Cup a Dee Cakes Blog

Sydney's Sweet 16 Cake

2012-01-27T09:00:00.001-05:00

When I started selling cakes, I only made birthday cakes until I felt confident enough to make a wedding cake. I think I made one wedding cake my first year in business and I was a nervous wreck!

Now, it's the total opposite as I only do a handful of birthday cakes each year and they tend to be freebies to vendors or friends. This cake was for a photographers daughter who loves to bake and came to visit me when they picked up the cake. She was so sweet and genuinely interested in talking to me and seeing my kitchen (unusual for a teenager). Had I known, we could have made it together!

When I get a birthday cake order from a friend or vendor, I take the order like they are any regular customer. I try to get an idea of what they want, size, and budget. That way I can decide if I want to gift the cake or discount it. I read on Earlene Moore's website one time that she does this with her family and wedding cakes. She said that in her experience, if you tell people something is going to be free, they tend to take advantage of your generosity, whether intentionally or not. In Earlene's case, in the beginning they picked the most expensive cake with large amounts of gumpaste flowers and she learned her lesson. Now, I've never had that happen to us but it's because I took her advice from the beginning.

I don't think any of my fellow wedding professionals expect a free cake. That's not why they come to me. I have always charged, but now if I can afford to, I like to repay the people that send me business and talk so kindly about me to brides. Truth is, I would do this all for free if I could, as would Chaddy. We really do enjoy all aspects of this business. I'm really not blogging about this cake am I? Well, sort of... right? My point is that no matter what you "do" or "sell" don't let people take advantage of you by accident. Be up front from the beginning by quoting a price or saying that you can offer a discount but can't work for free. You never want to be in a position that you are resentful or a friend/colleague is mad. Cakes are mostly time, but time IS money!

So that you got a little something "cakey" out of this I'll tell you how I made this cake. Go to YouTube and type in "buttercream ruffles" or something similar. There are many videos that show this new and popular technique. It was super easy but used a lot of buttercream. I used a BIG rose tip, the #127. The "flowers" are just gumpaste circles that I thinned and ruffled the edges with a ball tool on a foam mat. Real easy, just try it! I let them dry in different size cups/flower formers so that they would have some variation. Glued the circles together with dab or water and added pearl centers with a dot of buttercream. Since there was no "flat" surface I choose to do the birthday girls name on the little circles floating on the edge. It's not like you can pipe a name on top of these ruffles and it look like anything. I'm tired of plaques and banners on my cakes, so voila! Circles! I know it's not all that, but sometimes you have to "embellish" your blogs! :)

Have an awesome weekend!

Super Bling Rhinestone Wedding Cake w/ Stand

2012-01-24T08:56:00.003-05:00

2012 is continuing to bring in the bling, and I have to tell you, I really like it! The more it sparkles, the bigger I smile! I think there's just something about that sparkle, that brilliant jeweled fire that just catches a woman's eye and warms her heart!

With that being said, it's no wonder it's a popular design for wedding cakes. In this cake we used rhinestones, as well as brooches and the topper that the bride provided to bring some extra pizazz and bling to this cake. The rest of the cake we kept understated, with tone-on-tone bows, pearls, and fondant swags.

A few months ago I got a tremendous deal on some 24-row rhinestones from Bead & Trim. I finally decide that they would malke for a beautiful cake stand! So I called up my brother at My Woodworking Solutions and we set out to design a stand. Luckily, he finished it just days before this cake was to be delivered . I know this picture doesn't do it justice, but it really does sparkle! It's like sitting your cake on top of a disco ball! And it is designed really well also. The stand as you see it is in 3 pieces; a top, the main middle bling piece, and the bottom. Since the rhinestones are expensive this gives you the opportunity to use the stand with multiple (lower cost) tops and bottoms to get a variety of effects. He came up with the idea and I really liked it! I'm not sure if he offering this stand for sale, but if you're interested, hit him up on Etsy!

Alabama Crimson Tide Grooms Cake

2012-01-20T09:00:00.003-05:00

When I meet with couples, there's always a period of time where we discuss the groom's interest and what he would like represented in his groom's cake.

Not always, but often, his interests will lead into sports, and sometimes, just sometimes, I can see a glint of horror in the bride's eyes. Now I can't be certain, but I think it might be her fear of a tacky sports cake bringing down her otherwise elegant wedding.

Now that was not the case with this couple, but there's always tasteful ways to bring a groom's interests into his groom's cake.

Take this cake for example. Our groom was a big Alabama fan, so we brought in some of the colors in the banding, and I printed a houndstooth pattern on edible image sheets to bring in that element. The logos were also printed on edible images and were kept small and understated. And we topped it off with mini Crimson Tide helmet.

By the way, I have entered my World of Warcraft Beer Stein cake into InkEdibles Edible image contest. They are looking for a cake that makes the best use of their edible images. Right now, there's a Hello Kitty cake that's really kicking my butt! I would appreciate your vote - just click this link and then click "Like" next to my stein cake. It uses Facebook so there's no registration or hassle. Thanks! Y'all have a great weekend!

Chuck Taylor Converse Shoes Grooms Cake

2012-01-17T09:00:00.001-05:00

I made these shoe cakes for Matt and Nikki, a very happy couple in Dalton, GA this past weekend. The shoes were important, because the bridal party wore custom made Converses, so they had to match. The reception was at Stage 123, which is an extension of RockBridge Church. It was our first trip to this venue and it was really, really nice.

These shoes were pretty big, each one was about 16 inches long. I posted this cake to Cake Central yesterday, and folks there had on main question: "How did you do the stitching?" I tried several techniques that I was unhappy with, so I thought I would share what worked well for me.

I started by taking out my quilting embosser and used it, along with a ruler to make straight stitching lines, making sure I used enough pressure to make the stitches a little deeper than normal. Then I mixed up some white petal dust along with some PGA. Next, I worked in small swatches (about 5 inches at a time) and painted over the stitching. Afterwards, I took a damp paper towel and wiped over the area I had just painted. It removed all the white color except for inside the quilted bits. After trying MANY things, I was very happy with these results.

As always, I appreciate each one of you that visits and comments on my little blog! I hope you find the information I bring to you helpful!!

Golden Fork Award - Best Bakery in Dalton!

2012-01-13T09:00:00.003-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I received a call from the fine folks at Dalton Magazine and they informed me that we had been voted the "Best Bakery in Dalton" by the readers of Dalton and Whitfield County.

I remember reading about it several months ago and I even put the link on Facebook and asked my fans to vote for us but I had all but forgotten about it until they called.

We appreciate all the comments and compliments we get about the looks and the taste of our cake, but for our customers to vote us all the way to the top during this inaugural contest really means the world to us.

If you would like to read the issue, you can click here to see an online version. Even though the issue is all food-related, I don't think any of the Golden Fork winners were featured. Another bakery in Dalton got a nice article in this issue, so don't confuse her with me!

I know the blog has been a little light on cakes recently, but this has been a low-volume time for the bakery and I really don't think you want to hear about my year-end paperwork, organization, and tax preparation, right? Well, things are picking back up and I'll have some new cakes to show you next week - PROMISE!

Vendor Spotlight: Marco's Italian Bistro

2012-01-10T08:50:00.001-05:00

This past Sunday, Marco's Italian Bistro hosted a wedding vendor mixer where local area photographers, florists, DJs, event coordinators, and (yay!) bakers got to sample of Marco's best offerings.

This is the second time we have been to Marco's and each time the food and service has been excellent! And they make some great desserts too! Their tiramisu and creme brulee are some of the best I have had, and believe me, I've had my share of desserts!!

Owner Kevin Cummings and Executive Chef Roger Burrows have a real passion for food and the pedigrees to back it up. We met with and spoke to both of them about their passion for food. Chef Burrows said "I get paid paid everyday to do what most of you got into trouble as kids doing - playing with your food."

And Marco's is now on the cusp of offering catering for weddings and other outside clients.

Marco's is located at 417 Frazier Avenue in Chattanooga (North Shore Area) in the old Jet Stream Grill location. If you're in the area stop by and enjoy a delicious, authentic Italian meal! Tell'em we said "Hi!"

In the interest of full disclosure, our meal sampling on Sunday was provided free of charge, but it was not provided as payment for this posting. As foodies, we just love great food and want to share it with you.

Pearl and Ribbon Flower Birthday Cake

2012-01-06T09:00:00.004-05:00

There are a lot of cake people out there these days, but there are some that are stand out. Sometimes it's for pure skill, like Mike McCarey from Mikes Amazing Cake s. That man can make anything, and it's so clean! Some artists stand out for their distinct style. Have you seen the Cotton and Crumbs cakes? They have a lot of pictures on flickr.com. All her cakes are very "romantic and soft" to me. She does such a great job with her photography and backgrounds.

We look at these people as pure inspiration to help us develop our own style, from cakes to print ads to photography. It's a great undertaking and I don't think it can be done overnight. Whatever you do, do you have a distinct style and feel to your work? If it's important to you to project as certain style, then join me in this ongoing effort for 2012!

This little cake was a 6/9" for my friend Amanda who owns Divine Designs by Amanda. She is an amazing floral designer as well as friend and mom to a super sweet girl. She has a romantic but modern look/feel about her, that's my perception anyway so I wanted to make a cake that reflected that. "Cotton and Crumbs" inspired the romantic part of this cake.

The pearls were all made by using Fondarific that chills up well in the cooler so they keep their shape when you unmold them. The flowers are super simple, just ruffle some gumpaste circles with a ball tool and dry in shallow drying cups. There is a little half circle measure cup that comes with the new Purex laundry softener. I used it to form a few "cups" in pieces of aluminum foil. It's a good way to make as many drying cups as you need then throw them away when you are done. I attached the circles together with a little tylose glue and poof you have a circle flower.

Happy baking!

Ruffled Wedding Cake

2012-01-03T20:16:00.000-05:00

Most of the cakes we do are formulaic these days, at least it feels that way. Do I sound bored? Well, when most bridal cakes are white and include a monogram, diamond pattern, dots, and/or swirls it can get a little mundane. I am grateful for those cakes, don't get me wrong. They are my "bread and butter" and I don't have to stress or learn a new technique every week.

However, I was super glad to add a new design element to a couple of old standards, RUFFLES! Yes, fondant ruffles! I really was surprised how easy they are to do, just a little time consuming. Once you get a standard width and length, make a little template out of a cake box lid and cut away! The most important piece of advice I can give you for these is to use Fondarific brand fondant. It is just perfect for this application! It won't crack or dry out while you are working on it. I pinched a few pleats in each strip and then applied directly on a butter cream cake. Keeping the slant the same all the way around was a little challenging, but next time I'll just make a little triangle template to double check myself as I go. It shouldn't look uniform, so no worries :)

When all the ruffles where complete I airbrushed them with ultra silver/PGA mixture. The bride was very fashion oriented and a little flashy, but in a good way! The other accents are all dark purple, which like brown, you have to be very careful with because the dark colored accents end up photographing more black than anything. We delivered this cake to "The Mill" in Chattanooga, TN and it was a little dark there so I'm showing you pics that we took in the shop.

As you can see we also had to include buttercream diamond pattern and scrolls piping. The original design came from some ladies in Las Vegas, but for the life of me I can't find their names. I liked their design better because they used circles instead of diamonds but you can't have everything when it's not "your" cake. I did get to make silver RUFFLES! There were also luster dust stripes on the tier with the flower and on top of the bottom tier. They just didn't show up on this picture very well. I also had to make this butter cream cake with no borders to keep the clean look the bride wanted.

For those other cake people out there, do you try to encourage new and different designs? The right salesman could talk a bride into a pink wedding dress, but that doesn't mean she will be happy after the when she sees the pictures. I don't want to push, but I DO try to encourage. I have a "scrap book" that all my brides look through. Since they have seen most of my cakes from the website by the time they meet with me, I try to show other ideas from cakes that I would really like to make or just caught my eye.

I want to pull every cake with the regular formulaic designs out of the book so they'll stop picking them. Is that wrong? Cause I feel it coming :)

Black Bow Wedding with Brooch

2011-12-30T09:00:00.003-05:00

2012 will be here in just a few short days, and some of you may be planning on wearing a simple bow tie or a gem encrusted brooch as you make your way to parties on New Year's Eve.

This little buttercream beauty could ride right along with you. This was made for a wedding, but it's so elegant it could show up at any upscale New Year's Eve party and fit right in!

What do you do on New Year's Eve? Do you get out and ring in the New Year while partying? Do you watch Dick Clark and the ball drop from the comfort and safety of your own home? Or will you just go to bed and catch up with 2012 the next morning when you wake up?

Chaddy and I usually spend the night at home with a fancy meal and stay up until midnight. Sometimes we watch the TV specials, but sometimes we'll just cuddle up with a good movie.

Until next year, keep on baking!

World of Warcraft Stein Cake

2011-12-27T09:00:00.007-05:00

We made this cake a couple of weekends ago and this was the first cake where I applied the techniques I learned in Mike McCarey's cake structure class.

This was a fairly large cake, coming in at almost 2 feet tall, so it was going to need some support. Once the structure was completed (you'll get to see it at the end!) I started stacking cakes up around the center support. Once the cakes were all stacked, the stein got a nice coat of butter cream and I then wrapped the whole thing in a thin later of modeling chocolate. The top (gold) pieces of the stein were made from modeling chocolate as was the handle. I made all the handle pieces in half and then connected them around the copper structure underneath. The great thing about modeling chocolate is that it really will fuse back together and with just a little work will look very seamless.

