posted over 7 years ago

Interview #57: Sebastien Laroche and Jonathan Ventura from Cake Révol

1. Tell us a little about yourselves, family, where do you live and what did you both do for a living before making cakes if anything?

We are a French duo of Cake Designers, Sébastien (33) and Jonathan (32), living in Nantes, France, a city of art and history in Britain. Sébastien was for several years freelance in communication as a graphic designer and Jonathan worked as toy store salesman.

2. Both of you are so very young so how long have you been doing cakes and why did you get started in cake decorating… was it by accident or did you always have a passion for it?

Jonathan was/is passionate about cooking, discovered cake design a little by chance, 5 years ago, with a friend, and then he decided to create a blog with recipes and childrens news called "Un Jeu d’Enfant”(A Game of Child). Then with Sébastien we decided to go to the very first cake design fair in France in October 2012. This show was like a revelation for both of us and we thought we could use each our skills to create something. So in January 2014 we created our company “Un Jeu d’Enfant” which turned into “CAKE REVOL” at the end of 2015, because we wanted to have a more adult identity.

3. Is there one tool you both cannot live without and one you don’t have yet but really want? If you have separate tools you love please tell us about both.

The computer for the creative part, an essential tool for creating our own tools and visuals, especially with 3D printing which allows us to create our own cutters for example and scalpel (bistouri) for the work part because it’s an indispensable tool for perfect cuts . And for the tool we would like to have, we would say a time slower machine ;): D

4. Your designs have always just blown me away with their uniqueness. I can recognize your work immediately without even seeing your logo. Is it a joint effort in the design process or is one more the creative, artistic person and the other the more hands on one who gets all those pieces so absolutely perfect?

Thank you very much for the compliment. It’s almost always a common effort, We being self-formed together, we finally learned the same things while each having our preferences in the work. We work a lot upstream of the realization of cakes and don’t really leave place to hazard in general. All is calculated, measured, composed to create a unique design every time.

5. What part of making cakes do you both like most and least?

Sébastien: My favorite part is finding new ideas or techniques to create original designs and the part that I like the least is delivery, because it’s always a lot of stress.

Jonathan: My favorite part is to make the right and cleanest cake possible, especially the part before covering the cake with fondant and the least part is the cooking of the cakes base because it’s long and a little boring.

6. Tell us one thing about yourselves that many of us might not know already.

We have been a couple for a very long time (almost 15 years), a lot of people think we’re brothers x)

7. Do you both have a bucket list and if so what might one or two of those be and it does not have to be cake related?

Discovering new world, landscape and culture and precisely cake design could allow this And it already allows us, because we participate at the NY Cake Show next weekend, June 10th 2017. An experience that promises to be incredible for us both as we have not done much traveling.

8. What would you say has been your biggest cake challenge to date and if you could have a do-over of that cake would you want too and what about it would you change?

The last one, a steampunk themed wedding cake that we made for customers and at the same time for an international cake collaboration. We would do the same thing again, but we would be more prepared in advance with the decorations because this particular theme is very complex and detailed.

9. Is their one technique or sugar skill that you have not tried yet but really would like to learn?

The carved cakes or the gravity cakes, these are our next challenges, it’s really very impressive when the technique is mastered, we adore.

10. What is your favorite cake flavor you like to make?

Caramel au beurre salé (Caramel with salted butter), a typical product of our region, associated with a chocolate cake and roasted peanuts. It’s too good, it looks like Snickers taste.

11. Do you sketch your cakes or just wing it?

Yes, we sketch everything in advance, on computer to be sure of our idea. All is millimeter,
for our work it’s an absolutely indispensable step.

12. For anyone just starting out what would be one piece of advice you would give them?

Have plenty of patience and time available, as Time is the Key.

13. What’s the best lesson you have both learned while making cakes so far?

We have learned to trust ourselves.

14. Do you think it is harder working as a pair and trying to come to agreement all the time on a design or is there lots of give and take that just makes it the perfect situation?

Yes it’s very hard, most of the time we get to associate our ideas, but sometimes our ideas aren’t the same which created long debates. (Even harder when coupled.)

15. Do you have one significant cake that you can call your favorite so far in your career?

Our very first E-Motion cake that we create for the Sugar Spooks 2016 collaboration. It’s our new technique of decoration with video projection on cakes. It’s very modern and a new way to create a particular staging. Here’s a link for the video: https://youtu.be/O-CmeCYb3xI

16. And one crazy one just for fun…There have been a lot of great movies, TV shows in the past starring 2 people like Bonnie and Clyde, the 2 Ronnies and Dr Jekyle and Mr Hyde. If you guys were to do a movie or TV show what would you call it, what parts would you play ( who would be the good guy, funny guy, bad guy etc) and what type of movie , TV show would it be ( comedy, thriller, love story etc)?

It would be a science fiction movie, title “Two Guys in a Cake Odyssey” haha, For the play Jonathan would be the dreamer guy and Sebastien the funny guy ;)

Thank you Sebastien and Jonathan for your time and Sharon for doing the interview ;).

Cakes: