NAOMI APPEL — S C I E N C E T E A C H E R
Specialty Baking
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ustom cookie bouquets, wedding and specialevent cakes, cake pops, fancy cupcakes, elaborate gingerbread houses: All of these are part of science teacher Naomi Appel’s baking and decorating repertoire. Her creations always come out looking — and tasting — perfect, with meticulous detail and finesse. When Naomi was growing up, she loved to watch one of her neighbors make fancy cakes for weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, and other occasions. “I’ve always loved to do craft projects and to make things with my hands,” Naomi says, and she aspired to learn the art of specialty baking. One summer early in her Loomis career, Naomi decided to apprentice with a baker, and after making many inquiries, she was invited to do a summer internship with Jill Adams at The Cake Studio in Brooklyn, New York. Among the many skills she learned that fun summer were how to create and use real buttercream frosting, how to use fondant, and how to construct cake sculptures using Rice Krispie treats as the building blocks.
bouquets, and collections of farm animals, chemistry lab equipment, and other creatively themed cookies. A bouquet she created for Andrew’s 50th birthday featured cookies marked with different events that occurred in 1966, the year he was born. Naomi also has made wedding cakes for friends and others who have commissioned her talent. Her dream project, she says, is a “very elaborate
gingerbread house to enter into a gingerbread house competition.” She and a friend used to make fancy gingerbread houses every Christmas and decorate them down to tiny details such as fence railings and sugar windows. So far, between teaching chemistry and advanced biology, training for and running marathons, and chasing around her and Andrew’s young daughter, Emily, Naomi hasn’t found the time to design, build, and
decorate a competition-ready gingerbread house. She also hopes to learn how to create flowers out of gum paste or buttercream frosting, perhaps to landscape that dream gingerbread house some day.
Naomi’s favorite projects are cookie bouquets. She had received a cookie bouquet when she graduated from eighth grade but didn’t make one herself until about seven years ago, when she created a cookie bouquet for the birthday of her now-husband, Andrew Bartlett, a math teacher at Loomis. “He loves cookies, and I love art and baking, so it seemed to be a perfect idea,” she says. Since then she has made cookie bouquets for many people and occasions, including bouquets of heart cookies for Valentine’s Day, egg-shaped cookies for Easter, clusters of Halloween-themed cookies, dog-shaped cookie 29