The graphics around the stein was taken from an image sent to us by the groom. we thought just printing it out on edible image paper an wrapping it around the cake would be SO easy. It wasn't THAT easy. For starters, the make the image large enough, we had to print it across 6 pieces of paper and then piece it together. That went pretty good, but things in the back didn't come together so great at first. The graphics just didn't match up well at all. We printed another sheet physically big enough to fill in the gap and then I channeled my best Bob Ross and painted in a cave and some trees to bring the scene together. It looked good, especially for the "back" of the cake.

OK, so here's a picture of the structure we used on this cake. It's just a center wooden dowel rod with a length of copper tubing to act as a support for the handle. We just drilled a hole through the dowel and fed the copper tubing through it. Easy peasy, right?

I can say that when we started this cake we took a photo of the stein and blew it up to our dimensions. And yes, I looked a little crazy at tour local Home Depot with my HUGE stein picture. But an employee named Neil (who is a big Cake Boss fan) spotted me and we had a great time figuring out some options for the structure. We could just lay the picture down on a counter and lay everything out. It worked out very nicely.

And if this post weren't long enough already I got the sweetest e-mail from the bride on Christmas day. It read:

"Both of the cakes you made were AMAZING!!! We got sooooo many compliments on both and are even sending in photos of the groom's cake to World of Warcraft to put in their gallery. We had done so much searching to find a cake like what Clay wanted, but could never really find one that met up to what we wanted. Well you totally blew that out of the water and then some LOL. Some of the guests thought it was a sculpture at first and were in shock to find out it was a cake :D You truly did an over the top job. And then on top of the cakes being so beautiful and intricate, they tasted even better. We took some of the wedding cake with us on the honeymoon and even the Disney people were impressed by how amazing it looked and tasted. You made our dreams come to life in the most wonderful way. We can not thank you enough."

I couldn't have asked for a better gift on Christmas day! Be sure to stop back in on Friday for more adventures!!

UPDATE: As well as being featured on WOW Insider, This cake has been entered into InkEdibles February 2012 monthly edible image contest. Since you're already here I would certainly appreciate your vote. Simply click here and the click the "Like" button next to my cake. It uses Facebook so there's no signup or registration - Easy Peasy!

Happy Holly Days

2011-12-23T09:00:00.005-05:00

Well here we sit on Christmas Eve-Eve, and while Santa is just beginning to pack up his sleigh, things are winding down here at the bakery as we take a few days off to celebrate.

We already know we're on Santa's "NICE" list, I mean, with cake like this one how could we NOT be on the nice list!!

We made this wedding cake last weekend for a very sweet couple. We delivered it to the Dent House in Chattanooga, TN. The Dent House is a very nice venue, especially considering it's been around since 1854! They don't make them like that any more!!

As festive as this cake is, it was an easy cake to make, technique-wise. Rough-iced, to give it lots of texture, and bordered with gumpaste holly leaves and berries. The holly leaves got a smattering of gold luster dust, and I rolled the holly berries in red glitter disco dust. You know I HAVE to glam it up somehow, right?!!!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and happy and prosperous 2012! We'll be back next week with more cakey goodness so be sure to stop back in!

Christmas Ornament Cupcakes

2011-12-20T09:00:00.001-05:00

Christmas is almost upon us, and even though cakes have been light this month, I ave still been busy making tons of coconut macaroons for some of my seasonal corporate customers.

It's also allowed me some extra time to make home holiday goodies for friends and family. In fact, when one of my regular customers called last minute just knowing I couldn't make Christmas cupcakes for her I was able to surprise her by saying "I can make them no problem!" She left the design totally up to me, which is always nice. I decided I wanted to make some rounded ornament cakes, because I love the look of the rounded fondant toppers on cupcakes, but as usual, I didn't want to use fondant.

So I started playing with mounding buttercream and smoothing it out and honestly, it went easier and quicker than I expected. I did make the ornament stems from fondant, but those can be picked off easily enough.

When I finished I was so happy that I took a couple of the extras into the house for a mini photo shoot in front of our Christmas tree. I just love the look of the Christmas lights all blurred out in the background.

Have a great week; I hope Santa is packing up something nice for each and every one of you!

Cupcake Themed 1st Birthday Cake

2011-12-16T09:00:00.009-05:00

I stay so booked up with wedding cakes that it's a rare occasion that I get to do a birthday cake anymore. There are times when I'm under booked, or I owe a favor to one of the many wedding vendors that help me from time to time and I get to do one.

I had fun making this little birthday cake for one year old Wynn! I iced the cake nice and smooth with pink buttercream and then went to town with the fondant accents. I cut out the cupcake shapes and the polka dots, and even made a gumpaste plaque and #1 for the second tier / smash cake!

And it was the first time in a while I have had the chance to make "doomies" for the cake. That's the fondant balls on the wire for those of you new to my blog. I;m sure they have a real life bakery term, but we've just always called them "doomies". I don't know why!

Have a great weekend! I hope you have all your Christmas / Holiday shopping done by now!

Christmas Present Cake

2011-12-13T09:00:00.004-05:00

Christmas is getting so CLOSE I can hardly stand it! And when I get to make Christmas themed present cakes like the one above it really gets my Christmas spirit flowing!

I did a couple of new things with the cake above. First of all, this was the first time I added an extruded gumpaste rope to the edges of my ribbon. It really made for a finished and realistic looking fabric bow feel. I will definitely use that again on future cakes! And a few weeks back I saw some molds on clearance. On the website, they looked spherical and they were so cheap on clearance that I thought I could use them as flower formers. When they finally get in I realized they were indeed ball molds. I'll still use them to form my gumpaste flowers, but they'll also serve double duty for making these cute Christmas ornaments. A real multitasker - Alton Brown would be SO proud!!

OK, so back to Christmas... do you like surprises for Christmas or not? While I do like to be surprised, I feel like I'm dying inside to know what's in that package for me!! Chad used to wrap and store all my presents in his trunk so I couldn't peek! I'm much better than that now, but I still want to know what I'm getting. Chaddy would wrap his own presents blindfolded if it meant he was surprised on Christmas morning.

Speaking of... he told me that he bought me a present from one of my "cake blog friends". I don't know exactly what that means. Did he buy something from someone who reads my blog, or someone's blog I read, or maybe he got something from someone I have met through Food Blog Forum? You see, I drive myself crazy wanting to know what it is!!

Well, all will be revealed in 12 days, so I guess I can wait impatiently - or I can go shake all the presents again! Have a great week!

Wedding at Barnsley Gardens

2011-12-09T09:00:00.002-05:00

We delivered this cake to Barnsley Gardens recently, and even though I'm not a huge fan of the turned stack square cakes, but this was was really pretty.

The standouts on this cake are the swirly border on the bottom and the gathered "fabric" fondant band around the top tier.

I have been to Cake Wrecks enough to know that any cake that contains decorations with a head and a trailing tail could be confused as something... unseemly and certainly un-wedding like.

So as soon as Chad arrived home from work I asked him to look in the cooler at this cake and tell me what he thought. He looked at it and said it looked great. He said my borders didn't look like little swimmers at all. Whew! Thank goodness!

Do you ever find yourself working on a cake and thinking about some of the Cake Wrecks style pitfalls you should avoid?

Glitter Monogram Wedding

2011-12-06T09:00:00.003-05:00

This is one of those cakes where I curse at my lack of photography skills. This cake was SO pretty and elegant, but the picture just don't do it justice. Let's start with the bottom tier!

I have had lots of requests lately for pleated fabric look swags, and I am finally getting the hang of them. The bow and brooch matched the bride's dress. I really like it when I can incorporate elements from the dress into the cake.

The next tier up looks plain in the picture, but if you click and get a bigger look, you might be able to tell that the whole tier was done in a tone-on-tone hounds tooth pattern. The bride was a big Alabama fan and we thought this would be a great way to present that element elegantly on her cake. I used a stencil on the cake and the effect was really nice, but not so much in the pictures!

The next tier up is just fondant stripes. Not much to see here ;-)

The top tier I was the most proud of. The bride wanted a glitter monogram. I again used a buttercream stencil to make the initial monogram and then with the stencil still on, I sprinkled on the glitter dust. If you can tell in the close-up picture, the glitter did run a little, but the effect was really awesome.

Much more awesome than this picture would lead you to believe huff! :(

XBOX 360 Groom's Cake

2011-12-02T09:00:00.003-05:00

This isn't the first XBOX 360 groom's cake I have done, and I was pretty happy with it, except for those darn air vents on top. I have always struggled with the best way to reproduce this "vented" look on a cake I am trying to recreate. Using small fondant circles doesn't look right because they are raised of the cake. Even the big circular cupcake sprinkles don't look right and they are very thin! On this attempt I used a small cutter to cut through the fondant and then fill in each hole with black icing. Yes. it was time consuming and I can't believe it looks as good as it did. I have to do another XBOX cake before the end of the year and I am brainstorming my options now.

So... have any of you decorators out there made a cake with these type of vent holes before? If so, what worked best for you? Let me know in the comments section!!

Have a great weekend!

Bare Branch Wedding Cake

2011-11-29T09:00:00.002-05:00

After the wind and rain this weekend, the branches on this cake look much like the branches on the trees in my yard! Seriously, we just raked the yard a couple of weeks ago, and after this weekend it needs it again!

Nonetheless, we had a great time making this simple elegant cake. I iced the cake smooth and made the branches out of modeling chocolate. The ribbons are also modeling chocolate.

Now that the trees have lost their leaves that means that winter is just around the corner. In my area at least, wedding business slows down a lot after Thanksgiving and usually until after the New Year. I still have a few cakes on the books, but nothing major. I do a few things to generate some extra income, but I honestly appreciate the break. It give me time to catch up on paperwork and begin preparing my taxes, but it also gives me some time to spend with family and friends.

To the other bakers out there, do you see a holiday slump also? If so, do you embrace it, or find other ways to generate holiday income?

Fall Leaves Wedding Cake

2011-11-25T09:00:00.009-05:00

I thought this cake would be a great cake to showcase on the day after Thanksgiving. Have any of you been out shopping throughout the night? I will admit that I have done it in the past, but I haven't braved the wild shopping frenzy in many years. Maybe I'm just getting old; maybe I just love shopping at Amazon too much! Prime rocks!

For this bridal cake, I used ribbon as a border for each tier. I've said it before, but I'll say it again... I always do a double wrap of ribbon on my cakes. It looks better and on buttercream cakes, it keeps the ribbon from getting dark when the buttercream seeps through.

I used modeling chocolate to make the branches, the monogram, and the leaves. Some of the leaves are on wire so they can come out from the cake a little. Even bringing them out just a little adds a lot of dimension to the cake.

I'll keep this post short as this is a day off for me and I think I'll snuggle back in bed and catch up on some sleep! Have a great weekend!!

Baseball Hat with Home Plate Grooms Cake

2011-11-22T08:41:00.000-05:00

It may be a little chilly to play a game of baseball outside, but the weather's always fine for some baseball cake!

We made this Boston Red Sox cake recently for a couple and delivered it to the ruins at beautiful Barnsley Gardens in Adairsville, GA. Luckily for us, dimensions for a home plate were pretty easy to Google, although we had to scale it down a little to fit on the board! For the cap, I used some of the lessons I learned working with Mike McCarey in my "structures" class a few weeks back. And speaking of that class, I know I still owe all of you guys a recap plus pictures of my Big Bird cake from that class. I may lock myself in my office over the holiday weekend to get that done... or I may go shopping instead! :)

Any way, for the cap, I carved cake into the shape of the hat and covered in fondant. The brim was the difficult part. I wanted it very thin, and I wanted it curved, like a real baseball hat. I wound up cutting a brim template out of a bakery box. I bent it to the shape I wanted and wedged it into the proper position on the cake. I then covered the bill of the cap with fondant to match the hat. The fondant weighed it down and really flattened the curve I had put into it. It still has a slight curve, even if the photo above doesn't show it well.

Have a great week and I hope you all have a relaxing Thanksgiving holiday!

Audio Tutorial: Add Sound To Your Cake

2011-11-18T09:00:00.003-05:00

Hey gang! You remember on Tuesday when I mentioned that we had Tow Mater talking on the cake we did for Kaben's birthday? Well, I asked Chaddy to put together a little tutorial on just how he did it (it was in fact all his idea). I'm sure every toy is made and put together differently; but this was our first experience with it and it really wasn't too hard! So I'll let Chaddy finish this from here on! Enjoy!

As we were designing the cake for Kaben and the Tow Mater element was discussed, we went out shopping for a model to use for sculpting. Lucikly, Cars is still a big thing and our local Target had plenty of toys to choose from, including one that said a few phrases each time you pushed a button on his hood. I thought it would be really cool to add it to the cake design.

I put a lot of time into deciding exactly how it would get implemented, but my first problem was whether or not I could get the module out without breaking it. This is how I did it.

Tools / Items that came in very helpful during this project:

Talking Toy (duh!)
Small Screwdriver Set
Electrical Tape
Hot Glue Gun
Exacto Knife
Small Hobby Hacksaw

Click on any image in this tutorial to see a larger version

OK, now that we have our toy, how do we get into it? Well, if we want to get to the bottom of things, flip this little guy over and see what's on the bottom.

OK, there's some screws here so that's a good place to start! I started by opening the middle screw first as I figured that housed the batteries.

Yep! There's the batteries!! Now I'm no electrician by any stretch of the imagination, so I'm going to leave this alone for now and remove the screws in the front and back.

With those 2 screws removed, the bottom opens right up. The little wheels were on a small metal axle and lifted right out. I saw lots of electronic stuff there inside, and that's what we want!

