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Cake Crumbs with Andre Portelli from Mezzapica Cakes

Cake Crumbs with Andre Portelli from Mezzapica Cakes

22nd Feb 2022

For over 65 years Mezzapica Cakes have been delighting Sydneysiders with their traditional continental cakes and biscuits. Recognising the constantly growing popularity of custom designed and specialty cakes, Mezzapica have continually expanded their range of products and services to grow with the market, whilst also maintaining their high quality traditional Italian dessert selection. Here Andre Portelli of Mezzapcia Cakes gives us a little glimpse into this iconic Sydney cake business.

1. How did your cake/sweets/business journey begin?

Mezzapica Cakes has been a family owned and operated affair since it was founded by Angelo Mezzapica in 1952!

2. What has starting your own business meant for you?

While we did not start the business, we take seriously our role in maintaining the strong reputation for quality that Angelo first established.

3. What have been/are the biggest challenges you face(d) in regard to starting/building/maintaining your business?

While we have a strong grounding in “the classics” when it comes to pastries, we do still find we need to adapt/innovate our product ranges. The fancy decorated cakes from the 60s, 70s and 80s look quite different to what we offer today!

4. What do you feel are the benefits of using edible images?

Edible images are just such a fantastic way to create an amazing themed cake, yet still let us offer it at an affordable price.

5. What’s your favourite type of cake/treat/design to create?

Though an edible image on its own often can create an amazing cake, we like to utilise them along with other decorations such as fondant figurines, where the edible image just gives it that extra edge or flare.

6. What is the current trend you’re seeing in edible images?

We can’t keep up with the superhero cakes!

7. What is the funniest/most unusual creation you’ve been asked to make?

We have seen our fair share of embarrassing baby pictures being wheeled out for 21st Birthdays

8. Do you have any tips you can share when either printing or applying edible images?

The source image really is most important. Sometimes our customers might send us a fairly low quality image, and while it can be a bit of a pain, we really do try and follow them up to see if they happen to have a better quality image file on hand.

9. What is your career highlight to date?

We don’t enter competitions or anything like that, so our highlights come weekly when we get some really great feedback about how much someone loved their cake and how it really was a centrepiece for their whole celebration.

The other thing we love is that fellow cake decorators (who do not necessarily want to bake their own cakes), have approached us about providing masked/ganache cakes ready for them to decorate, which is something we have started doing. We feel like it is a great sign that people who really know cakes are so happy with the flavour and quality of our cakes as well.