Naked, raw, and real. The understated elegance that sweeps every Migalha Doce cake is a work of art.

Cakes

Sep 14

Written By A+V

Sandra Bernardo’s beginnings in fashion, architecture, and graphic design are echoed in the textures and culpturesque forms she creates for her couples.

Words by Mackenzie Sylvester

Naked, raw, and real. The understated elegance that sweeps every Migalha Doce cake is a work of art. Sandra’s beginnings in fashion, architecture, and graphic design are echoed in the textures and sculpturesque forms she creates for her couples. The Portugal-based designer started with a dessert blog where she flexed her food styling and food photography muscles but felt as though something was missing. She began experimenting with naked cakes, old family recipes, and infusing her artistic background and before long, she became known as Portugal’s “queen of naked cakes.”

Her highly technical naked cakes are anything but plain. “I draw inspiration in a unique way from the smallest, but beautiful things that surround us,” she says, noting the way ceramic works must be hand-molded, the lines and shapes of minimalist architecture, the minute details of plaster paintings, and the textures of stones, plants, and flowers. “Nature is an endless well of inspiration and meaning,” she says. It’s the way the bark of a tree or crinkled leaves feels against her palm, touching the elements of nature around her, “It makes me feel alive and part of it…I like to feel the thousand textures that exist and why I feel so good doing what I do: working with textures in my cakes. Because it’s a job that involves the senses.” When it comes to choosing a wedding cake, Sandra recommends couples think of it as a piece of art — an additional decorative element — rather than simply a confection to be consumed by guests. “A cake has to be delicious, but it deserves to be admired first with the eyes,” she notes. Each Migalha Doce design is customized to the couple with inspiration drawn from multiple sources. “Sometimes the couples already have an idea of what they want and usually share their cake inspiration,” Sandra explains, “I only use it as guidance, because I believe that every couple deserves their cake to be unique and not a copy of so many others, and there’s always a way to make it different.” Often, it’s the other wedding design elements that bring the piece to life: the dress, the invitations, the decor, the florals. “I love feeling the tingling in my fingertips as I go through different images in search of inspiration that makes me think ‘I can turn this into a cake.’”