To my surprise, none of the pieces were really secured at all. A little gentle tugging and the every came right out!

With everything out, we can set the top of the toy to the side. From now on, I will refer to the elements of the toy with the letters above:

A - Battery / Power
B - Voice Module Chip
C - Switch
D - Speaker
E - LED light (we didn't use this as an element in the cake)

OK, so I had everything out... did it still work? I pressed and button, and it did work, but the sound was very faint. Had I broken the speaker while removing it? I looked at it and it appeared to be in tact. I placed it against the plastic case of my screwdriver kit and hit the button again. This time it was much louder and it sounded just right. The speaker needs something to vibrate against which makes it the speaker. I guess it works like the talking greeting cards.

I wanted to try and salvage the toy (we still needed it as a model), so at this point I used a small hobby hacksaw to cut out the battery pack (the red/black striped areas) and I was actually able to get the toy completely back together, and I'm not really the mechanical type.

Since I know the speaker needs something plastic or paper to vibrate on, I decide that placing the whole rigging in the underside of the cake drum. It was at this point that I found that the battery pack I tried so hard to keep together was way too big to fit in the quarter inch space that the cake drum would allow. I took the batteries out (3 small pill type batteries) and wrapped them together in electrical tape, making sure the positive and negative ends were still exposed. I then cut the battery pack down until it was just the 2 contact ends with the lead wires on them. I placed them on the proper ends of the batteries and used a little more electrical tape to hold them in place. I then pushed the button and made sure I still had sound - yep! (Sorry I didn't get a picture of that part).

Then I looked at the amount of wire I had between each component and started making small cuts on the underside of my cake drum. It's just corrugated cardboard on the inside, so you can make a little cut and peel out a layer with your finger. I did this for each of the components. The unused LED light? I just stuck it inside the hole I made for the Voice module (B & E). I also made a shallow cut between all the boxes so I could run the wires. If you can make your holes just the right size, everything will fit nice and snug. If you have some wiggle room, just use a little hot glue to secure things down.

For the switch, I decided that it would look best if it was on the side of the cake board (see "C" above). I cut a small notch out of the side and it fit in there perfectly. A little dollop of hot glue held it in place. At this point I taped a piece of cardboard over the rest of the components, except the speaker. We later covered the cake board in foil to hide the switch, but you could have just as easily covered it with ribbon, just make sure to keep the speaker opened and the button revealed.

Here's a video of the finished project, with sound!!

We later learned that once the cake was on the board that the sound did get a little muffled again. Luckily, we were able to have Jenniffer's brother make a couple of support legs to keep the board off of the stand at the last minute. I would like to experiment again and find better placement for the speaker that would be less prone to the muffling problems. I also learned that it wasn't nearly as hard as we had it made up in our minds.

I know this post was long and rather text heavy, but I appreciate you sticking around and reading through it. If I missed anything or you have questions, please leave a comment and I will answer you (if I can)!!

Kaben's 3rd Birthday Cake and Stand

2011-11-15T09:00:00.003-05:00

Kaben's cake at The Car Barn

To date, we have made all of Kaben's birthday cakes. The day I first met his Mom, she described Kaben as a "rock star" and truer words have not been spoken. Plus, he's a little cutie-patootie to boot!

This year, Kaben wanted a a candy themed birthday party so we set out to design his cake. But at some point Kaben decided that his favorite toy Tow Mater also needed to make an appearance.

Our instructions here were to make it big and make it busy, but Kaben's Mom trusted us and gave us some flexibility on the design. I decided right away that the cake needed to have some wonky elements on it, plus I wanted it to have plenty of candy and candy themed elements.

I made lollipops out of fondant and used candy like gummy worms and suckers to make the design fuller and busier. Oh, and the gummy bears!! Not only did I use regular gummy bears, but I found these HUGE gummy bears on Amazon! I placed them just underneath the top tier and used crystal columns and a LED light to back light them! It's hard to tell in this picture, but they lit up really nicely!!

And speaking of extreme elements, we made a Tow Mater bursting out of the side of the cake and HE TALKED! How did we do that?? Well, you'll just have to drop back in on Friday and Chaddy will tell you all about it (TEASE!!)

And if that wasn't enough, I even got my Bubbee from My Wood Working Solutions to help out with the cake stand. He made a custom cake stand for Kaben's cake. He bought lollipops and encased them in resin for the feet on the stand! Isn't he brilliant! You can read more about the stand on his blog, but I did get a closeup of it (below). Yes, it has lights too!

Thanks for stopping by and make sure you come back on Friday for our Cake sound tutorial! You're going to love it!!

Chocolate Groom's Cake with Antlers

2011-11-11T09:00:00.002-05:00

I have to admit that anytime I start hearing the term "antlers" discussed in a cake meeting, I tend to get a little nervous. There's just so many ways you can go wrong with antlers. I definitely like the rustic look, but I guess antlers just freak me out a little. I guess it's that they come from little baby deer (OK, so I know that "little baby deer" don't have antlers, but they do in my mind!)

I delivered this cake to The Farm in Dalton and when I brought it in it was just a plain chocolate cake. The florist took over while I was putting together the ginormous wedding cake and when I finally looked over this is what he had done! I really thought it looked amazing. The moss near the stump base, the roses, even the pheasant feathers looked great. And the antlers even looked pretty cool around the base, although I was still a little iffy on the on on top of the cake. Is there such a thing as artificial antlers? Is there something you can coat them with or do to them that makes them food safe? Boil them maybe?

Have a great weekend, and be sure to stop back in next week as we have a really great cake to showcase on Tuesday and a tutorial for you on Friday that you're just going to love!

Happy Haulidays from Chronicle Books 2011

2011-11-09T09:21:00.000-05:00

This special Wednesday post is to let you know that Chronicle Books is once again sponsoring their Happy Haul-idays giveaway/contest. I have picked $500 worth of Chronicle Books (listed below) and registered at the Chronicle Books website. If I am the lucky blogger selected, I will win $500 worth of books.

Now if that wasn't great enough, if YOU comment on my blog and I am chosen as the winner, then you could also win $500 worth of Chronicle Books if you are chosen as the lucky commenter!

And if THAT wasn't enough, Chronicle Books will also give $500 to the charity of the winner's choosing. If I win, I would love to donate $500 worth of books to Kids Need to Read, an organization that brings books to underprivileged children throughout the US. $500 worth of Chronicle Books would certainly make a huge impact on their organization and their goals.

So without further ado, here's my list of books that I would pick if I win. Leave me a comment and let me know which book you would like best and you may actually win it too!!

Miette: Recipes from San Francisco's Most Charming Pastry Shop
Bird Songs Bible: The Complete, Illustrated Reference for North American Birds
Bird
Cake Pops by Bakerella (even though I own this, I would have to get another copy for a friend!)
Cake Pops: 20 Notecards and Envelopes
Whoopie Pies: Dozens of Mix 'em, Match 'em, Eat 'em Up Recipes!
Baking for All Occasions: A Treasury of Recipes for Every Celebration
Sky High: Irresistible Triple-Layer Cakes
Tartine
Wookie Cookies
Big Vegan: More than 350 Recipes: No Meat/No Dairy, All Delicious
Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London's Ottolenghi
Boo: The Life of the World’s Cutest Dog
Dead Inside: Do Not Enter: Notes from the Zombie Apocalypse (a little something for Chaddy)

Good luck to us all! Don't forget to comment so you have a chance to win if I win!

Alabamas Bryant Denny Stadium Cake

2011-11-08T08:40:00.003-05:00

Even though Chad and I had a great time making this stadium cake, it was still one of those cakes that I could have worked on for weeks. There's just so much detail that you could just keep adding, ad adding, and adding!

My "inspiration" wall in the background

This was a recreation of Alabama's Bryant Denny Stadium. It was to serve as a groom's cake at a wedding at the Read House in Chattanooga, TN. How do you start to make a cake like this? Well, I'll tell you how I did it. The best way to make any sculpted cake is to start with a model. I ordered a model for the cake, but unfortunately it didn't arrive until 2 days before the cake was due. So what do you do without a model. Hit the Internet!

We printed out so many pictures of the stadium (see my inspiration wall, above), but the most helpful for making our cutting templates was an aerial view of the stadium we got from Google images. I used the free program PosterRazor to print the stadium out to my dimensions and then laminated it using packing tape. Using this template I start cutting on the cake. The trick to carving cake is to cut a little at a time, but don't be afraid of cutting it!

I made lots of pictures of the cake during it's making and it was my initial intent to place them all here for you to see. Chad suggested that we put them together in semi time-lapse video... so I let him! ;)

Click below to view...
THE MAKING OF BRYANT DENNY STADIUM

Thanks, and have an awesome week!

Lena's First Birthday Cake

2011-11-04T09:00:00.002-04:00

Long, long ago, when I worked in the corporate world, I worked with some really great people. I have been gone now for almost 10 years (wow!) and I am still very good friends with lots of those people. Brandon was just a young pup when he worked for me as a visual associate, but we still stay in touch! When I found out his baby daughter Lena would be celebrating her 1st birthday last weekend, I knew I had to do her cake.

I had complete creative freedom on this cake, unfortunately my schedule for the week did limit me somewhat. I started with a 2-tier wonky design covered in a lavender butter cream. I used fondant to create a harlequin pattern and then placed a green fantasy flower at each intersection.

For the top tier, I cut a heart shape and "Lena" using the Cricut. I put a boatload of glitter on the letters. I topped with a gumpaste bow and placed a glittery pink "1" on top. For the borders, I used my pearl mold.

Hopefully, I'll get some pictures of the birthday girl and post them here. She is such a cutie-pie!!

Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity Cake

2011-11-01T09:00:00.003-04:00

When I met with this couple, the groom was quite certain that he wanted his fraternity featured on his groom's cake. He showed me a picture of this fraternity pin, and my mind started churning. Chaddy started the process by finding a graphic and blowing it up to my particular proportions. I used that to carve out the heart shape from a square cake. We cut the letters and the insignia using the Cricut. I had Chaddy roll the modeling chocolate super thin because I didn't want them to stick up too much from the black.

Original Inspiration pin

The surrounding pearls are very import to the fraternity. There must be 20 pearls surrounding the heart and my Googling skills inform me that it represents the 12 founding members of the fraternity as well as the first 8 pledges. I carved an indention around the cake before I covered it with fondant. This gave the gigantic pearls a nice resting place and kept them where I wanted them. I used a cookie dough scoop to scoop out Fonderific so that each pearl would be the same size. I rolled them out and gave them a good dusting of super pearl with the airbrush.

I decided to expand the pearl motif and cover the cake board with dragees. It gave it a nice, finished look.

I hope you had a safe and fun Halloween and I hope you have a great week!!

UPDATE: As the fates would have it, I just found out that Sigma Phi Epsilon was founded 110 years ago TODAY! Happy Birthday guys!! You don't look a day over 80!! ;-)

Purple Orchid Wedding Cake

2011-10-28T09:00:00.005-04:00

I delivered this cake to a church in downtown Chattanooga a couple of weeks ago. When we walked in the reception all we were greeted by a man with a huge punk mohawk that was directing some of the other people helping with the wedding with what to do. He was really cool, but not someone you would expect to run into in a church!

I have said it before and I'll say it again... if you're going to be in the wedding business, you have to stay somewhat flexible. In my contract, and on my sketches, this cake showed that it was supposed to have a bell topper on it. But when I get to the reception hall, no one knows anything about a bell topper, but there is a small bucket of orchids labeled "for the cake". Hmmm, no mention of flowers or orchids on the sketches or contract either. Oh well, give me something pretty to work with and I'll add it on the cake. The orchids actually looked really pretty with the purple ribbon on the cake.

There are some things I won't compromise on, but for the most part, staying flexible will make you and the client happy - and it will keep you from pulling your hair out!!

Have a great weekend!

Dead Blogs and Blogger Outreach

2011-10-25T09:00:00.005-04:00

Halloween is almost upon us, but I don't want you to think that it's the holiday spirits that are turning my thoughts to a morbid nature.

There's one thing that really bothers me... seeing dead and forgotten blogs.

Every week I take a little time to read through some of the blogs in my blog roll, but I also try to find at least a couple of new cake or baking blogs. It always breaks my heart to find one that hasn't been updated in a long time. I find myself wondering what might have happened... Was blogging just not for them? Were they discouraged because they never found their audience or never got any feedback from their visitors?

So I thought we might try a little experiment. I thought I could find a few of these defunct blogs and maybe if we visited them, and left them a comment could we get them blogging again? Call it Blogger Outreach, or maybe Blogger Goodwill.

I'm going to list 3 blogs below. These are bloggers that showed promise and talent, but for some reason stopped blogging. I have visited these blogs and left them a comment encouraging their work and telling them that people are interested in their work. All I ask is that you do the same.

Let's see if we can coax these bloggers back into baking and blogging. Thanks for reading and thanks for stopping by. I'm glad that I found an audience and a voice and I can only hope the same for others! Have a great week!

Brown Bow Fall Wedding Cake

2011-10-21T09:00:00.001-04:00

Wow, Friday is already here already? This week has been a huge blur! Two days in class with Mike McCarey, and then back to the bakery to hit the ground running to get these wedding cakes ready for the weekend. Next week is crazy too, but November eases up a little. Is October a big month for you also?

Even though this cake is simple, we decided to use a backdrop to give it that fall feeling. We used burlap as the backdrop to give some texture, and i took a floral pumpkin arrangement from the house and placed it behind the cake to pull in some of those fall colors.

