Single-tier fondant cake with a soft textured stone finish, decorated with small orange citrus gumpaste fruits, green wafer paper leaves, and white wafer paper flowers, displayed on a dark cake stand against a moody dark navy blue background.

Gianne Itaralde

New York Pastry Professional & Cake Decorator

About

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The Baker

Gianne’s journey into pastry is shaped by family, culture, and creativity. Growing up in the Philippines around her family’s catering and events business, Acacia Alley, she learned early that food is a language of love and connection. After earning a business degree and exploring fields like aviation, car sales, and event styling to challenge herself and gain skills to grow the family business, she found her place in pastry at École Ducasse Manila, later refining her craft at The Peninsula Manila and The Mark Restaurant by Jean-Georges in New York City. Today, her work is guided by a wabi-sabi sensibility, embracing imperfection, authenticity, and the idea that each pastry can be both an artistic expression and a joyful act of sharing.

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The Creations

Entwined Entwined captures the quiet intimacy of two lives growing together. Stacked, offset tiers are wrapped in a climbing vine that moves through the cake like a living thread, bringing softness to its sculptural form. The textured ivory buttercream gives the piece depth and warmth, while the botanical line suggests connection, movement, and devotion. Created for a wedding, it reflects a kind of romance that feels steady, tender, and deeply rooted.	Citrus Against The Sea Citrus Against the Sea is inspired by Hermine Freiin von Preuschen’s Flowering Orange Branches and Azaleas in a Bronze Vase on a Southern Terrace by the Sea. Suspended citrus and upward movement echo its cascading branches, while marbled fondant suggests softened sky and open air. Two-toned wafer paper leaves add the depth of fading foliage, turning a fleeting bloom into an edible tribute to art, nature, and time.	A Year in Bloom A Year in Bloom reflects the first year of life as a gathering of small, tender moments, each simple on its own but meaningful together. The ornaments are placed with care, letting the design feel full without feeling crowded. It echoes love built through blurred mornings and nights, small hands growing surer, and routines becoming memories. The cake honors the first year as a slow season of growth, patience, and sweetness, made for a time that can only be remembered.
Still Life at First Light Still Life at First Light treats the wedding cake as a composed moment, not a spectacle. Inspired by still-life painting, its pearls, florals, and pattern sit in careful balance. The dark surface and pale tulips suggest the first hours of the day, before the ceremony begins, when meaning feels held in place. It reflects the pause before celebration, where details are noticed and anticipation gently gathers.	Sunlit Shore Sunlit Shore is a beach wedding cake inspired by the calm warmth of the coast at golden hour. Its offset tiers and textured ivory finish reflect the raw beauty of sea-worn surfaces, while the golden sugar flowers bring in the sunlit tones of late afternoon by the water. Rather than leaning nautical, the design focuses on movement, texture, and atmosphere, capturing the kind of seaside romance that feels natural, elegant, and quietly modern.	Rosette Heirloom Rosette Heirloom draws from historic Lambeth piping and traditional celebration cakes, using techniques shared through making over time. Each element is piped by hand, allowing subtle variations in form and pressure to remain visible. The cake carries a sense of familiarity that feels inherited, belonging to a tradition sustained through care.
Choux Suspiro de Limeña Inspired by suspiro de limeña, a classic Peruvian dessert of manjarblanco & port wine meringue. Manjar de lúcuma is used twice, as a chantilly & a filling, to carry the same flavor in different forms. The traditional soft meringue topping is reimagined as crisp meringue shards for added texture. The cinnamon milk chocolate ganache nods to the warm spice of the original. Components: choux, meringue, manjar de lúcuma chantilly, manjar de lúcuma, cinnamon milk chocolate ganache	A Self-Made Spring A Self-Made Spring draws from oil paintings where thick petals seem to jump off the canvas. Coral buttercream flowers rise from an ivory surface, with green leaves and soft piped borders adding movement and depth. The cake treats spring as something shaped by hand, where growth is built through effort, care, and small gestures. It celebrates making your own season, even before the world fully blooms.	Once Upon a Lullaby Like a lullaby for a little girl drifting into dreams, this cake returns to childhood wonder, when magic felt real and every imagined world seemed close enough to touch. Soft hues, delicate shapes, and intricate piping create a dreamlike scene of innocence and possibility, celebrating those fleeting moments when dreams feel vivid, alive, and worth carrying with us at any age.
Where The Grass Was Always Green This cake interprets childhood memory through the familiar landscape of a baseball field. Densely piped green buttercream mimics grass underfoot, imperfect and tactile, while the sculpted bat and ball rest as objects of nostalgia rather than spectacle. By removing motion, the piece turns play into reflection, honoring early rituals, belonging, and the simple places where memory begins.	Something Borrowed from Spring Pale buttercream and a gentle floral arrangement define Something Borrowed from Spring, a cake designed for weddings that favor tradition interpreted with a lighter hand — familiar in feeling, softened in form, and meant to sit quietly within the celebration.	Love in Lambeth This cake draws from Lambeth piping, an English overpiping tradition rooted in early twentieth-century celebration cakes. Layered buttercream borders form a heart-shaped frame, where repetition becomes care and time becomes visible. A muted palette lets the piping’s structure lead, reflecting love as something built slowly through small gestures, steady devotion, and care given without rush.
Impasto in Pastel Impasto in Pastel treats buttercream as an expressive surface, shaped by the language of impasto painting. Thick piped flowers hold traces of pressure, movement, and pause, with lavender, blush, and spring green set against ivory. The design embraces irregularity, letting each form feel worked by hand and gently alive. Celebration here is not perfect symmetry, but something felt, layered, and lived in.	Between Vows & Forever This cake lives in the moment after vows are spoken — when the room grows quiet and the future feels close. Finished in ivory buttercream, its Lambeth piping moves with a gentle rhythm, holding the form in balance and grace. It honors love as a choice made aloud, and forever as something just beginning.

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Features & Publications

A recipe passed down: The mothers behind Acacia Alley's three-decade legacy	Leaf Your Mark [Tutorial]	Why Modern Pastry Is Moving Toward Intentional Imperfection
‘ Harvest of Hope’ dinner reaps P7.5m	Restaurant and catering service celebrate 30 years of reinvention	Gianne Itaralde: That balance — between control and freedom — gives my creations depth and soul.
Interview with Gianne Itaralde	Still Life at First Light: Interview with Gianne Itaralde	Once Upon a Lullaby by Gianne Itaralde
Rosette Heirloom by Gianne Itaralde