From Concerts to Cupcakes: How an UWSer Became a Baking Virtuoso; ‘I Took Myself Seriously’

By Tracy Zwick

Navah Perlman may be the consummate Upper West Sider. A mother of four in her 50s, she lives in the same Riverside Drive co-op building where both she and her husband grew up. “I carpooled to kindergarten with my future sister-in-law, who’d complain about her annoying brother,” she laughed.

That “annoying brother,” now Perlman’s husband, has been best friends with Perlman’s own brother since they were schoolboys at the Collegiate School on the Upper West Side. Naturally, he and his family still live in the building too.  

Perlman’s famous father, world-renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman, met her mother when they were in the same violin studio at the UWS’s Juilliard School. Growing up steeped in music and culture, Perlman knew early on that she wanted to become a professional pianist – and she did. But she never imagined her sweet tooth and preferred downtime activity – baking – would lead to a second career later in life. 

 During the 2020 pandemic lockdown, with concerts canceled, Perlman found herself unable to find contentment doing jigsaw puzzles. “I’m not great at doing nothing,” she said. So, she put the puzzles away and taught herself some simple cake-decorating techniques, and Frosted by Navah was born. With the help of her teenage children, “my biggest cheerleaders,” an Instagram account and website were created and the orders started rolling in.

 From the start, Perlman has had more orders than she can process for her lush landscapes of sculpted buttercream gardens, in artisanally-crafted frosting shades. The business has grown by word of mouth, media attention and her Instagram account, which has nearly 13,000 followers. 

Though she sells cakes and cupcakes exclusively, Perlman bakes cookies, babka, challah, and other treats for her family. Her parents live just a few blocks away and often join her for Shabbat. She still laments the 1987 loss of Lichtman’s Bakery on Amsterdam and 86th Street, which she says had the best bread and cake in the city and the challah of her youth, but she’s pleased with her own. It’s a staple of Perlman Friday night family dinners. Cake is not.

 Perlman sheepishly confessed: “I have a huge sweet tooth, but my favorite thing to eat isn’t cake. It’s ice cream.” 

 WSR sat down with Perlman in her UWS kitchen to learn about her transition from music to baking.  

Has your musical training helped with your cake practice?

Making these cakes is similar artistically and creatively to making music. Each time I played a piece on piano I’d play the same notes, but it wasn’t the same performance every time. One night it’d be a little faster, or more joyful or melancholy. Each was a different expression. Same with cakes. No two are the exact same. Each is a custom performance and only the recipient, like people in the recital audience, gets that  performance. They are bespoke custom moments.

How about your background in art history? Has that helped?

 I was an art history major at Brown. I never thought I’d be using my art history expertise for baking, but I have! I posted a cake on my Instagram feed recently that was for a client who wanted an iteration of Van Gogh’s “Irises.”

Has the physical part of piano playing, the manual dexterity piece, translated to cake decorating?

 I’m sure that’s why I picked up decorating so quickly. The control I practiced as a pianist — doing one thing with one hand and something completely different with the other hand simultaneously – is so important in this work. The nuance and coordination is second nature to me, knowing what pressure to apply and what my hands can do. It’s like I trained for this my whole life.

 How’d you navigate the business side? 

I didn’t know what a business would look like when I started, but I took myself seriously. I tested recipes and wrote everything down so I could reliably reproduce items. My husband has an MBA, and he said: “you don’t know where this is gonna go. Let’s not worry about official things yet.” My kids mobilized me to bake cakes even before I was ready to sell them; to get them photographed and kick-off the website and Instagram account. All my business has come from that online presence. 

How long does it take to make one of your celebration cakes?

 I’ve never timed it from beginning to end, because I do it in steps: bake the cake, make the fillings, make and color the frostings, pipe the flowers, assemble the cake, and on and on. A lot of the flowers can be done in advance and popped in the freezer or refrigerator. I’d guess if I had to make a cake in a day it’d take about 8 hours.

 What about music? Are you still playing? 

I’m not performing or practicing anymore. I’m scratching the same itch now that I’ve been scratching my whole life with music – exercising that same muscle of doing something expressive.

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