The bow on this one is made from fondant.

Have a great weekend and stop back in on Tuesday for more decorating tales and more pictures from our cake gallery!

Food Blog Forum Nashville Recap

2011-10-18T09:00:00.016-04:00

Chaddy and I recently visited Nashville to attend Food Blog Forum, There were SO many big names there... Jaden Hair from Steamy Kitchen, Todd Porter and Diane Cu from White On Rice Couple, Alison Lewis from Ingredients Inc., Jenny Flake of Picky Palate, Susan Whetzel of Doughmesstic, Lindsay Landis of Love and Olive Oil, there were seriously just too many big names to name!

There's Leah from So How's it Taste? and Shannon from Family Bites

We started the way all good things should start, with a party! We all met at the Nashville Farmer's Market where we were met with incredible swag bags and several vendors on hand to show us their wares. Olive and Sinclair Chocolates treated us to some AMAZING hot chocolate, and The Loveless Cafe was on hand with their famous fried chicken and biscuits. And Chaddy was smitten by the Yazoo Brewing Company and a beer named Sue. And to top it all off, we were treated to a cooking demonstration by none other than Top Chef contestant Arnold Myint.

Arnold Myint, Nashville Restauranteur and Top Chef contestant

On Saturday we really got down to business. We started the day by talking about Public Relations and the different ways that bloggers can work together with companies or brands. The big thing I took away from this was that you should try to work with brands you already love, and that fit your blog. Being that my blog is focused on cakes and weddings in particular, it wouldn't make good business sense for me to talk about Craftsman Tools, even though we like them and have a ton of them. And, I learned that brands are willing to work with bloggers even though they are small. I still consider myself a small blog, and I just assumed that someone would contact me when I was big enough to warrant PR deals like review items and giveaways. Do any of you currently work with brands? If so, did you contact them or did they contact you?

There's my new friend LaKisha from Diary of a Foodie Loser

In out next session, we split into 2 groups; you could either choose recipe development or blogging etiquette. I chose recipe development. Alison Lewis was one of the main speakers and she led a great panel. It's surprising how very specific your recipes need to be so that anyone at any skill level can make them. Also, I learned that magazines and recipe developers are always looking for average Jens to test their recipes. And they pay you money for that!! Getting paid to make dinner? That's unpossible!

After that session we broke for lunch and that could an entire post in itself. We had 3 Food Trucks (Happy Eating, Riff's Food Truck, and Yayo's OMG!) show up and let us sample their delicious offerings, all on the house! The shrimp and grits at Riff's was incredible and the Mongolian Beef Tacos at Happy Eating was superb!

At the Food Truck, waiting behind Jaclyn from Food + Words. Loved her ink!

After lunch, Diane and Todd gave an awesome presentation on food styling and food photography. They are so good at what they do and so passionate about it that it's hard for it not to be infectious! They showed several examples of food photography and they talked about the flow of the picture and how each picture should tell a story. Then they did a live food styling demo with some of the food truck food. In no less than 15 minutes, they took a magazine quality photograph in our classroom with just plain old sunlight from a window (and boatloads of know how!)

After the food photography session, we broke out into mini sessions where we could get into more detail on several subjects. We chose Food Photography, Working with TV & Media, Blog Design, and Working with Brands for our break out panels. They were very informative and everyone got to ask their specific questions.

That wrapped it up for the forum, but the fun wasn't over yet! We all went back to the hotel, got spiffed up and reconvened at The Patterson House where we had appetizers and cocktails! Goat cheese balls, flavored pork rinds, and Hellfire margaritas were our favorites.

I have been SO lucky that there has been 2 food Blog Forums within a 2 hour drive of my house. If you are a blogger and you ever get the chance to attend, you really should! There's lots of great information, lots of great people to meet, and the swag is incredible!! Did I mention I won a 13 cup Kitchen Aid food processor?

Pumpkin Spice Cake Recipe

2011-10-14T09:00:00.014-04:00

Fall is here, and nothing says "fall" quite like pumpkin. And of all the ways you can eat pumpkin, I think cake has to rank right up there! This recipe is one that I have loved on throughout the years, and tweaked until it was just right! The cake is dense and moist, and the cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg gives it a wonderful spiciness that will leave you feeling like you just stepped off a hay ride!!

I haven't shared a lot of recipes on this blog before, so if you would like to see more, make sure to let me know in the comments section!

As soon as I make my deliveries on Saturday I am off to Atlanta to take a class at the Nicholas Lodge school with Mike McCarey. Add a recap of his Big Bird class along with my experience at Food Blog Forum Nashville to the growing list of things I owe you guys! Have a great weekend; I know I will!!

PUMPKIN SPICE CAKE

8 large eggs
4 cups sugar
2 cups vegetable oil
1 29 oz. can pure pumpkin
4 cups all-purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray 2 9-inch round cake pans.

Combine the first four ingredients in a mixer with a paddle attachment and beat on medium until the mixture is smooth.

Combine the remainder of the ingredients in a separate bowl and slowly incorporate into the pumpkin mixture with your mixer. Split the batter into the 2 9-inch pre-sprayed cake pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick in the center of the cake comes out clean.

Frosting Recommendations: This is super yummy with a cinnamon buttercream. Simply add a little cinnamon oil to your standard buttercream or cream cheese frosting.

Print Recipe

Guinness Bottlecap Grooms Cake

2011-10-11T09:00:00.005-04:00

I have been making some extremely "normal" cakes lately, especially groom's cakes. With all of the awesome choices out there, couples keep going with plain chocolate with chocolate covered fruit or a Georgia or Tennessee theme. I hate to blog about something that we are all tired of so at least we have one fairly cool cake for this week, but I can't promise what will come next!

This grooms cake was a less expensive option for my couple than a bottle of Guinness. Also, since it's got a low profile and minimum carving I was able to use my normal soft cake instead of pound cake (the bottle would have to be pound for strength). I baked a 16" and 14" round dark chocolate cakes, filled them with Bailey's Irish Cream buttercream and crumb coated. I made a small cardboard template with a rounded end and just went around the cake and cut out the bottle cap indentions. Super easy. The hardest part was figuring out how many sections we were going to have and marking them. Chaddy and his geometry skills were very helpful.

I then covered in Elite Ivory fondant. Have I mentioned lately how much I love Elite fondant for covering a cake? It's so soft, never cracks, tastes yummy and I can roll it SO thin. I am also using "The Mat" from Cal-Java for rolling out big pieces of fondant. I don't have the room in my bakery for a fondant sheeter, so this mat system is perfect. You can roll fondant, walk away from it for long periods of time and because it's covered it won't dry out. It's a very inexpensive tool that I really do love! But, it doesn't work well with Fonderific, go figure! I decided to use my new fancy airbrush to do some highlights on the edges. I used a gray after trying a few other colors.

Lastly, but more importantly, Chad got the logo and using modeling chocolate and the Cricut Cake, he magically made me a logo! Do you know how long that would have taken to do by hand?! Much longer than I was getting paid for that's for sure! I hope you like the cake and can make a differnt logo or size for an event in the future. There's a lot of soda and beer fans out there, so this should be a pretty good generic cake design!

Happy decorating!

Green & Brown Wedding Cake

2011-10-07T09:00:00.005-04:00

As you read this, I'll be traveling to Nashville to attend a food blogger seminar put on by Food Blog Forum. I guess technically I am a "food blogger" as I do blog about food, but I still feel a little isolated, because I'm certainly not the traditional food blogger. But I always enjoy meeting new people, and the topics they discuss at the seminar are all very applicable. I am especially looking forward to the food stylists panel.

Speaking of food styling, take the photo of this cake here. It was the prettiest shade of green and brown. I even took it outside to get some of that sweet, sweet natural lighting. But no matter what I tried, I just couldn't get my colors represented properly in my picture. It seems like any chocolate accents on my cake always come out very black looking.

It's something I hope I can ask at Food Blog Forum this weekend. Hopefully I'll give you all the lowdown on Tuesday (or maybe Friday)!

Have great weekend!! You can follow the action real-time on Twitter with hashtag #FBFNash!

Gathered Fabric Autumn Wedding

2011-10-04T08:24:00.000-04:00

This cake was the first cake I have done this season in more traditional autumn colors. I really like cakes with varying tier heights, and this one's got it all; half-height, regular height, and double-height tiers. There's even a couple of styrofoam risers thrown in there for good effect.

I did learn an important decorating lesson with this cake. I was having trouble finding styrofoam circles in the right size, so I got one closed cell and one open cell. Closed cell is the really smooth sytrofoam; open cell has a rough surface and is scratchy (like sandpaper). The open cell styrofoam is NOT good for covering in fondant. The fondant wanted to droop very badly. I don't know if it was the piping gel or the fondant, but from now on I will get the right styrofoam for my risers!

And another quick tip I learned on this cake. The bride wanted a dot border on most of the tiers. I was sitting in the kitchen with my tape measure pondering just how to make these dots not only straight, but equally spaced as well. Chad then mentioned my dot impression mat, but that is a whole page of dots. I only needed one row. Then he said, "Well, why don't we just cut one row off the mat and use that?" Now that's my Sweet Genius!! Well, we cut a strip off and it worked like a charm! It certainly made quick work of those dot borders!

Are any of my readers going to Food Blog Forum Nashville this weekend? If so, make sure we meet, OK? Chaddy will be there too!

Ultimate Fighting Grooms Cake

2011-09-30T08:52:00.004-04:00

I make a lot of cakes, and almost every weekend I take my iPad and show my in-laws pictures of the cakes I have made during the past week. Most of time, my father-in-law looks over them and says "Those are some pretty cakes". He's the fisherman/hunter type and certainly not into baking, so I don't expect a lot of "oohs" and "ahhs" from him. But when he saw this cake, he immediately perked up and said "Wow, now that's an awesome cake! What did you charge for that, $1000?"

Unfortunately, I charged a lot less for it, but I definitely appreciated the sentiment.

Of course, this cake was for a groom and his favorite thing was Ultimate Fighting. While it was no UFC fight, this cake presented a few challenges.

I started with a square cake and used a paper template to cut it into an octagon. The cake was covered in blue fondant and then modeling chocolate panels around the sides made things nice and clean. Chad broke out the Cricut and cut some UFC logos. But what about the posts. We sat down and did some brainstorming on that little bit.

We finally decided on extruding the posts from modeling chocolate. We could skewer through the middle of the post and all the way to the base of the cake. I used gelatin sheets and an edible black marker to make the fencing and cut slits in the sides of the modeling chocolate. These slits would hold the edges of the gelatin panels. We were certainly in untested waters, and luckily for us, it turned out great and held up just fine.

As always, thanks for stopping by! I appreciate your comments, your readership, and especially your friendship. Have a great weekend!

Cash Box Grooms Cake

2011-09-27T09:00:00.000-04:00

This cake was super fun to make, and is a great example of how little it takes to take a plain square (OK, rectangle) cake and make something special out of it.

This groom's cake was for a concert promoter. His life revolves around flyers and cash boxes. But our groom is also a diabetic, so we had some dietary concerns as well.

We made the cake a cash box by simply cutting a lid line into the rectangular cake and then fashioning a lid and a latch out of modeling chocolate. Some bills printed out on edible image paper completed the look. And the stack of flyers (which the bride provided advertising their own wedding - how cool is that?) is actually a separate, sugar-free cake just for the groom.

I make one heckuva cake, but when you start taking out gluten, or sugar, or other key ingredients, I lose my way quickly. That's when I turn to mixes. I noticed a few months ago that Duncan Hines now has a sugar free chocolate cake mix and I used it on this cake. I must say that I was quite impressed with the flavor and texture.

Updated Bow Wedding Cake

2011-09-23T09:00:00.000-04:00

You might have seen this cake before... almost! I made a cake just like this a year or so ago as a dummy cake. The only difference was that the bows were shaped a little differently, and pink. At my last bridal show I accidentally dropped it, and it completely cracked an entire side of the cake. I found the nearest trash can and gave it a proper burial.

Fast forward a few months and I meet with a bride that wants that exact cake, only in her colors. Good thing I had taken a picture, I guess!

There's nothing technically difficult about this cake, but it did turn out very elegantly. A couple of years ago I was taking a class with Mike McCarey and we were asking him about all the crazy cakes he did and how we wished we could get out clientele to not only ask for such crazy cakes, but to be willing to pay for them as well. He thought for a few minutes and replied "Don't get me wrong, I do some crazy cakes, but swiss dots are my bread and butter. Swiss dots are what pay the bills."

I think it's a good point - I would love to feature outrageous cakes here every week, but I just don't get those kinds of orders, or have that level of clientele (just yet). But a cake doesn't have to be completely unique or super difficult to be beautiful!

Have a great weekend!!

Walnut Hill Farm Monogram Wedding

2011-09-20T09:00:00.003-04:00

I have been talking a lot the past couple of weeks about how important it is to us to get good photos of our cakes. We setup our own photo booth, and have been experimenting with different backgrounds. Why do we go to all this trouble?

Well, you just never know what the conditions will be like once you get the cake to the venue. Sometimes, the DJs are still setting up the lighting. Sometimes the house lights aren't on and the place is just too dark for good pictures. Sometimes the cake gets put right in front of a huge window facing the sun and taking a good picture is impossible (especially for inexperienced amateur photographers).

But when we took this cake to Walnut Hill Farm, conditions were fairly optimal. We had to used our external flash, but the picture here at the venue turned out really well. The florist had left me some flowers, and I was able to use them to accent the cake.

You just never know where you're going to get your next great picture!

