The Cake Don, of Huntington, creates massive cake for Knicks president
The three-tier cake was made by Huntington's The Cake Don and delivered to a Manhattan party with Knicks president Leon Rose in under 10 hours.
Credit: Don Donneruno
Ten hours. That’s how long Don Donneruno and his team at Huntington’s The Cake Don had to bake and deliver a multitiered cake for a party in Manhattan for Knicks NBA champions president Leon Rose.
The multitiered vanilla cake with dulce de leche filling was topped with large basketball. The first tier included the image of the Time magazine cover with the team celebrating its championship win. The next tier depicted an image of the front of the NBA champions' hat the team was going to wear at the ticker-tape parade in Manhattan on Thursday. The second-to-last tier featured the Knicks logo, and the final tier was a three-dimensional breakdown of New York with images of Madison Square Garden, the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building and Champions Way, which was renamed on Thursday during the championship parade.
Donneruno received the text order to create the cake at 7:58 a.m. Wednesday and had to deliver it by 7 p.m. in Manhattan. Despite the time crunch, he said he knew he had to jump on the opportunity.
Don Donneruno, of Huntington's The Cake Don, drops off cupcakes for the Knicks. Credit: Don Donneruno
"This is one of the busiest weeks of the year for us, graduation, wedding season," he said. "We really got to work and we’re good under pressure. I have the most amazing team."
The cake was just the pinnacle of "a couple of great weeks with the Knicks," Donneruno said. A few weeks ago, the family of Knicks shooting guard Jordan Clarkson reached out to Donneruno and ordered a cake for the NBA player's 34th birthday, he said.
The cake he designed for that celebration was a Louis Vuitton briefcase with a large Knicks logo on it and $100 bills overflowing from the inside.
A couple of days later for Game 3 of the NBA Finals, the game that President Donald Trump attended, with security at an all-time high, the Knicks' front office at Madison Square Garden ordered 4 ounces of Knicks-themed cupcakes to be delivered there.
"I hope it’s a long, beautiful relationship with the Knicks now," Donneruno said. "Anytime they need anything, I hope they call me."
The Cake Don was the second Long Island bakery tapped to deliver sweet treats for celebrations for the newest NBA champions. The owners of West Hempstead’s Sydney’s Sweets provided baked goods for the championship party at Flyfish Club on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Newsday previously reported.
"New York really needed this," Donneruno said. "The energy has been very interesting the past year or so, two years. Everybody’s very divided all the time. But the Knicks ... it just feels like we’re all on the same team again, for once."
The Cake Don, 605 W. Jericho Tpke., Huntington, thecakedoncreations.com, 631-377-5477. Open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday and 9 to 4 p.m. on Sunday.
Melissa Azofeifa is a restaurants reporter with Newsday's FeedMe team. Having grown up on Long Island, she loves talking about food and its impact on culture. A graduate of Stony Brook University, she joined Newsday in the fall of 2024.
