Pictures that make your mouth water

Romanians are born poets. Romanians are extremely hospitable people. Romanians are the most inventive people in the world. These are a few clichés about Romanians.

But at least one of them is true: Romanians are extremely creative, as the idea of the two entrepreneurs from Photo Cake Bucharest-based confectionery can prove.

The customers may buy birthday cakes in the most original colours and shapes, decorated with their own pictures, which are imprinted on a special kind of jelly.

The idea came to life in 1999, when Cristina Neagu and her associate Cristian Vlad withdrew inside a laboratory for several months in order to find out the perfect way to display image on a sweet support.

The testing process took a long time and procedures were painstaking, but the ideal combination eventually resulted, being also patented by OSIM as a trademark.

Starting from this formula, the two associates invested about 50,000 dollars in equipment and opened Photo Cake confectionery last June.

“We had absolutely no experience in running a confectionery,” Cristina Neagu recollects. “I had graduated the Special Psycho-Pedagogy Faculty, but I had some experience in business, joined by motivation and an ounce of madness, which any private entrepreneur needs.”

The edible pictures made by Photo Cake are utterly original and the procedure to get them is unique. “We found out afterwards that there is a similar machine to imprint the customer’s picture on a sugar layer in America.

But this procedure is technically inferior, as the sugar melts and the colour vanishes after two-three days. Our pictures stick on the cake for at least one week,” Cristina Neagu says.

Though it is not even one year old, the confectionery has printed on jelly the picture of many celebrities. The two associates consider that the cake dedicated to Natalia Oreiro and displayed during the show of Mihaela Tatu on Acasa TV station during the Argentinean diva’s visit in Romania was the peak of their activity.

Moreover, Cristina Neagu was the subject of a story broadcast during “Three Times a Woman,” a popular TV show presented by Mihaela Tatu.

“I think that the originality of our products opened our way to most TV stations,” says Cristina Neagu. “We have made a cake with the picture of Mihaela Tatu on it, very much appreciated by Bucharest Mayor Traian Basescu.

We were invited at the morning show hosted by Marius Vintila and we have also prepared a cake with his picture. Though we appeared early in the morning on TV, the public reacted promptly and the phones started ringing immediately.”

Photo Cake owners were also invited at Prima TV, during the Impact show, at TVR, where they brought a cake with the picture of Leonard Miron and to the show hosted by Gianina Corondan.

The confectionery’s products were requested by famous names in music, such as Iris, Holograf, Aurelian Temisan and Adrian Enache.

“I remember that we chased the bus carrying Andreea Raducan from Otopeni, when she returned from Sydney Olympic Games. The driver eventually stopped the bus and we were able to offer a cake to the champion,” says Cristina Neagu.