Have a great week! See ya back on Friday!

Alternative Garnishes for Grooms Cakes

2011-09-16T09:00:00.002-04:00

Everybody thinks of the classic groom's cake as a chocolate cake with strawberries or chocolate-covered strawberries.

This was one of those groom's cakes where I was given free reign on the design of the cake. My only guideline was the color scheme. Green was the bride's splash color. So I started thinking of something other than strawberries that I could use to garnish this cake. As my picture has already given away the surprise, I finally settled on grapes and kiwi fruit.

Now at some point someone bought me one of those fruit garnish kits, you know, like they use to make the edible arrangements? Well I got out my "V"-shaped knife and used it to cut the kiwis. I really liked the pattern and texture it brought to the cake.

The monogram was a backup I had originally made for the bridal cake, but since both arrived safe and sound, I decided to add it to the groom's cake at the reception hall. I think it turned out pretty nice. I bet you're green with envy, right?

Lavender Fantasy Flower Wedding

2011-09-13T08:49:00.000-04:00

I was really happy with the way this cake looked when completed. The bride initially brought in a cake completely covered in these circular fantasy flowers. She didn't know the original designer, but was only interested in small clusters of flowers anyway.

I started with a buttercream cake and used an impression mat to mark my spacers and then piped buttercream dots over the entire cake. I then used lavender ribbon as a border on each tier.

Those fantasy flowers? I made them by cutting circles from gumpaste and then using my ball tool to ruffle the edges on some of the layers. Glued the layers together with royal icing and let them dry in a flower former cup. Each center was finished with an edible pearl center.

Even though we had a busy delivery schedule that day, we took 15 minutes to bring the cake outside on the beautiful sunny day to snap a few photographs.

Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Grooms Cake

2011-09-09T08:59:00.003-04:00

This groom' cake seems fairly simple, but even simple cakes can pose problems. This cake posed two problems:

How do I cascade chocolate dipped strawberries down the side of the cake while securing their placement? This one wasn't terribly hard. I used long (sandwich style) toothpicks placed in the strawberries so that I could anchor them into the cake. This allowed to pile them nice and high without worrying that they might later fall, taking parts of the cake with it.

How do I minimize the variance in my icing color? OK, I have to admit that this is probably a problem that's unique to me. My chocolate icing tastes great, but when I refrigerate a layer and then put more icing on it, the "new" icing goes on in a little different color than the layer below. If I keep working on it, I can eventually work it out, but it has always bugged me. This week I had a little extra time and tried a new technique that worked well. I got out my trusty blowtorch and used it to gently (can you do anything "gently" with a blowtorch?) heat the outside layer of the icing. To my surprise, the colors began to come together and normalize. The effect was really nice, it gave the cake a sort of leathery look.

Have a great weekend!!

Scroll Pattern Wedding Cake

2011-09-06T09:00:00.001-04:00

When I met with Kelli about her cake, she had a very good idea of what she wanted. She brought in 2 pictures that she had printed and really couldn't decide on which one she liked best. During the course of our design consultation I was able to take the bits she liked the very best from both cakes to custom design the cake of her dreams.

On this cake, most of the decoration comes in the form of the wide piped border of all but one of the tiers.The design reminded me a lot of a fleur de lis. The brooch and ribbon were made from gumpaste.

And today's backdrop experiment? I actually took the curtains from my office and pinned them to my photo station wall! LOL!!

Have a great week!

Roughed Up Buttercream Wedding Cake

2011-09-02T09:00:00.003-04:00

This is the second or third "rough textured" buttercream cake that I have done in the past couple of months. I hope this isn't a new trend, as you all know I like to get my buttercream nice and smooth.

But this bride specifically asked for this texture on her cake.

I spoke a little last week about trying to prop my cake photos a little more and since this cake was on the simple side, I thought it would be a good candidate for some background opportunities.

I started the propping by putting up a piece of burlap fabric. I thought the rough fabric of the burlap would compliment that rough buttercream. I wondered outside and grabbed a couple of branches off my crepe myrtle tree and placed them in a vase in the background. I think it adds some visual interest without interfering with the cake itself.

Have a great weekend!

Family Crest Grooms Cake

2011-08-30T09:00:00.003-04:00

All of my regular readers know that I enjoy doing unique cakes, and this one ranks ranks right up there! When I first met with this couple they mentioned the possibility of us doing a replica of the groom's family crest. Family Crest? I had heard of them, but I guess I didn't realize that people still had them. In my family, the only family crest was the tube of toothpaste in the bathroom! ba-dum-pum!

Anyhoo... on to the cake! This was a big goom's cake; the picture you see above is on a 22"x22" board. The main shield design was fairly basic, so we chose to print a template of the crest and hand cut the larger pieces. We used the open-source program PosteRazor to enlarge the image to my specs. The lion (I guess that's a lion!!) and the family name? They were much harder and more intricate, so we used the Cricut to cut those.

Once the letters and lion were cut, it took a while to remove all the little pieces without messing the graphic up. We started by cutting the modeling chocolate while cold, and then immediately after cutting (which seemed to take FOREVER) we put it right back in the freezer for a 10 minutes. We alternated working on it for 10 minutes and then freezing it again for 10 minutes until we had all the pieces removed and cleaned up all the cuts. Then it was on the cake and FINISHED!

Hope you enjoyed it and we'll see you back here on Friday, K?

And... Happy Anniversary to my beloved husband Chaddy! Today we have been married for 14 fun-filled years!

Orange Daisy Vols Wedding Cake

2011-08-26T09:00:00.007-04:00

Sometimes a couple are such big sports fans that they want to incorporate that into their wedding cake. This is one of the best ways to do it right; by bringing in the colors of the couple's team.

This wedding cake accompanied the Smokey the Dog cake from Tuesday. I started by making gerber daises in orange and white out of gumpaste. They were fairly easy to make, but they were SO fragile. I lost a lot of these to the cake gods.

I piped orange paisleys on alternating tiers and highlighted them with some small white dots. Each tier got an orange ribbon border. And an orange monogram on a fondant plaque finished it all up.

This cake went to The Car Barn in Chattanooga. It was out first time there, and the venue was really great! It was spacious and decorated very sharply.

Y'all have a great weekend, OK?

UT Vols Grooms Cake - Smokey the Dog

2011-08-23T09:00:00.005-04:00

Click for a larger image

Sometimes a cake just needs one super wow element to take it from average to awesome. On this cake, old Smokey the Dog is definitely the star! And I have Chaddy to thank for him!

We have done sports logos before, but Chaddy said that this was the most intricate we have attempted. Most of the logos we have done previously allow for a lot of layering; placing one color on top of another. This design really didn't allow for that though; everything had to be inlaid. It was one GIANT modeling chocolate jigsaw puzzle!!

From start to finish, he worked on the design over 3 nights for a total of 8 hours. He spent about 2 1/2 hours the first night just sorting out the graphics. That means taking the logo and not only breaking it down into its separate colors to make cut files, but also mapping out a strategy for how each color will fit together or layer onto each other.

As a side note: I just found out last week that due to legal actions taken by the makers of the Cricut Cake that current versions of neither SCAL (Sure Cuts a Lot) nor MTC (Makes the Cut) will cut on the Cricut. This is truly sad news indeed, as I wouldn't use my Cricut near as much if I couldn't cut custom graphics.

An in-progress shot of the black logo after the charcoal inlay.

The rest of the time was spent making the various modeling chocolate colors and cutting them out and then putting them all together!!

Since the resulting topper (do you even call that a topper?) came our so great, we wanted to really go all out on the photo. I have been contemplating "propping" my cake pictures for a while, and this was the first time I really did it. We got 2 yards to Vols fabric as a backdrop and used the football helmet I bought long ago to use as a model for a sculpted helmet cake.

How about you guys? Have you used props in your wedding (or just regular) cake pictures? If so, what worked well for you?

UGA Chocolate Drizzle Groom's Cake

2011-08-19T09:00:00.003-04:00

I really enjoy doing these chocolate drizzle cakes. The drips look random, but don't let that fool you - I control each one of them!!

I start out by icing the cake as normal (leave those edible images and other decorations off for now) and putting in the fridge to get nice and cold. Then I'll begin pouring the ganache on top of the cake, spreading it just to the edge. It will start to go over just a little and you want it to, but the cold cake will start to firm that ganache almost immediately. For the long drips, I'll put some ganache in a small squeeze bottle and apply each one. Again the cake is cold, so the level of control you have is much better than you would expect..

Once you're done, then you can apply any graphics or borders and the cake will be ready to go!

Have a great weekend!

Silver and Gold and Sparkly

2011-08-16T09:00:00.001-04:00

I really like making display cakes. I have complete creative freedom, no time (or spoilage) constraints, and I get to enjoy my artwork much longer than a regular cake.

I worked on this display cake a few weeks ago and I was very pleased with the way it turned out. I wanted a create something with some bling, because it seems every other bride coming into the shop wants sparkles or rhinestones on their cake.

This cake features quite a few non-edible parts, and it's all the blingy parts. I have bought the sugar diamonds before and my brides are just not happy with the sparkle or the price!! For this cake I used individual rhinestones, a rhinestone rope as a border, and a gold rhinestone buckle as the center of a bow on the bottom tier.

One of my newest cake idols. Lori Hutchinson (The Caketress) likes to do a scoring effect on fondant that I really like. I did a little of that here on the top tier and really liked the effect. I'll be adding that to my bag of tricks for sure!!

The buckle was a little hard to see so I took a closeup of it... and it's still sorta hard to see. I took loops of fondant and placed the buckle in the center and then place a strip of fondant around the buckle, as if it really were a buckle for the gold bow.

I hope you all have a great week and stop back in on Friday for a neat little groom's cake!

ICES 2011 Charlotte - The Cakes

2011-08-12T08:44:00.006-04:00

OK, so on Tuesday we talked about all the great people I met at ICES. So today I wanted to showcase some of the great cakes I saw at ICES. There's just a couple of problems... Firstly, Chaddy brought his new lens and while most of the cake shots turned out good, some were just so blurry that we couldn't use them. Lesson learned: bring the general purpose kit lens next time. Secondly, we didn't do a great job of keeping track of which person did which cake. BUT! I refuse to let that stop me from posting the pics. Please please, please though - if you who know who did one of these "unknown" cakes please leave me a comment so I can give these people proper credit. They certainly deserve it!

And just to be super clear and perfectly ethical - I didn't make any of the following cakes, these are only some of the amazing cakes I took pictures of at ICES 2011.


Cake by Barbara Evans

Look at the cake above by Barbara Evans. I love the unique cake shapes, the piping and stringwork. I even love the color. And the lace molds are nice - in fact a LOT of the cakes there had Earlene's molds on them. They are the best!!


Cake by Dalila Cabrita

This cake by Dalila Cabrita was SO striking! A black cake is hard to pull off, but this one is awesome!! The leaves and flowers appeared to be all hand-painted and the buzz was that all the feathers were made individually! The parrot by itself was incredible. Even the eye was glossy!

Cake #1 by Unknown - ID in the comments!

I dared not touch any of the cakes, but I wanted to touch this one SO badly. The topper was SO pretty but I just couldn't tell how it was made. Sculpted? Mold? Both? I just don't know. I am in awe.

Cake #2 by Unknown - ID in the comments!

I thought this cake was a great use of lace molds. I have never seen this type of layering with the pearl and lace mold, but I really like it. I even liked the little gumpaste urn on top!

Cake #3 by Unknown - ID in the comments!

The cake above was one of the prettiest examples of brush embroidery I think I have ever seen. This is not a technique I have ever used before, but now I may have to try it!

Cake #4 by Unknown - ID in the comments!

I thought the cake above was really cute. It made me smile when I saw it. Even though I didn't do it, it is very much my style of cake.

Cake by Sheila Miller

This was the first time I have seen a cake on its side and I like the look! This is a cake dummy, but I'm not sure how *I* would turn a cake on its side and make it look that good. The curls around the bottom were so cute and girly. And the cake stand? Nuh Uh! Not a cake stand at all! It appeared to be made from gumpaste - it was certainly edible!!

Cake #5 by Unknown - ID in the comments!

This cake shows a great use of the Cricut machine. There was lots of details on this cake and I really liked the darker color palette.

Cake #6 by Unknown - ID in the comments!

The piping, the swags, the pearl work on the cake above was AMAZING! There is so much going on with this cake, but it all meshes perfectly together to make a cake masterpiece.

Cake by Elizabeth Dickson

Wen I first saw this cake, I thought "Oh cool, they used fabric on the cake board" - NOPE! That's all hand painting and there is a lot of it. Just beautiful!

Cake by Juanita Holloway

I have used marbled fondant on a cake before, but never a cake like this!! Juanita has taken something we normally consider casual and made something completely elegant. Great work!!

Cake by Melonie Stanger

I don't want to play favorites here, but it seems like a lot of the cakes I oohed and ahhed over had Melonie's name beside it. So much so that I sent her a Facebook Friend request from the hotel room later on that night. This cake was right up my alley. I like the button-covered hourglass tier, I really like the fondant knot on the bottom tier. Together, I love it all. And Melonie's from Georgia too, just like me. Maybe someday we'll get to meet!

Cake by Terry Tuttle

I'm not exactly sure what this style of cake is called (is it Australian style?), but it's very pretty and unique looking. Terry is very talented!!

Cake by Jo Drummond

You would not begin to believe the level of detail on this sewing basket cake! Everything here is edible, I really wished the picture was better, and I'm so glad it wasn't really blurry like some of the others. Even the cake board was covered in a tape measure. I just LOVE that idea! Great job Jo!

