I’m very excited about this collaboration with the incredibly talented Maria Tuchevska, a local pastry chef and instructor here in Sacramento, CA.

I’m pretty sure I made an audible gasp when I came across Maria’s work on Instagram. Her cakes are artful, unique, and quite honestly the most beautiful edible creations I’ve ever seen! It seems like we were destined to do a collaboration together!

I first ordered a selection of Maria’s petite mousse cakes as Easter gifts - a girl has to do her research first, right? I knew her pastries were beyond beautiful to look at, but I was eager to see how they tasted! As expected, I was blown away. Every petite cake I tried tasted AMAZING! I tried passion fruit/mango, limonchello/strawberry, Kahlua/coffee/mascarpone, white chocolate/raspberry, and dark chocolate/raspberry and honestly loved all of them. I think my favorite was the passion fruit and mango. The mousse is light and flavorful, the filling adds an extra pop of color, texture, and flavor, and a thin layer of cake at the bottom is the perfect final touch. WOW.

Maria’s desserts are decadent without being heavy and they have just the right amount of sweetness! Her attention to detail and creative artistry is unparalleled making her pastries a must have for a special birthday. So what are you waiting for?

As far as the match is concerned, I knew I wanted to find a dress that emulates the beautiful abstract / organic look of her beautiful watercolor-esque mousse cakes. So, I went to Poshmark and came across this beautiful organza dress by Theia! I got it for $12.00. No joke!

From there Maria set out to emulate the palette of the dress while still staying true to her typical style. The result is amazing and I love the way the match turned out!

Oh, and by the way - the cake was delicious, I ate it for lunch!

Takes The Cake

From the Sacramento News & Review, 11.29.18 by Steph Rodriguez

The contents of one of Maria Tulchevska’s white pastry boxes are anything but vanilla. Her specialty: immaculately decorated petite mousse cakes in vibrant colors of yellow, pink and varied shades of purple, all crafted under the name Art Dessert.

The attention to detail Tulchevska devotes to her desserts is equal parts artistic and whimsical. Presented on gold pastry board, each round cake showcases the complexities of her pastry talent.

One, a bright yellow dome, bears tiny grooves comparable to the impressions left in a mini Zen garden. Another, a glossy, hot pink, heart-shaped cake, is so sleek it reflects sunlight. But, it’s the geometric-shaped cakes in the box with an array of angles and indentations that truly illustrate the stunning touches Tulchevska bakes into all of her sweets.

“The first time when you see it you say, ’Oh, wow! It’s beautiful,’ and you feel satisfaction that you’ve created all these details,” Tulchevska says of her creations. “But the most important thing is when you taste it for the first time.”

A wife, mother of twins and a former auditor in the Ukraine, Tulchevska and her family moved to California four years ago after her husband accepted a new job opportunity here. After working in a world full of numbers, she yearned for a creative outlet and says she was influenced by the likes of pastry chef Dinara Kasko, who’s known for her use of 3D printers to make elaborate silicon molds for cakes.

Tulchevska’s cake fillings, on the other hand, are inspired by French pastry chef Cédric Grolet, known for works that focus on fruit and are oftentimes shaped like the very fruit from which they’re made.

A slice down the center of one of Tulchevska’s cakes reveals the perfect ratio of mousse, fruit-filling and spongecake. The yellow dome-shaped cake is really a tempered white chocolate shell followed by a creamy passion fruit mousse, a sweet, but delicate mango filling with tender pieces of fruit, a little passion fruit puree and a fluffy spongecake finished with a bit of white chocolate.

The glossy, heart-shaped cake is filled with dark chocolate mousse made from cherry, walnut and brandy, followed by a cherry-walnut sponge. Its mouthfeel hits on all the texture notes: silky glaze, smooth mousse, crunchy walnuts and tender cherries.

Tulchevska says these artfully crafted desserts are unique to the United States because she’s yet to see Americans latch on to the trend as they did with the macaron or the cronut a few years ago.

“It’s just pure satisfaction when you create something and you can see the result. I just wanted to create something. To make something that I can see and that I can feel,” Tulchevska says. “Here in America, it’s just started. It’s like a fashion. They still don’t know that this exists.”