MASTER BAKER MARIA NITTI IS REINVENTING THE BROOKLYN DESSERT SCENE WITH CAKES OF FANTASTICAL PROPORTIONS

BY AMANDA McCOY • PHOTOS BY ALEX BARRETO

In a city teeming with culinary extravagance, it’s not particularly confounding to find sugar-loving patrons paying $12 per mini cupcake without even a mild shudder. It’s nearly impossible to turn a busy Manhattan corner without finding one of these big name bakeries, typically born from pseudofamous reality cooking show winners or graduates of fancy European culinary institutes.

But nestled in the middle of a quiet street in South Brooklyn sits Isabella’s Creations, a curio of the specialty cake shop craze that still offers dessert glamour without a Times Square price tag. The 6-year-old cakery is the brainchild of born-and-raised Brooklynite Maria Nitti, a warm, fast-talking master cake artist with an exuberant laugh and bright pink shoes.

Atypical of many of her NYC counterparts, the self-taught cake connoisseur doesn’t crow of whetting her skills under the tutelage of a renowned cuisinier or donating years to a Parisian pastry boutique. In fact, her baking arts education began when her line of vision barely grazed the stovetop, and an oven mitt swallowed half her arm.

“My grandmother and sister always baked, so I just picked it up while growing up. As I got older, I began baking all the holiday cakes for my family, and eventually most of my friends.”

It wasn’t long before friends of friends began coveting the budding chef ’s frosted designs, and the responsibility of “part-time baker” was inadvertently added to the full-time internet manager and a mother’s already loaded schedule.

“On top of being a wife and mother, running a household, and working 45 hours a week, I thought, hey! Let’s throw ten cakes a weekend on top of that,” she said. “There was virtually no sleep at all during this time!”

By 2009, after ramping up production to nearly 15 cakes a week, the emerging entrepreneur decided to trade her cubicle for coupler sets and take on the scariest job title of all, small business owner. Starting in her husband’s catering shop and café, the new chef took her first phone orders while talking over demands for bacon and egg on a roll. Grateful for the space, the growing business remained for three efficacious years, before taking the plunge and relocating to a space all its own.

Still no stranger to the relentless grind of young entrepreneurship six years later, the small business dynamo humbly admits there’s no budget to shell out mega bucks for a walloping advertising campaign. Her marketing strategy is rooted in the age-old axiom that if you make your customers happy, they’ll keep coming back, and they’ll tell their friends. Those friends just happen to sometimes be Hollywood heavyweights.

Nitti snagged her first celebrity bid after discovering via Facebook that a Mob Wives star was looking for a cake artist. After a couple phone calls and exchanges of ideas, her creativity secured the job, and numerous red carpet bashes since. Her extensive résumé of star-studded affairs includes the birthday dinner of Hairspray starlet Nikki Blonsky, Ice-T’s high profile bash in Midtown, a going-away party for a Cosmopolitan magazine editor, and a corporate event for a former talk show host you may have heard of. The name’s Oprah.

“I’ll never forget the day I got to tell my husband that Oprah had just called! It was truly a surreal moment in my career,” she added with contagious mirth in her voice.

It was actually Oprah’s assistant on the phone, she laughingly admits, but the moment was still an extraordinary highlight of her professional life.

As much sculptor as baker, the artist’s canon of work includes a six-foot long 3D Tiger, a five-foot tall Greek God (for Mr. Ice-T himself), a freestanding gumball machine (for an ecstatic little boy through children’s charity Icing Smiles), wedding cakes inlaid with hundreds of handmade flowers, and countless Minions.

New customers can browse for inspiration on the shop’s social platforms, but as Nitti promises with deep-seated pride, no cake will ever be duplicated. Every client should expect his or her own original design adorned with personalized flair. The shop offers a colossal range of batter flavors, ranging from mild to opulent, including school time classics vanilla, chocolate, and red velvet, and grandiose savors like toasted butter pecan (the chef ’s personal favorite).

Isabella’s Creations
6605 13th Avenue / 347.464.8845 / isabellascreations.com