Sylvia Weinstock, famed wedding cake artist, passes away at 91
Sylvia Weinstock, wedding cake baker to the stars, passed away at age 91 last week, The New York Times reports. A former schoolteacher who began baking in her 50s, Weinstock introduced a new level of extravagance to the wedding cake industry, meticulously constructing hand-painted sugar flowers petal by petal. Her client list ran the gamut from the Clintons and Trumps to Billy Joel, Oprah, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The cakes she made were incredibly labor-intensive: A hundred roses could take one artist an entire workweek to craft, and some of her work featured thousands of flowers. One cost estimate put the five-tier confection actress Sofia Vergara purchased for her 2015 wedding at $50,000. Weinstock had retired in recent years, but she was persuaded to step back into the baking fray last month when she made what may have been her final cake for Jennifer Gates, daughter of Bill and Melinda. —H. Claire Brown
