FLORA AGHABABYAN – TOP WINNER OF GRAND NATIONAL WEDDING CAKE COMPETITION Las Vegas cake artist Flora Aghababyan was the top winner of this year's Grand National Wedding Cake competition at the Tulsa State Fair. In person, Flora Aghababyan was one of the most humble contestants at the competition. Her cake, depicting artwork and architectural elements of the Ettal Abbey monastery in Germany, wasn't humble at all. The intricate painting of angels adorning a fondant dome - white cherubs that look ceramic instead of gum paste, and the hundreds of painstaking details that cover the cake - are the reasons Aghababyan won the grand prize in the wedding cake competition this year. Ten years ago, Aghababyan had just arrived in the United States from Armenia, not speaking a word of English, trying to support herself and her daughter. Her career in her homeland was as a dancer, not a baker, but even then she made cakes for friends and family from her home. She worked in an Armenian bakery in the United States, and someone gave her a cake-decorating book by Kerry Vincent, who is also director of the Oklahoma State Sugar Art Show. Not being able to read English, all Aghababyan could do was study the pictures. "I took Kerry's book and just looked at it and started copying it," she said. Aghababyan was working at the Bellagio Hotel bakery in Las Vegas when Vincent visited the hotel and saw her cakes in the window and asked to see the baker. Since then the two have been friends, and three years ago Aghababyan entered the wedding cake competition held in Tulsa for the first time. Last year she took home the second runner-up prize and this year the grand prize. "I never thought I would go to the U.S. and enter these shows," said Aghababyan, who is now a cake artist at Wynn Las Vegas. "I like this challenge and to be surrounded by all these artists. Just to be here to talk to the people." | 
