First Posted: 8/9/2013

Emma Jean Dente says her husband gets his best ideas in church.

“That’s where the Lord talks to me,” Biagio Dente said, “and this time he told me to bake a cake.”

Dente, a certified executive chef and member of the American Academy of Chef’s Hall of Fame, is baking a 4-feet in diameter cake to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Pittston Tomato Festival. It will be part of the festival’s opening ceremonies on Thursday evening, Aug. 15, and will feed about 800, Dente said.

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The cake, a smaller version (15 inches in diameter) of which is pictured here and on the front page of today’s Sunday Dispatch, not only will look like a tomato but taste a bit like one too.

Dente said there will be fresh tomatoes in the batter and the cake will be frosted with a tomato-flavored butter cream icing.

The cake will be baked by Dente’s son, Blaise Alan Dente, also a member of the American Culinary Federation and an honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Chefs. Emma Jean Dente will provide the cake’s decorations.

Dente said it will take some 40 pounds of flour to make the cake.

Biagio Dente has been involved with the Pittston Tomato Festival from the start. “The original layout for the grounds was my idea,” he said. In 2009, he was named festival grand marshal.

“I’ve been in business 50 years,” Biagio Dente said, “and this tomato cake will be a first.”

The festival opens Thursday at 5 p.m. and the 30th anniversary celebration will be at 6 on the bandstand.