Two Maine sweets makers notched career highlights this summer as they teamed up to make a custom cake for Martha Stewart’s 85th birthday on Monday.

Big Fish Cake Studio owner Gabrielle Cote with the cake she made for Martha Stewart’s 85th birthday. The cake features a gold-dusted chocolate shell made by Sarah Burns at Chocolats Passion in Portland. (Courtesy of Big Fish Cake Studio)

Gabrielle Cote, owner of Big Fish Cake Studio in Saco, and Sarah Burns, co-owner of Chocolats Passion in Portland, collaborated on a triple-layer cake they designed to look like a container of night cream from Elm Biosciences, the skincare company Stewart co-founded.

Cote said officials from Elm had scouted cake makers in Maine and reached out to her a little over two weeks ago, based on her online portfolio. “They looked at my work and were super confident I would be able to pull this off.”

It’s peak wedding season, though, and Cote specializes in wedding cakes. Plus, she had a family vacation planned in Camden last week.

But how do you say no to Martha?

Cote put her other projects on hold and set about designing a cake featuring the lifestyle maven’s favorite flavors: coconut and lemon. She came up with a triple-layer coconut cake with lemon curd, coconut streusel, white chocolate whipped ganache and vanilla bean mousse.

Cote recruited Burns to create a cylindrical chocolate dome covered in gold luster dust that would go over the cake to make it look like the night cream container.

“Gabby sent me a message that went something like, ‘Hey, I’ve been asked to make Martha Stewart’s birthday cake and it needs a chocolate component, can you help me?” Burns recalled. “I took it to mean, like, the birthday cake Martha Stewart is maybe famous for making. I called her and she was like, ‘No no, Martha Stewart’s birthday cake.'”

Burns spent four days putting the 5-pound shell together, assisted in part by molds from 3D printers. “I feel like an amateur chocolate engineer at this point,” she said. “There’s very little information out there about building chocolate sculptures. It was trial by error for much of this.”

Cote baked the cake and prepared the fillings and accompaniments during her vacation, using the well-equipped kitchen at a friend’s house in Camden. Then, rather than courting disaster by driving the completed cake three hours north to Stewart’s property outside Bar Harbor, she took the components up to a hotel suite kitchen in Bar Harbor and assembled them there, delivering the finished product Sunday.

Elm posted an Instagram reel with highlights from the cake-making process. Cote said they haven’t heard feedback yet directly from Martha, but the Elm post gave big thanks to her and Burns for their efforts.

“The whole process became a lot more than just making a cake,” Burns said. “I feel like at this point in my career, I’ve proved something to myself, and I know that Sarah feels the same way. It really does feel like such an accomplishment. And an honor.”