Cake by Vera Cainco

Maybe you can't really call this cake - I don't exactly know. I looked at it for what seemed like an eternity and I'll be darned if I could figure out how it was done. It was just absolutely fabulous! My hat's off to you, Vera!

Display by Penny Cunningham & the Carolina Memory Makers

The centerpiece of the whole show was this huge Corvette cake, and I should be horse-whipped for not taking the time to find out more about this awesome cake. I'm not sure if it was life-size or not, but if it wasn't, it was really close to it. And then I get around to the back and see all the detail - wowzers! Does anyone know who did this? Chaddy Googled it and couldn't find it online. Update: He did come through finally and found an article about it here:

Display by Penny Cunningham & the Carolina Memory Makers

And if I read correctly, fellow blog frequenter Angela Barton made those amazing basketball displays. They looked SO real. Chaddy wanted to touch one of them, but I wouldn't let him! He swore they were real basketballs!

As you can see, I was in Cake Heaven at ICES. If there's ever one close to you, take the time to make the trip. I couldn't be a part of the entire convention this time, but I drove 6 hours and paid $50 for a 1 day admission and it was worth every penny and every minute in the car! Let's not even talk about all the stuff I bought!!

Enjoy your weekend!

ICES 2011 Charlotte - Celebrity Edition

2011-08-09T09:00:00.005-04:00

This weekend we didn't have any cakes on the books so Chaddy and I packed an overnight bag and jaunted off to Charlotte, NC for ICES 2011. Even though we had to get up at 4:00 (that's frikkin AM) to get there for the opening, there was SO much going on that we didn't stop until after the vendor room closed at 5:00.

This place was filled to the brim with cake celebrities! I certainly knocked several people off my "Cake Celebrity Bucket List" (cake people I MUST meet before I die!). As much as Chaddy stays behind the scenes, he keeps up with all the cake stars (and reads your blogs too). We had been at the show about 15 minutes and I was talking to a lady about a new airbrush when I hear Chaddy saying "Holy crap, YOU'RE Debbie Goard! I'm Chad White I LOVE your cakes!!". By the time I got over there they were deep in conversation about sculpting and pound cakes. Chad pulled me in saying, "Honey, this is Debbie Goard from 'Debbie Does Cakes'". She was super sweet and we talked for quite a while. She even gave me some great advice on airbrushes!

Me and Debbie Goard of Debbie Does Cakes

We turn on the next isle and I see the Fondarific Booth in the distance. In the booth I see Joshua John Russell and Tracy Quisenberry from Icing Smiles. We have been big supporters of Icing Smiles since they began so I had to introduce myself. Amazingly enough, she remembered us right off and thanked us for our help during their Pepsi Refresh Grant campaign. We talked a while about how their organization has grown and some of the hurdles they have overcome.

Me and Tracy Quisenberry of Icing Smiles

Just a few feet down and I see Mike McCarey's booth. Inside the booth? None other than Mike McCarey and Lauren Kitchens!! I spoke to Mike for a while and told him how modeling chocolate had changed my life! - His response: "Well, then I did my job!" I told him how excited I was to be taking his Big Bird class in October and then Lauren walked up and joined the conversation. She was SO nice in person (as is Mike) and told me she would be back in Atlanta in April to teach classes. I do believe I'll be signing up!!

Me & Lauren Kitchens of Fancy Cakes by Lauren

Karen Portaleo from Highland Bakery, Looking beautiful in red

I'll have to admit that when I spotted Kerry Vincent that I actually gasped a little. Chad snapped this picture before we actually made it to her booth (he's always scouting ahead) but when we got to her someone had just brought her a salad. She was trying desperately to eat, but everyone kept stopping her and introducing themselves and asking for photos and autographs. She was super kind and never gave off any semblance of being mad or put off because of it. A class-act all the way. I decided I would move on and try to allow her to eat ad stop back later. Unfortunately, I didn't make it back.

Hall of Fame Sugar Artist Kerry Vincent

Mary Moy was ALL over that convention. I didn't get to met her because she was always on the move, constantly running around or doing demos. I can only wish I had her energy! Here she is doing a pulled sugar demo - so talented!


Mary Moy from Patisserie 46

I have seen Mike Elder on it seems like a dozen of the TLC's Ultimate Cake Off, always in a challenge. So we visit the cake room and in the back corner they were having a cake challenge, and there's Mike... going at it! We later saw him again sculpting a car cake (below). He had drawn a HUGE crowd - that's showmanship!

Mike Elder from Black Sheep Custom Cakes

When I first spotted Norm he was pointing someone in the right direction of a booth. I had to introduce myself. He was such a nice man, he's exactly the guy you know and love from The Food Network Challenges.

Me & Norman Davis of The Sweet Life

Chaddy and Zane Beg of The Sweet Life

We walked right around the corner and ran into none other than Norm's Challenge partner, Zane Beg. He and Chaddy hit it off and talked for several minutes. Zane was awesome, just super nice, with the cutest smile!

Sharon Zambito of SugarEd Productions

All day long, Ashley Vicos was running around in the hugest pinky/purpley glittered high heels. If I walked in those for more than an hour I would be in the Emergency Room. But not Sweet Ashley; this picture was taken right before the vendor room closed and she was still going strong. When Chaddy walked up to her he said, "Wow, you're a tall drink of water!" Not his best pick-up line, thank goodness!

Chaddy & Ashley Vicos of Sweet Ashley's & "Have Cake, Will Travel"

And I saw so many more cake celebs that I didn't get pictures of! Marina Sousa, Jason Ellis, Dana Herbert, Jay Qualls, and Edna de la Cruz, just to name a few. Rumor was that Lindsey Sinatra and Colette Peters were there also, but sadly I didn't see them! :(

And I haven't even talked about The Cake Room yet! OK, how about you stop back in on Friday and we'll look at some awesome cakes from ICES 2011?

Moving Away Cake

2011-08-05T09:00:00.003-04:00

This past weekend I said "farewell" to a dear friend. My friend Sherri, a wedding coordinator in Chattanooga, is moving to Nashville, TN with her family due to her husband's job.

She had a big "See You Soon" party Friday at The Fairyland Club. She called and asked me about ordering a cake. I told her that she couldn't order one, but that I would gladly donate one for the party!

Since I had free reign on this project, I decided to start with a round cake covered in fondant. I used edible pens to draw a map of the route from Chattanooga to Nashville. I did this on the front and back sides of the cake and then covered the sides with some Chattanooga and Nashville edible images.

For the top, I decided to do a moving box. I started with a square cake and Chaddy made up some cardboard colored modeling chocolate panels. We made 2 top flaps and stuffed one side with mini marshmallows, which in context looked amazingly like packing peanuts. I printed some "Fragile" and "This Side Up" labels on edible images and placed them on the box sides. The last detail on the cake was to make packing tape marks. I started by using painter's tape to mark off the tape lines and then painting a very thin coat of piping gel. When I removed the painter's tape, it made the piping gel "tape" have nice clean lines.

It was a real hit at the party, and I smiled every time I heard a new guest walk in and say "Who put a box on top of the cake?!" They had to get right up on it before they realized it WAS the cake!

Have a great weekend! Anybody going to Charlotte this weekend for ICES?? Chaddy and I will be there - look us up! We'll try to monitor our Twitter feed... use hashtag #ICES !!

Rhinestones and Gold

2011-08-02T09:00:00.003-04:00

I made this wedding cake a couple of weeks ago for a lovely couple at the Fairyland Club. This is another in the "bling" series that have been all the rage with my brides these days.

I had great time making this cake, as this was my first experience with using these foam separators. They worked well, I just covered them with fondant and painted them with pearl dust. Luckily for me, I have found that Wedding White Fondarific matches my buttercream almost exactly. It comes in very handy when I need to mix elements on a cake.

The rest of the cake is buttercream, except for the golden curls, which I also made from Fondarific that I extruded and then painted gold after they were placed on the cake.

The bling on this cake was all provided by the bride. She bought the 5-row rhinestones and the rhinestone buckles (the center of each tier) while she and her fiance were visiting in New York. It was the first thing they purchased for their wedding.

GIVEAWAY UPDATE: Oh yeah, today's the day we announce the winner(s) of our Marshmallow giveaway. We didn't get over 100 new "likes" on Facebook, but we decided to give away 2 tins anyway. Congratulations to Maria and Jenna! I will get your marshmallows in the mail within a week!

UGA Bulldog Groom Cake

2011-07-29T09:00:00.002-04:00

A whole back we delivered this groom's cake to Walnut Hill Farm. Sports themed groom's cakes are all the rage and seeing as we are in Georgia, UGA is one of the most popular designs.

We do what we can to switch things up and do each UGA cake a little differently. In this case, we started with a two tier square chocolate cake and alternated sides on each tier with edible images of the bulldog and the Georgia "G".

We then hand-dipped strawberries in Belgian chocolate and used them to bring a little extra splash of red (and black, I suppose) to the cake.

Have a great weekend and don't forget that you still have until Sunday (aka Chaddy's Birthday!) to register to win a tin of handcrafted marshmallows! See this post for all the details!!

Bridal Show Booths for Beginners

2011-07-26T09:00:00.003-04:00

I spoke on Friday about tips I had learned during previous bridal shows. Kate over at the Spread the Love Blog posted a comment and said that she had never done a show before and wanted some more information for those of you that have never done a bridal show. Since we just did one this weekend (meaning it's still semi fresh in my mind) I thought I would talk a little more about it... call it Bridal Show 101.

If you have never done a bridal show, they can seem daunting. At least in my area, we have 2 big bridal shows, one in July and one in January. There's always more people (vendors and brides) at the January show. Chad and I went to a bridal show (as guests) before we did our first show. We later found out that most times, the promoters of the show will allow potential vendors in for free if you just ask. Walk around and look at booths, especially ones that are in your industry. Take notes and/or pictures as you walk around... this is required homework!

As I mentioned before, there will be a promoter for the show. They take care of securing the venue, setting up the booth space, promoting the show, and taking your money! But this is an investment - you have to look at the cost of the show as a business expense. Think to yourself how many cakes you would need to sell to make your money back on the show. In my experience, the price works out to be about 2 weddings. The promoter will usually give you a 10x10 booth with one 8 foot table (with cloth) and 2 chairs. You can get additional tables or even power ran to your booth (if you need it) for an additional fee.

Remember what I said last time about acquainting yourself with other vendors? If you need some pizazz or booth filler on the cheap, these other vendors can be a godsend. Linen companies will often times lend you cloths or florists will gift you an arrangement if you just put up a "Linens/Flowers provided by ..." card. Some sweet treats in return couldn't hurt either!

Now, what should you bring to the booth? Being in the cake business, you have to show that your cakes look good and that they taste good. I do this by bringing in dummy (styrofoam) cakes and bite-size cake samples. The samples were the hardest thing for me to perfect, and I'm still not sure they're "perfected". My first show I brought full-size cupcakes in 3 different flavors. I spent the entire show "selling" these cupcakes. Now I take my samples in small (2oz) souffle cups, each with a lid that has my business name, phone number, and website. It's more sanitary and with the lids people can take them with them if they want. Not to mention that I get 53 samples from one thin 1/2 sheet cake! And I try to take just one flavor; if I take 2, I only put one out at a time. And if you do bring dummy cakes? Make up a card or sheet that lists what each cake serves and how much you would charge for it. People WILL ask.

If you don't have (m)any cake dummies, bring a scrapbook or a video DVD featuring your cakes. I did this once - I brought a 32" LCD TV with a mini DVD player. It looked good inside the booth, but 10 feet away the screen looked tiny. I didn't like it at all. I brought in a scrapbook once too; people tended to crowd around. It too created a bottleneck that I didn't like.

Other things I take to a show:
For Display
My own tables and cloths (underneath will also double as storage!)
Cake Stands (for dummy cakes)
Signs or banners
columns to display cakes
carpet tiles
brochures and business cards
client signup / callback sheets (remember pens too)
forks and napkins (for samples)
For Setup and then Hidden Underneath Table
small step ladder
small collapsible dollie (the venue will have these, but you may have to wait on one)
small toolbox (hammer, pliers, wire cutters, tape, measuring tape, pins, etc)
camera
paper towels
glass cleaner
Tide pen
wrinkle release spray
For Yourself and Any Helpers
snacks / bottled water (but keep them out of sight)

The most important thing to bring? Your big girl patience panties! Seriously, you will get asked the same question(s) over and over and over. People will look at all your cakes and then ask, "Do you make cakes too?" Just smile as big as you can and shake your head yes! The brides that I still struggle with? The "I'm the bride, what can I get for free?" bride. At every show I have at least one walk into my booth and ask that very question. I just hand them a single sample and thank them for stopping by.

Do you have any other questions? Did I leave something out? Post it in the comments and I'll comment back with the answer!

Bridal Show Tips

2011-07-22T09:00:00.004-04:00

If you're in the wedding cake business, then you'll eventually participate in a bridal show. Our next bridal show is the Chattanooga Pink Bridal Show happening this weekend, July 24, at the Chattanooga Convention Center.

We have been to several of these shows and it seems like we learn something new each time. We also see people doing something wrong at every show, so we thought we would share some of the things we have learned over the years.

Give your chairs to your competitors
Seriously, it's hard to engage potential customers when you are sitting down. Bridal shows are usually 4-5 hours long, and at the end your feet will be hurting, but you'll have much more positive interactions with your brides.

