Portrait of the Artist as a Young Baker

The first thing you notice when you step into Glenn von Kickel’s West Hollywood cake shop is the mellow mood. The lighting is dim, classical music plays softly, there are clay sculptures on the counter tops, and paintings line the walls. The place seems more like an art gallery than a bakery.

Indeed, a sign in the window describes the bakery as an “edible art experience.”

Von Kickel, 68, has owned Cake and Art in West Hollywood since 1976. His cakes have appeared on the cover of Life magazine, in many movies and television shows and at the parties of the rich and famous. With an earring dangling from one ear and a long, white braid streaming down his back, von Kickel stands behind his counter and tells story after story.

Don’t mind when he lights a cigarette and pours himself a glass of wine. “Most artists are winos,” he says with a drawl.

Using butter cream icing, cardboard tubes and boards, straws and bamboo skewers, von Kickel creates sculptures and portraits atop the carrot, lemon and chocolate fudge cakes he makes in his back-room bakery. The cakes range from $15 (serving six) to $5,000 (serving 2,000).

He’s done portraits of George Burns, Burt Reynolds, the Beatles, Hanson and Mr. T.

Sculptures have included pianos, guitars, animals, castles, cars, the Chicago skyline, boats and mermaids. In 1982, he even made an 800-pound, 12-foot-high carrot cake shaped like a three-horse carousel. The cake, for radio personality Casey Kasem’s birthday party, took a week to make and five hours to assemble at the Hollywood Palladium.

“I sell thousands of cakes a year,” von Kickel says. He pauses, and then speculates, laughing, “I sell more artwork than any artist that lives--but on cake!”

You could say von Kickel entered the culinary world by accident. He started singing and dancing as a child, performing tap, jazz and ballet in small musicals from the mid-’30s to mid-’50s. He also worked as a makeup artist, costume designer and set designer. Later, he created elaborate window displays for clothing stores in Phoenix, Denver and Los Angeles. Along the way, von Kickel experimented with oil paints, watercolors, pastels and charcoal, accumulating finished pieces that he was willing to sell.

He got that chance in 1972 when he and a partner opened a bakery in El Cajon and featured his artwork in the front coffee shop. It was there, too, as one of the bakers taught him how to ice a cake, that von Kickel discovered that cake could be an artistic medium.

In 1976, he decided to strike out on his own as an artist. When he arrived in Los Angeles, though, he couldn’t find a gallery that would show his art. So he opened his own and began selling cake art at the same time.

“I don’t do anything traditional,” he’s quick to say. “I always liked to be new, fresh, different--always a leader, not a follower.”

His describes his cake business as his “longest run.” And the fact that he’s never had an art lesson, dance lesson or cooking lesson in his life suits him just fine.

It took von Kickel four years to develop his almond butter cream icing recipe. In the same way that he paints with oils and watercolors, he dabs paintbrushes into a colorful palette of icings and applies them to his cakes.

“Paper and canvas absorb colors immediately,” he explains. “Cake doesn’t.” The colors just sit on the cake--”they float,” he says--and he can spread them around. “I can accomplish a lot with very little [color] on cake.”

Unlike some cake artists, von Kickel refuses to use an electric airbrush to color his cakes. “An idiot can do that,” he says, likening the practice to spray painting or graffiti.

And, in this artists’ tradition, he’s come up with his own way of presenting customers with his finished pieces. Doilies are out, von Kickel says with disgust. Instead, he covers the boards on which his cakes rest with vinyl. “It’s a frame for your cakes,” he says.

To construct the cake and icing sculptures, von Kickel also challenges culinary convention by refusing to use Styrofoam, plastic plates, gum paste or marzipan. Cake and butter cream icing are his main tools, though cardboard, straws and bamboo skewers come in handy now and then, depending on the type of sculpture.

For one wedding cake, von Kickel sculpted the bride and groom toasting each other in an old-fashioned claw-foot bathtub, surrounded by soap bubbles. Occasionally, he will construct a fairly traditional tiered white wedding cake with sculpted doves on top, as he did recently for a couple celebrating their 10th anniversary.

His specialty is portraits, and most orders are for birthday cakes. Starting with a photograph of the image he is to re-create, von Kickel works in stages. He’ll bake his cakes one day, freeze them and decorate them another day because it’s easier to apply the icing to the surface of a frozen cake. While working, he’ll move among several cakes, giving each a turn with his paintbrushes and colors.

“If I did one at a time,” he says, “I’d be out of business.”

Candice Bergen and Carrie Fisher were among von Kickel’s first celebrity fans. So was Wolfgang Puck. Over the years, other clients have included Lauren Bacall, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbra Streisand, Cher, Milton Berle, Michael Eisner, Richard Burton and Burt Reynolds. One von Kickel cake also went to President Clinton for his 50th birthday, with the president’s portrait on top. Other cakes have appeared in films, including “Naked Gun,” “Sizzle,” “Crimson Tide” and “10.”

Still, von Kickel has a practical, down-to-earth attitude, and he refuses to become star-struck. For an apron, he uses an old brown towel. And when he eats cake (which he rarely does), he prefers his chocolate fudge.

“I don’t make crappy white cake. Puh-leease,” he says, taking a drag on his cigarette. “That’s for supermarkets.”

Not for supermarkets, however, are von Kickel’s X-rated cakes, examples of which can be found in one of the thick photo albums on his counter.

“I don’t do anything traditional,” von Kickel repeats matter-of-factly.

Just then, true to his word, a customer enters the shop. Approaching the counter, she whispers, “I’m here to get the boob.”

“Oh, yes,” von Kickel says, and he disappears into the back to get his latest masterpiece.

Cake and Art, 8709 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, (310) 657-8694. Cakes from $15 to $5,000.