By Gabriela Resto-Montero
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER EAST SIDE — Thirty years ago, Bill Schutz, the baker at Creative Cakes, made a cake decorated to look like a package of Pampers diapers for a customer's baby shower.
A few weeks ago, that customer's grown daughter returned to Schutz's shop at 400 East 74th Street to order a slightly more modern and upscale version of that cake for her own baby shower — a cake designed to look like a Chanel baby bag.
Now in his 30th year crafting one-of-a-kind cakes, Schutz, 53, has become a part of the community by marking the most personal moments in his customer's lives. The married Long Island native specializes in chocolate fudge and buttercream frosting cakes sculpted into the shapes and designs dreamed up by his customers.
"I just love the reaction when people pick it up," he said of what has kept him in cakes all these years.
Over the years, Schutz has baked golf bags, cars, stages and, on more than a few occasions, Yankee Stadium.
The custom-made cakes range in price from $350 for a small cake that feeds 25 to $900 for large cakes for 100.
Photos of stars like Alec Baldwin, Sarah Jessica Parker and Cindy Crawford savoring Schutz's cakes line his small store, where he works alone and churns out about 15 cakes a week at his busiest.
Schutz stumbled into cake making just out of college, where he studied biology in the hopes of becoming a veterinarian. He jumped in to help the then-owner of Creative Cakes when she went on maternity leave in 1979 and hasn't moved from East 74th Street since.
The television shows "Ace of Cakes" and "Cake Boss" have popularized custom cakes, but Schutz, who took over as sole owner of Creative Cakes in 1986, said that all of his cakes are edible and don't include Styrofoam or fondant, like those on the TV shows.
"I've been doing it since before most of these people," he said.
After all this time on his own, Schutz said he'd consider taking on an assistant to help out, adding that it always helps to bring in new ideas.
"I've been doing this for 30 years," he said. "It's like, what am I going to make this year?"