Don't let anything come between you and your customer
Specifically, I'm talking about props or even your table. At the last bridal show, there was a vendor that had their table at the very front of their booth with 2 tri fold project boards showcasing their business. The 2 people manning the booth were sitting behind the tables in their chairs. The end result? The booth looked empty and customers won't stop at empty booths.

Stay Positive and Happy
Bridal shows are hectic affairs. You work extra hours making samples, not to mention the time and labor involved in putting your booth together ad making it look good. It's enough to make anyone tired and grumpy. Save all that for after the bridal show. During the bridal show you want to be at your best; smiling and personable.

Meet Other Vendors
Take some time before and after the show to introduce yourself and network with other vendors. Especially your competition. A few years ago we walked around after setting up our booth and stopped by another bakery's booth. We stopped, introduced ourselves, and wished them good luck during the show. Fast forward to just a couple of weeks ago. I got a nice e-mail from the owner of the bakery. She was going out of business, and wanted to thank me for being the first other cake vendor to be nice to her. As a token of her appreciation, she was referring all her past customers to me. It was totally unexpected and all due to a few minutes of pleasantry.

There are lot of other things I could go into detail on but, as I mentioned before, I have a bridal show to get ready for!! What bridal show tips do you have??

A Like, Marshmallow Giveway!

2011-07-19T09:00:00.028-04:00

Do you like marshmallows? Have you ever had fresh, made from scratch marshmallows? If so, you know how good they are and you can probably never bring yourself to buy the bagged ones in the grocery store again. I have been making a lot of these recently... they are just SO good!

OK, so we have established that you like marshamallows, I mean, who wouldn't? So we thought we would put together a little giveaway for one (or more) of our lucky readers.

Here's how to enter the giveaway:

Go to our Facebook Page and LIKE us
AND
Comment on this Facebook Post

For every 100 new "likes" we get, a random commenter will be selected to receive a tin of marshmallows. 101 new likes? Then 2 random people will get a tin of marshmallows. You don't have to be a new liker to get in on this deal either - anyone can sign up (but lets limit it to US residents only). The contest will run from now until July 31st. The winner(s) will be contacted via Facebook and announced on our August 2nd blog post.

Good Luck!

5 Tier Scroll Wedding Cake

2011-07-15T09:00:00.001-04:00

How many different types of scrolls are there anyway? These are kind of viney-esque. Some are "C's", some are "S's", some are loose and some are tight. I personally don't know of any official scroll style guide. Would anyone like to make one?

This cake was smooth, straight, and yummy! BUT it didn't really POP until the fresh flowers were put on by the florist. It is really amazing to me how even a little bit of fresh or gumpaste flowers can really bring life to a cake. If a cake is going to be all white (with no color or flowers) in my humble opinion it should be a very clean and modern design or have a lot of design going on. This type of cake pictured falls in between and just doesn't look finished.

It's like a nice outfit with no jewelry! I wish we had the picture to show you, but we couldn't wait on the florist to install the flowers due to another delivery. You can imagine it though!

Just in case you want to know, this was a 6/8/10/12/14" combo. I rather do a 6/10/14" type combo but some brides really want extra height without adding extra servings. Unfortunately, the center of gravity is way out of whack on something this tall and skinny. I HIGHLY recommend running a wooden dowel (sharpen one end in a new pencil sharpener) through the entire cake before traveling. We use one thick MDF board with a cake drum (around 5 pieces of cardboard thick) glued on top, then wrapped in cake foil. The cardboard has to be on top so the when you push the dowel through ALL the layers it will lastly go into the cardboard for stabilization. I always explain to the people cutting the cake that the top tier will need to be lifted straight up and off the dowel. I know it's not as easy for them, but when I'm driving up a big mountain with a cake, it's going to get a rod!

Have a great weekend!

Super Bling Diamond Wedding Cake

2011-07-12T08:41:00.001-04:00

Earlier this spring, I met with a very girly-girl bride named Kassi. She had a lot of ideas but her main inspiration was a page from a David Tutera book. There was one wedding in particular that she really loved and wanted to model her entire wedding after it.The cake pictured in the book was perfection to her and she didn't want to change a thing about it. Who am I to argue?

So with the cake design already decided, she then chose cake and filling to match the outside of the cake. It was white cake with VERY pink strawberry buttercream. She wanted the inside of the cake to be just as pretty as the outside. Isn't that cute?

The cake, as you can see, is fairly simple, so the cake only cost the base price; there were no additonal charges for "art fees". However, the bling and those mini diamonds were not cheap! I used 7 yards of 4-row rhinestones at $24 dollars/yard. That's $168 dollars!! I got them at Bead and Trim, not only because they were the cheapest, but I have dealt with them in the past and been very pleased with their customer service. I got the diamonds at Diamond Party Confetti and Hobby Lobby.

We made a very pale pink vanilla buttercream for the outside of the cake and then carefully started placing the rhinestone strips on the cake, making sure not to squish the icing into the rhinestones and then piped the dots. As it became room temperature, the top border of rhinestones began to scare me a little. I was afraid that they were so heavy that they might start to slide down the cake. I added several 2-inch pieces of floral wire in between the rhinestones around the cake just to make sure there was plenty of support. Better safe than sorry, right?

The best part of this cake was during the delivery to the Grandview. Several guests were already there and many of them commented that the cake "looked just like Kassi". I thought that was one of the best compliments a baker could get!

For the record, the pages I got from Tutera's book did not credit the original cake designer. If someone knows, please leave me a comment and I will give proper credit.

Silver Center Flower Wedding Cake

2011-07-08T08:34:00.000-04:00

This cake was a fun cake to make. I don't make a lot of my own gumpaste flowers, but I had to make one for this cake. The bride's wedding dress had a big flower on the waist that she wanted recreated for the cake. I started by making my petals, still using my metal ball tool (that I love!).

The hardest part of the flower was the center. I started with a wired gumpaste ball and coated a small section with some tylose paste. Then I started placing silver dragees on the ball. If it rolled around too much, I had to remove it because the silver would start coming off. Eventually I got the whole thing covered, and it looked awesome - if I do say so myself!

99% of the time, I deliver my wedding cakes to a venue. It's easy to get in and out of, and there's rarely anyone around with the exception of the venue staff and maybe the DJ or the florist. But this cake went to the brides parent's house. It was a big, beautiful house; bigger than some venues I go to. But once we got into their driveway, things got harder. The house was FULL of people and we found ourselves traipsing from room to room stepping over grandpa's feet and dodging little children in their Sunday best! Not all home deliveries go this way, but it's best to be prepared for it!

Here's one last closeup look at that flower with its silver dragee center!

Have a great weekend!!

Grandview Cupcake Tree

2011-07-05T09:00:00.003-04:00

I have talked about my brother the master woodworker in the past and about the incredibly awesome cake stands he makes for me. When I called him up and asked for another cupcake stand he certainly didn't disappoint with this one!

This was my first square cake stand, and I really liked the way the cupcakes looked on it. On the top, we placed a small 6 inch square cake. Anytime I do a cupcake tree, I like to include some sort of small cake so that the couple can still get the traditional "cake cutting" photo opportunities if they really want them.

When I arrived at the Grandview, the florist had left us some beautiful hydrangea leaves and clusters so I used every last leaf to adorn the tree.

Over the past few weeks, I have been really scouring the Internet for some new design ideas and some new "mentors" to help me grow my craft. I read an article about Jim Smeal and I was really blown away by his workmanship. He did a border that reminded me of bamboo that I really, really liked. I did my own version of it on the small 6" cake topper.

Spackle Wedding Cake

2011-07-01T09:00:00.002-04:00

My regular readers know I'm the queen of smooth buttercream. I work hard and pride myself on icing my cakes satiny smooth. So when I get a request to do a wedding cake that has a very splackely, stucco like finish... well, you have to step back and ask yourself how to make something inherently "messy" look professional.

I started the only way I know how - by icing it nice and smooth. Not finished smooth, but pretty darn smooth. Then I went back and smacked the sides of the cake with my spatula, creating peaks or spikes in the icing (but not the cake!). Think about when your testing meringue or whipped cream. Then I ran the spatula around the cake again, re-icing it, but keeping the spatula just off the cake.

I delivered this cake to the Tennesee Aquarium, where the florists were to place the real flowers on the cake (the 2 in the picture were just for the picture). They brought the flowers, but were unsure of the placement. Luckily I had brought my original design sketch and was able to help them with the proper placement. This brings up a good point: I bring all my cake paperwork to every wedding. The contract, design sketches, e-mails... the whole folder for that cake comes with me to the venue. It has saved my butt more than once!

Have a great weekend and have a happy and safe Independence Day!

Big Flower Petal Explosion Wedding

2011-06-28T08:49:00.001-04:00

We began our journey with cake when my bride came in with a with a picture of a cake from a magazine. It was a very plain fondant cake with a big flower on it. The bride liked, the design, but she wanted more. More flower, more petals, more bling. And she wanted it in buttercream. Who could blame her?

The bling was easy to accomplish. We used some of the rhinestone rope from Bead and Trim as a border for each tier. It's subtle, but still classy, elegant, and sparkly.

The flower? It was a lot of work, but the look was worth it. I started by using a teardrop cutter and making petals. In four different sizes. I made SO many gumpaste petals! Chad made gumpaste petals! Did I mention there were a lot of petals?!?

But I did get to use a new tool that I just love. I have never really liked my plastic ball tools. They seem to drag and I don't get the petal curling action that I really want. But a few weeks back I ordered Colette Peter's new metal ball tool... and it is amazing! With the metal ball tool I can get my petal edges super thin, and had much nicer curls than what I had previously achieved.

OK, back to those petals! I let them dry on aluminum foil and once they were nice and dry, I used a triangular makeup sponge (not all my cake tools are expensive!) to apply a mixture of silver and purple luster dusts on the petal's edges. These were the colors the couple was using during the reception.

Now with most gumpaste flowers, you make the petals on wires, you bind them all together with floral tape, and then at some point to pop it into the cake. With this flower being on such a grand scale, I couldn't exactly wire all the petals together. So I had to place each petal individually onto the cake. See? I told you it took me a long time!!

Until next time, have a great week!

Cookie Jar Groom's Cake

2011-06-24T08:20:00.000-04:00

I have always said that if you want a great cake, call a good baker, set a price, give them a theme, and tell them to do whatever they want!

I met with this couple and they settled on a bridal cake, but the groom's cake was up in the air. The groom was in the military, but he didn't want a military cake. We came up with several ideas, but all went by the wayside. The groom eventually said that he just didn't want a groom's cake, but the bride really wanted him to have something special. With only a week to go before the wedding, the bride called with one final idea. The groom's favorite food was chocolate chip cookies. She wanted to know if I would do one big chocolate chip cookie cake. That was far too close to sheet cake territory for me. I asked her if I could take this chocolate chip cookie theme and run with it. I told her she would get a better cake for the same price we had contracted for previously. She trusted me enough to say Yes.

So I sculpted a cookie jar cake, covered it in buttercream and made some "COOKIES" lettering with the Cricut Cake. The lid was made from rice crispy treats. It looked great, but the cake was lemon (their choice), so the groom still wasn't getting his chocolate chip cookies. So I whipped up a couple of batches of chocolate chip cookies so they could be coming from the top of the cake. Here's what whole thing looked like put together at the venue.

Afterwards, I received a very sweet note from the bride via Facebook. Here's what she said:

Jen... Seriously?! The cakes were AMAZING!! The groom's cake was a HUGE hit!!! So adorable! EVERYONE LOVED IT!!

Blue Bow Wedding Cake

2011-06-21T09:00:00.001-04:00

This wedding cake is a real alternative to the traditional wedding cake. I'm not a huge fan of mixing tier shapes, but I liked this look a lot.

I used Satin Ice with some tylose mixed in to make the ribbons. This helped keep them from stretching and they held up better. I used my trusty sewing gauge to help mark my ribbon lines and I used blue luster dust to the give the blue ribbon its sheen!

Also, I normally don't like handwriting on cakes. We have so many other methods of getting text on cakes (edible image, Cricut, etc) and the handwriting is just not my style. But I was very pleased with how the writing turned out. And believe it or not, the cake gods must have been smiling on me that day - I did all the writing in one take. Yep, no mistakes or do overs!!

Hop back over here on Friday and see what else we've been up to!

Wedding Couple on the Ledge

2011-06-17T09:00:00.003-04:00

A few weeks back, I delivered this 5 tiered buttercream tower to the Dalton Freight Depot.

The couple were using purple and orange as their wedding colors and wanted them represented on the cake. I used my ribbon cutters and placed the 2 bands of fondant. It was what we discussed and what I drew out in the wedding consultation, but once the cake was done I thought it detracted from the cake just a little. It's still a pretty cake, but I think the color bands make it look a little "less-weddingy".

There are times when the actual cake just doesn't work out looking at great as it did when I sketched it on paper. It always puts me in a pickle - do I do what looks/works best, or do I give the couple what they contractually agreed to? Contract wins out 99% of time. The other 1% I consult the bride and explain my dilemma and ask for permission. It doesn't happen very often, but try to be mentally prepared when it does! ; )

I'm always fond of the whimsical scroll pattern, but I was overwhelmed from cute overload by the bride and groom ledge sitters. They were just so cute! A word of caution though - these ledge sitters can get pretty heavy so make sure you provide some support underneath them. A few straws will do the trick.

Speaking of cake supports, in the past I have used skewers, wooden dowels, plastic columns, drinking straws, and have just started using bubble tea straws. Drinking straws were my favorite, but I am liking these new bubble tea straws I just got in. What do you use for cake supports?

