Every Cake Has a Story to Tell Mitch Luxenburg – The Sweet Side M itch Luxenburg, an attorney who serves as president of the Beachwood Board of Education, has enjoyed baking ever since taking Mrs. Dutton’s cake-decorating class while in Beachwood Middle School. He recalls when he and David Chizek won the endof-the-year cake-decorating competition and were selected to decorate a cake for the retirement party for Mr. Burgess, principal of Bryden Elementary School. While in high school, college and law school, Luxenburg continued baking. As an adult, he finds cooking and baking to be both challenging and relaxing. After spending all this time in the kitchen, Luxenburg decided get back into cake decorating to see if he would enjoy it as much as he did when he was 12 years old. So in early 2014, he and his sister, Debbie, signed up for a cake-decorating class at Michael’s. After completing the first class, Luxenburg took the second set in the series, honing his skills and rekindling his passion. After completing the classes, he was ready to push up his sleeves and bake cakes and cupcakes for his family, but would only do so if he could create something that would taste better than his very favorite Giant Eagle cakes, so he played around with recipes until he came up with a buttercream frosting recipe that he really loved. Once he had the frosting recipe down pat in late 2014, his family had a bake-off to see which combinations of cake and frosting they preferred. Then, he started baking at home for family celebrations, purely for fun. “It was great,” he said with a smile. “I enjoyed each creative challenge and my family loved the finished products.” Luxenburg’s housekeeper would often be cleaning up after him, admired what he was doing, and just this past March asked him if he would make her daughter’s birthday cake. He gladly accepted the challenge and made a three-tiered cake. Since it was his first cake for someone else, he did a dry run, which was a good thing because the frosting was too heavy and started falling off! Shortly thereafter, Debbie put a post on Facebook, along with a photo of some of Luxenburg’s creations, saying her brother was baking cupcakes and cakes “better than Hough” and within an hour, orders started coming in. His first order was a ruffle cake which the client later posted on Facebook stating it was “better than Archies.” (Although Luxenburg admits that Archie is good company to keep, he does not market himself that way.) “The response to this post was unbelievable,” he said. “It took on a life of its own.” When asked about the creative process, Luxenburg shared that he often searches the Internet or Pinterest for ideas, and once he finds a theme, he recreates it to make it his own. Although he doesn’t consider himself to be creative, saying he can’t draw but can color within the lines, he humbly admits that with each cake the results are more professional. “I truly got into this because I love cake and buttercream frosting,” he said. “What makes the cakes great is the taste. Decorating is an added bonus.” In addition to enjoying the baking process, Luxenburg values the connections he makes with people. “People love eating cake and food and talking about it, so I’m connecting with them in an entirely different way,” he said, “And it’s nice, fun and challenging.” Luxenburg went on to tell us a story about a cake he was hired to bake for a Bat Mitzvah dinner. When the woman told Debbie that she really didn’t want to cook the dinner, Debbie said her brother took care of her daughter’s dinner. Fast forward, and Luxenburg catered the client’s entire dinner too. “She was the perfect client,” he said. “I had known the family casually and she let me make all the 36 Beachwood Buzz n July 2015