Altreisha Foster poses with one of her gravity-defying creations. Photos: Chris Emeott
It’s architecture, it’s science and it’s eminently edible.
When Altreisha Foster signed up for a cookie making class, she had no idea where that creative outlet would lead her. “It was just something to keep me occupied,” Foster says. The public health practitioner was pregnant at the time and couldn’t travel for work. “I was always used to just going and going because I was always an overachiever at school,” she says. “I never really took the time to find out what hobbies
I had outside of the scholastic part of my life.”
But baking came easily to Foster, much to her and her family’s surprise. “My husband tells the kids all the time that he was the one who would make the box cake [for birthdays],” Foster says with a laugh. She began practicing cake-making daily, drawing inspiration from bakers on Instagram. Six months into posting her own creations, ELLE magazine reached out for an article about modern cakes. “I was like, ‘What?’ I just couldn’t understand,” Foster says. “I’m just fooling around here. It’s a hobby for me, and you’re interested in one of my cakes.” Although ELLE ultimately didn’t include her in the article, Foster says this was when she thought she might be onto something, and Sugarspoon Desserts was born.
Foster’s scientific background plays a key role in her wedding cake designs. “I’m very lean, I’m very neat, I’m very meticulous and it’s all about science,” Foster says. This ethos comes to the fore when viewing the Medina baker’s oeuvre, which contains architectural façades, intricate textures and towering tiers. But Foster’s modernist creations also required research in a new field. “I was self-taught for a long time and trying to figure out how people are holding these huge structures together,” Foster says. She turned to the instruction of bakeries including LiMa Cakes in Toronto, Canada, and Marina Machado Cakes in Brisbane, Australia. She’s even flown as far as Switzerland to learn new cake styles and techniques.
Sugarspoon Desserts’ cakes are meant to be works of heart. Each tier is a different flavor. Photos: Sugarspoon Desserts
As the sole baker behind Sugarspoon Desserts, Foster accepts around two to three wedding cake commissions per month. Once a couple completes the inquiry form, Foster schedules a 30 minute call with them. “I want to learn about you,” Foster says. Some of the questions out of the gate include what drew the couple to her and which Sugarspoon creations called to them specifically, though Foster shies away from doing repeats. If a client sends an image of a wedding cake as inspiration, Foster asks for six to 10 more examples. “I want to get this person’s personality, to see what types of cake that she likes,” Foster says. From there, Foster incorporates elements from each of the inspiration cakes to compose a sketch. “I would say eight out of 10 times, they go along with the sketch that I present to them as opposed to just doing someone else’s cake,” she says.
But Foster is also familiar with one of her own cakes serving as a major source of inspiration for couples. “My big break, I would say, came from when I did this seven-tiered cake for The Bachelorette a couple of years ago,” she says. The towering white cake was adorned with 200 red roses to commemorate the 200th episode of the TV show, which was filmed in Minneapolis during the 18th season. “[Clients] were bringing [me] this cake because it was on the television, it was everywhere,” Foster says. “I didn’t want to keep recreating that cake. For me, I had to be really persistent in trying to bring out the couple’s personality as opposed to this one trick.”
Rather than being pigeonholed, Foster has continued to experiment and grow in her artistry, and her cakes have graced the dessert tables of couples across the Twin Cities. Recently, Foster worked with event planner Sese Cadmus of Elevated Style Events for an Edina bride. The result was a towering eight-tier white wedding cake that achieves its sleek, modern look using cake artist Olivia Cerletti’s “The Offset Method.” The smooth, cylindrical top tiers are offset by a gauzy explosion of pearls and ruffles on the lower four tiers.
Sugarspoon Desserts
Instagram: @sugarspoondesserts
