Titillating Sweets

Who says you can't have your cake and eat it too?

One bakery in Cambridge gives customers a chance to realize their sweetest and most erotic dreams.

At first glance the interior of Sweet Touch cafe and bakery seems an innocuous place. It's cozy--the sort of place where you might want to take your mom for a quick lunch and a homemade brownie. But a more careful inspection reveals a few items that might make mom choke on her Swiss roll.

Sweet Touch is no ordinary bakery. A discrete sign in the front window informs discriminating customers that they can also special order purchase X-rated cakes.

The cafe's unassuming display case hints at sweet and tantalizingly treats for those who prefer prosaic pastry.

Nestled between a flowery wedding cake and a Dick Tracy cake is an item most people look forward to only after eating too much cake and perhaps having a few too many drinks--a toilet. And even more titillating are a pair of scantily-clad breasts which protrude perkily from a layer cake on the top shelf.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

Sweet Touch's owner and manager Paul Feldman invites the serious cake buyer to step behind the counter to an exciting enclave of dietary depravity.

Warning: Parental Discretion Advised

Feldman's masterpieces are not for the faint of heart.

More than 100 glossy photos of past triumphs line swinging cork board panels which allow prospective party-goers to peruse possible decoration ideas or even to come up with ideas of their own.

Some of the more stunning selections include incredible feats of human contortion, private body parts in pastel-iced splendor, and animal acts like you never saw on David Letterman.

"We'll do anything," Feldman boasts proudly. "We've never refused a cake."

Feldman, who manages the front operation as well as baking and decorating the 50 to 100 cakes Sweet Touch sells each week, got his start 12 years ago when a friend introduced him to the pleasures of a pastry bag.

"A friend showed me how to do [the cake decorations] and then I just sort of experimented," Feldman explains.

At first Feldman says the shop was a small storefront in Somerville with no retail operation and no tables and chairs, but as the cakes became more popular he decided to expand the business and move to Cambridge.

Because some of Sweet Touch's North Cambridge neighbors might object to the nature of his artwork, Feldman says he decided to move the cakes to the back room and to specialize in a more mainstream cuisine.

"Because of the location of the building, we had to get into retail food," Feldman explains.

This emphasis on retail caused Feldman to reduce the delivery aspect of his business, which is now almost nonexistent. Customers must stop in to pick up Feldman's creations. (Perhaps this is best: a misdelivery could prove very embarrassing for all concerned.)

"What's Your Pleasure?"

Despite its hidden location, Sweet Touch has succeeded in cornering the market on erotic cake sales.

Feldman knows of only one other Boston-area bakery offering such delectable diversions. And his Newbury Street competition only offers a few, preselected options, he says.

"We're the only cake shop I know of who will do custom orders," Feldman says.

You name it, he'll do it.

Visitors to Sweet Touch last week turned the panels looking for an idea for their boss's office birthday party.

The two women, who asked to be unnamed but said they worked for a Boston-based telemarketing firm, said Feldman's kinky cakes have become an office tradition.

"People in our office love it," one woman said, "They think it's the funniest thing."

The telemarketers said their office is so laid back that "we got that one for our woman boss last year," she said, pointing to an erect male organ perched atop a white layer cake.

"And we got our boss, who's a man, the motor cycle one," she added indicating a cake which commemorates the pleasures of sex and cycles.

"It's too bad he doesn't have something with a telephone," the other remarked.

Feldman would be the first to tell them--it can be done. The master of cake sculpture has risen to many a challenging occasion.

"We once made a full-size person," he says, "But that was one of our very first cakes."

However most customers find such elaborate styles cost-prohibitive.

A cake so large would cost a several hundred dollars and require hours of work, while the average cake costs about $30 and takes about a half hour to frost, Feldman says.

Some customers have investigated cakes with women jumping out of them, but have balked when Feldman told them that such an effort would cost at least four or five hundred dollars.

While you might think Feldman would be hard pressed for orders with such a novelty, he says business is booming.

"We've got enough business," Feldman says, "We even stopped advertising about three years ago.

Hey, Buddy, Wanna Buy a Cake?

How then do customers know what goes on in the little back room? Feldman supposes "all the regular customers see the signs in the window."

And there are always referrals.

Friends who partake of Sweet Touch's specialties at bachelor or birthday parties frequently come to the store when they want to "send something special."

Visitors to the bakery last week said they had heard about the cakes from friends and even from family.

While most of his goodies are definitely not for the kids, Feldman himself is a family man.

He says his family has no objections to his line of work, and his 18 year old son "grew up arond it."

"They don't think any thing of it," he says.

Feldman says he even made cakes for his son's birthday parties when he was growing up: "Regular cakes," he chuckles.

And what, besides sexy subject matter, goes into these erotic cakes?

Customers can choose between chocolate and vanilla layer cakes in a variety of sizes. Feldman then decorates the cakes with molded chocolate genitalia or with iced pictures of various designs.

Customers can also request specially formed cakes in almost any shape and size.

While some attempts are truly unique, Feldman says most customer orders center around male genitalia and female breasts.

Many of the iced cakes portray scenes of different sexual positions, he says.

One cake, which might be served at an informal holiday gathering, depicts a Santa dropping more than some presents.

While holiday cakes are strictly seasonal, there are many year-round occasions which call for more than innocuous blessings.

One cake reads, "Make a Wish and Blow," another "Happy Birthday Bob--The Biggest Prick We Know."

Those not wishing to offend can choose cakes which entice the recipient or cakes which celebrate friendship and camaraderie.

One scene shows a group of friends or co-workers engaged in questionable "party antics." The iced caption reads, "Happy Birthday, From the Whole Gang."

Other cakes are strictly zany. One rather off-the-wall confection displays a man and woman locked in a Monty Pythonesque embrace and asks, "Have You Played Your Number Today?"

And the Lorenna Bobbits of the world have been taking out their aggressions on Feldman's cakes for years.

One concoction displays a bandaged organ and reads "Get Well Soon." Another depicts a woman climbing a male organ and says, "Good Luck Getting Over the Hill."

For those nonplused by Feldman's prior efforts, the walls of the tiny cubicle are adorned with a liberal smattering of pinups from which the adventurous cake buyer can supposedly seek creative inspiration.

The cakes described above are just a smattering of the pleasures which lie in store for visitors at Sweet Touch. While most customers wouldn't brings their moms, Feldman says plenty of Harvard parents order "regular" cakes for their children.

Those wishing to see Feldman's selection first hand can take the 69 bus (of course) from Johnston Gate and get off at the corner of Cambridge and Third. Sweet Touch is located at 231 Cambridge St.