CBS4 NAMES DELICIOUS DESSERTS BEST WEDDING CAKE OF THE YEAR
A-List Contest Sponsored by CBS Channel 4 Announces Boston’s Best Businesses

Delicious Desserts of Falmouth, MA, owned by Lisa Raffael, was named the A-List Best Wedding Cake by CBS Channel 4. Raffael, a graduate of the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, has designed, baked, decorated, and delivered more than 1100 wedding cakes since she opened Delicious Desserts in 1993.

The A-List contest was hosted by CBS4Boston.com and CityVoter between April 24 and June 30. The contest tallied more than 100,000 votes for the 1300 Boston area businesses nominated. CBS4 began announcing the winners on July 10. The complete list was posted on July 14.

Raffael has had a very sweet year. In November 2005 she appeared on Food Network’s Ultimate Wedding Cake Challenge, where she competed “piping bag to piping bag” with 5 other wedding cake designers; she received third place. The show aired in June 2006. She also appeared on the Food Network’s Celebration Cakes this past February, which will be aired July 23, 24, 26, 27, and 30, 2006. Winning the CBS4 A-List is ‘icing on the cake’ for Raffael.

Her accolades include a wedding cake featured in Bride’s Magazine September/October 2003 issue, which led to publication in the book The Perfect Wedding Details by Maria McBride. In May 2005, Raffael was invited by Bride’s Magazine to participate in the Cake Walk at Grand Central, an event that highlighted the top 50 wedding cake designers in the country.

Reece Pacheco and Lisa Raffael add finishing
touches to her cake in the Food Network's
Ultimate Wedding Cake Challenge in Las Vegas.

Not always a pastry chef, Raffael’s life pre-sugar, piping bags, and cake pans was filled with marketing positions for industrial companies. Lacking passion, she explored various options through career counseling and discovered that her true passion was cooking. Raffael enrolled in the Professional Chef’s Program at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts in 1991, earning a Culinary Arts diploma in 1992. Upon graduation, she worked for Steve DiFillippo, also a graduate of the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, at Davio’s Restaurant as an assistant pastry chef. During this time she launched Delicious Desserts in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Due to the commute from the Cape to Boston, she left Davio’s, balancing three part-time jobs to make ends meet, including opening the bakery department of the Windfall Market. After a year, brides began reserving cakes months in advance and Raffael became known for designing cakes in legible, edible Shakespearean sonnet; seashells sculpted in white chocolate resembling Michelangelo’s Italian marble; and chronicling a couple’s entire romance in frosting, including dates, milestones, and names of people who shared the couple’s joy.

Lisa continued studying pastry arts at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, and trained under the guidance of Norman Love, Worldwide Corporate Pastry Chef of the Ritz Carlton Hotels. Most recently, Lisa studied at The International School of Confectionary Arts in Gaithersburg, Maryland, with Colette Peters, internationally acclaimed cake designer and best selling author.

In addition to managing Delicious Desserts, Raffael is the Executive Pastry Chef at the award-winning Beachmoor Inn and Restaurant in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts. More than a decision to ‘make cupcakes for a living’, Raffael has discovered her passion and recipe for success, turning her craft into a ‘labor-of-love’.

The A-List contest focused on 100 categories of businesses, ranging from arts and entertainment, beauty, auto, fashion, health and fitness, gifts, sporting goods, cheap eats, specialty food and drink, and weddings. Raffael’s Delicious Desserts competed against 14 of the Boston area’s wedding cake businesses. For a complete list of A-List winners, visit www.cbs4boston.com.

Delicious Desserts is located in Falmouth, MA. Lisa has created wedding and specialty cakes for several local politicians, athletes, and news personalities. www.deliciousdesserts.net