Some people (like Carl) come to me with a specific flavor request, others give me a list of flavors they love and we go from there. When I’m in full control, though, I always look to other desserts I love and think about how to incorporate or transform elements of those into cakes. I love pudding, I love rich, buttery almond cakes and chewy marzipan. I also always keep a pint of ice cream in my freezer, and browsing the Ben & Jerry’s flavors every week gives me a lot of ideas. I have a pretty large rolodex of tried and true recipes at this point, so if I’m trying something new, I’ll try to riff on one of those first and then make tweaks off of that first test based on how it tastes, how it looks, how well it layers and slices, if it’s still as good the next day. Sometimes it’s quick and easy — the first time I ever tested a raspberry frosting it came out perfectly tart, silky and hot pink on the first try. The matcha cake I make now took I think nine tests to get right.
JB: You write the Substack
, tell me why New York is the perfect city to you?GS: Last week, after walking over the Manhattan Bridge, I ran into an old coworker who I hadn’t seen in way too long. We caught up until I peeled off to make it to Penny for dinner with my dad, which was lovely and delicious and enchanting. I convinced him to watch the end of the Yankee game with me at 12th Street Ale House, after, where we watched them lose in devastating fashion. While we moped out of the bar, a friend texted me that he was around the corner. There, we ran into another group of friends and followed them to a new spot, where I talked to some girls from Texas who were visiting New York to celebrate a divorce. At the bar, one of them told me how shocked she was by how crowded the place felt on a Thursday and that she couldn’t imagine what a Saturday night would be like. As the bartender handed over our drinks, he said “every night in New York is a Saturday night.” Then I took the subway back to Brooklyn. Days like that are why New York is the perfect city to me.
JB: How has the city evolved since you were younger?
GS: I grew up in Hell’s Kitchen, across the street from Manhattan Plaza, which was an affordable housing building for artists. All my friends lived there, I went to pre-school and camp there, it was this very sweet and special community in a neighborhood that wasn’t super developed yet. When I was in high school they opened one of those big food halls with an Ippudo Ramen and an Ample Hills in it, and then a bunch of luxury buildings started popping up around it. Now Hudson Yards, the new “neighborhood” that’s actually just a big mall, is inching closer and closer into Hell’s Kitchen territory. I used to hate that I lived so close to Times Square, and now it’s one of the things I like the most because there’s so much history there. It’s so distinctly New York, which is unfortunately becoming a lot more rare.
JB: Best recent dining experience? Worst recent dining experience?
GS: I was reminded last week how hard those birria tacos from the Birria-Landia truck on Metropolitan Ave go. I was also reminded that restaurant cooking is very different from home cooking after having dinner at a completely outdoor restaurant in LA last month. The food wasn’t bad but none of it was particularly good either. It didn’t help that everything was covered in edible flowers, plated on sheet trays, and served with a set of tongs.
Note from the Editor (Jake Bell): Edible flowers f*cking suck. The only place I’ll let it slide is abcV.
JB: What’s on the horizon for you?
GS: I’m baking for a few weddings next month which I’m excited about — assembling tall, tiered cakes is fun and getting to deliver them on a client’s wedding day is very special. I’m looking forward to all of the holiday baking, too. Pies, gingerbread, yule logs, Christmas cookies. Otherwise, just building my cake empire brick by brick.
To place an order for a cake visit Gaby’s website.
And be sure to follow her Substack
.Flamingo Estate Made Ed Ruscha Honey
Once again, Flamingo Estate proves they will do sh*t no one else is doing.
Last Summer, the booming wellness brand placed bee hives near a citrus grove at iconic LA artist Ed Ruscha’s studio.
Now that the honey harvest is ready, they put the honey in jars adorned with Ed’s iconic Honey drawing, originally made in 1979.
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