Buttercream Ruffle Flower Cake + Tutorial!

I made this cake this past weekend for a dear friend of ours, Daisy Moffatt - owner of Daisy Moffatt Photography.  Truth be told, I was actually conspiring with her husband, Beau, to make her a cake with a surprise design.

As I looked through Daisy's Pinterest board, I saw lots of romantic cakes with frilly ruffles and fantasy flowers.  But almost every one was mostly fondant.  Knowing that most people aren't huge fondant fans, I got out some icing tips to see if I could possibly recreate those ruffles in buttercream.  It didn't take long before I had worked out a technique that I liked.

As I was putting the cake together, I just kept liking it more and more and I realized I was really on to something.  So as soon as Chad got home we got out the video camera and shot some footage so we could present you with a very quick mini video tutorial.  I didn't even get ready because I really didn't intend to be seen on camera.  One thing lead to another and before I knew it we were in full fledged video tutorial mode!

Here it is in all it's glory!  LOL!!   Enjoy and let me know if you have any questions!

Buttercream Ruffle Flower Tutorial
 

I was featured in Cake Central Magazine!

I have been holding on to this little secret for several weeks and it has just about burned a hole in me!!  Several weeks ago I received an e-mail from Jackie at Jackie at Cake Central.  They wanted me to submit a cake for publication in Cake Central magazine.  I answered her back so fast I think the e-mail caught on fire!!

The theme I was asked to submit for was "Minimally Decorated with a Splash of Red".  Now, that's a hard theme for any decorator that wants to showcase their skills to the rest of the decorating community.  But I vowed that I would do my best to keep the design simple.

I was really happy with the way this design turned out.  I have read Cake Wrecks too many times and seen too many balloon cakes that turned out looking like something... less sophisticated.

I actually made 2 cakes to submit, and Cake Central put both in the magazine.  I was worried that they wouldn't one cake or the other, so I submitted a second cake.

This was the other cake I submitted.  I had conceived this design a while back, but with different colors.

I only had a couple of weeks from initial request to submission to get these cakes ready.  I wished I had more time to work on them.

How many of you receive Cake Central?  I wished it was still a real live printed magazine, but I'm still glad to be published in a leading industry magazine.

Special Thanks go out to Mike Houston of Houston Studios for taking such great photos to submit to the magazine.

Y'all have a great week!

Wedding Cakes in Rustic Locales

At least in my area, barn weddings seem to have become very popular.  Maybe the rustic setting is coming back in style, or maybe it's easier on the budget, but I am delivering more cakes to these rustic locales than ever before.  I delivered this cake just this weekend to the barn at High Point Farms.  This design was based on a cake the bride found on The Knot, and I thought it worked very well in the rustic setting.

There are some things you have to be aware if you're planning on having or making a cake for a barn wedding.  There are many types of "barns" - some are nicer than your house; some don't have fully formed walls.  See the light coming through in the background of the photo?  That's sunlight from the outside world.  If you don't specifically know the barn, you should treat it like you would an outside cake.  I recommended fondant for this cake and I'm so glad I did.  When we arrived the barn was cool enough, but it had sawdust / wood shaving floors.  Every time we stepped, you could see sawdust floating through the air.  If I had delivered a buttercream cake, those guests would have had extra fiber in their dessert for sure!

Now for this cake... It was a 3-tier fondant cake, with a rose stencil on the bottom tier, and an extruded rope wrap on the top tier.  The flowers are gumpaste ranunculus in the bride's colors.  The toppers are small corn husk dolls that were made for the bride and groom.

As always, thanks for stopping by and have a great week! 

Crawfish Boil Birthday Cake

We had such a fun time making this cake.  My friend Amanda, that owns Divine Designs called me up recently and wanted a birthday cake for her husband James' 40th birthday.  When she mentioned that they had planned a crawfish boil, I immediately had a design in mind.

This is a 2-tier cake, with the entire top tier being an edible cooking pot.  The cake was wrapped in modeling chocolate and then painted with silver luster dust.  The lid and handles were also made from modeling chocolate.  The effect was really nice; people at the party thought it was actually a mini pot!

When we got ready to take our pictures, I was looking for a suitable cake stand, when Chaddy came into the kitchen with one of our big Calphalon pots.  I thought it made for the perfect cake stand to take our pictures on!