Toy Story Birthday Cake

2011-06-14T08:44:00.001-04:00

I constantly get calls from customers wanting birthday cakes. Their kids want a cake themed around their favorite cartoon character or movie. The kids have no concept of copyright law, the parents don't care about it, and sometimes even I forget about it.

Even though I don't do a lot of birthday cakes anymore, when I got the request from this long-time customer I wanted to do my best to give her child the cake of his dreams while respecting copyright law to the best of my knowledge and ability.

This cake is definitely inspired by Toy Story. I pulled color schemes and themes from Buzz and Woody for the bottom and top tiers and the cloudy wallpaper from Andy's room for the middle tier. Chaddy even found the font they used and cut "Happy Birthday" letters on the Cricut using it.

I was happy with the way it turned out and I hope little Jack really enjoyed it for his 3rd birthday!! Y'all have a great week!

Hip Hop Groom's Cake

2011-06-10T08:18:00.000-04:00

Many, many moons ago I used to live in California where I had several run-ins with many celebrities. But in the small town where I live now there is very few chances of running into any type of celebrity.

A while back I met with a couple, and the the groom-to-be was a professional hip hop dancer who has worked with several big names. It was my first brush with celebrity in a while.

He wanted to keep his cake simple, while still representing the dance styles that made his career. He brought a page of dancer silhouettes to the consultation and we almost immediately designed his cake around those silhouettes. We found the same graphic on a stock photography site and bought it. Chad then used the file to create a cut file on the Cricut. We cut the dancers out of black modeling chocolate. The cake was finished off with some white-chocolate dipped strawberries.

As I was delivering and setting up the cake, I ran into the groom for a few short minutes and he saw the cake. He was very happy with it.

Monochromatic Wedding Cake

2011-06-07T08:49:00.000-04:00

This wedding cake really grew on me the more I worked on it. I have always been a fan of the tone-on-tone / monochromatic look, but at first I thought this cake might benefit from a splash or color.

But the more I worked on it, the better I liked it! The dimensional flowers and leaves formed these awesome shadows that really added a lot of contrast to the cake. When I was finished I stepped back and was really proud with how it came out.

I formed and sculpted all of the flowers and leaves from gumpaste and let them dry nice and hard.

Normally I would have used my trusty ribbon cutter to make all those vines, but the gumpaste I was working with was so tough that I was using the pasta machine to roll it nice and thin. Out of curiosity I set it on one of the cutter settings and it cut nice long gumpaste "noodles" for me that worked out great!

Have a great week and stay out of the heat!

The Ranunculus Weddng Cake

2011-06-03T08:51:00.000-04:00

This year I have had a real obsession with the flowers on this wedding cake. They're called ranunculus, and they are part of the buttercup family. I like to think of them as buttercup's fancy cousin! Chaddy just calls them "redonkulous"... he's the redonkulous one!

They are perfect for wedding cakes because like roses, they come in a multitude of colors and sizes. Spray them with almost any hue and they're still basically botanically correct.

In this case, our bride wanted a very tone-on-tone look, so we left them a basic butter cream white. I cascaded them down the front of the cake in a very artsy way, grouping large and small flowers together in clusters.

We delivered this cake to The Mill of Chattanooga and this was actually a Friday wedding - my first Friday wedding in fact!

A lot of venues in my area are offering weekday wedding packages at a great deal to the bride. Are you seeing more weekday weddings in your area?

Memorial Day Quartermaster Groom's Cake

2011-05-30T09:35:00.000-04:00

I am posting this week's post a day early in celebration of Memorial Day. Memorial Day is more than just an extra day that we get off work to grill hamburgers and have picnics. It is a day to honor, remember, and thank all the brave men and women who have sacrificed for us and our country.

This Quartermaster Groom's Cake that we delivered to the Lookout Mountain Golf Club this weekend couldn't have come at a more perfect time. Our groom here was a member of the Quartermaster Corps, and this cake is a recreation of their insignia. My research tells me that the Quartermaster Corps is a sustainment branch, meaning they supply troops with food, fuel, supplies, and other necessities. Probably a good guy to befriend on the battlefield, huh?

Due to time and budget limitations, we opted for the majority of the decorations to be edible images. I did make the sword and key out of gumpaste and used luster dusts to match the gold on the cake. I was very pleased with how the cake turned out and hope the couple was also.

Have a great week and stop back in on Friday for out next installment!

Rhinestone Bling Wedding Cake

2011-05-27T08:22:00.000-04:00

We had such a great time making this cake! The bride wanted it extra blingy... blingier than I could possibly do by making sugar gems. The brooches on the bows were given to me by the bride.

So I went over to Bead and Trim and found the prettiest rhinestone chain. It was so sparkly and looked so real I wanted to make jewelry out of it (and may still!).

This bride also wanted varying tiers, which I just love doing; so they got a couple of squatty tiers and one double height tier. The whole thing is covered in fondant, with fondant bows and a fondant ribbon border. Two tiers were quilted while the other 3 had random pearls of varying sizes.

Here's a Closeup of that blingy rhinestone border:

As luck would have it, when I was ordering from Bead and Trim, they mentioned that they were having a contest over at their Facebook page. They are looking for any project that uses one of their products, but especially in a unique way. I submitted the cake as an entry; it doesn't get much more unique! If you feel so inclined, I would sure appreciate your "Likes" and comments on my entry. You can find it here:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=167350379991547&set=o.132131306849301&type=1&theater

Chocolate Glock Groom's Cake

2011-05-24T09:00:00.013-04:00

I was so stoked when I met with this couple and they indicated they would like to have a Glock 9mm pistol as a groom's cake. I'm not a gun fan by any stretch of the imagination, but the thought of sculpting a gun and making a "lidded" cake design really excited me and got my creative juices flowing.

That's what happens in cake decorating and design; you get really excited about the idea, and then the "how in the heck do I make this real" hits you square between the eyes.

My first challenge... how do you make an edible gun? This one actually turned out easier than I expected. Thanks to the Wide Wide World of Web, we found profile pictures of a Glock and the dimensions. This allowed us to print out a scale model of the gun. We then laminated and cut out the gun. We rolled out modeling chocolate to the approximate thickness of the gun and put the template on top and just cut out the profile. Once that was finished, it was as simple as using our sculpting tools and impression mats to make pieces to build out the gun. I wish it would have come out a little cleaner, but it still looked really good!

The gun was complete, but we still had to make the cake case and figure out that lid. We took a lot of photos of the armature we made, so click below to see how it was all done!

We struggled for a night on exactly how to make cake sit at an angle. Other decorators have done it, and we know that it can indeed be done. We also figured out that with unfinished orders and time refusing to stop, we had to resort to plan B... an inedible lid. The contract didn't specify an edible lid (in fact the bride was very aware that the lid would probably not be edible) and we didn't need it to be edible for serving reasons.

We decided on using wood as our lid material. We would go on to brush it with piping gel and cover it with modeling chocolate. Chaddy got a pattern for the case (that we had used for the cake) and used it to cut out the wooden lid as well. He used a circular saw and a jigsaw to get it cut out precisely.

Have you ever played with a door hinge? OK, so maybe not, but you know how they work, right? Flip them one way, and they close fully. Flip them the other way and they "catch" at about a 45 degree angle. That was how we intended to get our lid at the correct angle.

We measured the cake part of the gun case and stacked 1x2 boards to equal the height of the cake (about 3 inches). We covered those boards with cake foil (to make them "disappear") and then screwed them into the cake board (which was also wood).

Once the lid was decorated, we screwed the hinges into our spacer block of wood and than all we had to do was slide the cake (the bottom half of the gun case) into proper position.

The rest, as they say... is history. Thanks for sticking around for this extra long post / tutorial. Have a great week, y'all!!

Republican Elephant Groom's Cake

2011-05-20T08:54:00.002-04:00

With all the new Republican candidates throwing their hats in (and out) of the ring these days, this cake cake seemed very appropriate for today's post.

I did this groom's cake for this past weekend's wedding at the Filhauer Lake House.

It's hard to tell from his photo, but this cake was huge! It's on a 20x20 board and it was carrot cake with cream cheese icing so it was REALLY heavy!

The cutouts for this thing were so big that we decided to forgo the Cricut Cake and just cut them by hand.

Once we had it together I felt it needed a little something extra so I took the leftover modeling chocolate and made a red and blue twisted rope and some stars to fill out the cake board.

Y'all have a great weekend! Got any cools plans? Let me know in the comments!

Filauer Lake House Lace Wedding Cake

2011-05-17T08:27:00.001-04:00

This weekend we were SO busy with wedding cakes, but our last stop of the day was at the Filauer Lake House in Cleveland, TN where we delivered this four tiered fondant wedding cake.

This cake was a deep champagne color, and the bride wanted lots of lace flowers on the second tier and a band of lace flowers on the bottom tier. The bow and brooch are made from fondant, as well as the pearl borders. I used every lace mold I had, cutting around the rest of the design to just leave the flowery bits.

The flowers (see pic below) are gumpaste peonies that the bride wanted a deep fuchsia to match her wedding decor. I airbrushed them with several coats and colors of pink to give it just the right color. And everything in the kitchen got a thin coat of pink overspray! I should have used my little paint booth!!

Here's a picture of the entire cake for those that want to see the whole thing!

Vendor Spolight: Imagine That! Playhouses

2011-05-13T12:46:00.002-04:00

I have blogged about my brother the woodworker before and all of the creative cake stands he makes. He has his shop setup in a mini warehouse close to his home. It's nice for him to have all his tools and materials in one place. The new news I have about him is that he is now offering cake boards as part of his product line. Check out his Etsy Shop, you may be able to save some money!

I stopped by his shop the other day to pick up some cake boards and he wanted to introduce me to his shop neighbor, Joshua Bartlett. Joshua owns Imagine That! Playhouses and More. They make uber cool playhouses like the one to the left. They also make playhouses like pirate ships too. And while most children's playhouses are built rather shoddily, Joshua builds his playhouses to the same specs as real houses! While this product certainly isn't cake or even wedding related, I was so smitten with these playhouses that I just had to feature them here on my blog!

Wedding Cake Jewelry

2011-05-10T08:35:00.002-04:00

It seems as thought this season's most popular wedding cake is similar to this cake here. An elegant scroll pattern with rose separators.

Most of the time I want the florist to do the flowers on the cake. I have done some basic floral arrangements in the past, but florists make sure that the flowers are pesticide free - things I know nothing about! This time around, the florist had other commitments, so I agreed to place the flowers on the cake. They left me 2 huge buckets of roses and I used every one I could between those layers! LOL!

Also, the bride provided me with those teardrop crystals to go on the cake. Aren't they beautiful?!? I have to find out where she got them. These pictures just don't do them justice. They were so sparkly, they really did look like diamonds. I just thought they were perfect and added a lot of personality to the cake!

Thanks for stopping by and y'all have a great week!

Troy University Groom's Cake

2011-05-06T08:50:00.000-04:00

We had a really great time creating this unique groom's cake that was delivered to the Dalton Freight Depot! Our groom here was a Troy alumni and wanted a cake that reflected the Trojan logo, while keeping things fairly simple.

We made a template and cut the cake out in the Troy "T" shape. I gave the whole thing a good coating of buttercream. I cut out long ribbons of fondant and used them for the outline and base of the cake. The Cricut Cake cut out the lettering with great precision.

Now of course this picture doesn't show it, but to jazz up the cake we added chocolate footballs and soccer balls to the cake board and also the bride purchased a Troy mini helmet to place next to the cake.

Thanks for visiting and have a super awesome weekend!

Green Bow Polka Dot Wedding

2011-05-03T08:40:00.000-04:00

Although this cake is smaller than some, it is still a lovely little wedding cake. It was delivered to Trevitt Hall in Dalton, GA. This bride wasn't afraid to being a splash of color to her wedding day celebration!

This time I used my Fondx to make my bow. I have had problems in the past fashioning sturdy bows out of Fondx, but this time I used CMC Fondant Stabilizer to add to the Fondx and it made a big difference! It made the Fondx hold its shape nicely, where tylose just doesn't cut it!

One of the things I like about ordering Elite by Fondx fondant is that it always comes with a little "surprise" inside. Sometimes it's a dragee sampler, sometimes it's a little foam mold. It reminds me of getting the prize inside of Cracker Jacks when I was a kid! I used one of those foam molds to make the brooch on the bow.

Brown and Blue Ribbon Wedding Cake

2011-04-29T08:28:00.001-04:00

Thanks for taking a break from the Royal Wedding to stop by!!

Simple and elegant wedding cakes are all the rage these days! And this cake is about as elegant as they get! I layered blue and chocolate colored ribbons to give a nice border and then scattered silver dragees on the tops of each tier.

This cake was delivered to Niko's Southside Grill. It was the first time I had been to their upstairs reception room. It was a very nice space to host an event. I even got to ride on the dumb waiter!!

Speaking of Niko's, I once had dinner with Jane Seymour and her husband James Keach at Niko's. Yes, THE "Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman" Jane Seymour! It was years ago in my previous career. She developed a line of bedding and home accessories for our department store. She made personal appearances to all our larger stores and in my role as regional visual director I got to join her and our executive staff for dinner. She was very nice with just the right amount of "celebrity kookiness".

Since she's been named as an ET correspondent for the Royal Wedding, it's like I have an inside track to William and Kate's wedding... OK, maybe not!

Nebraska Huskers Grooms Cake

2011-04-26T08:30:00.001-04:00

Neither I nor Chad have ever been big sports fans, so when we gets sports cake requests, sometimes we have no idea who the team in question actually is. I'm still not exactly sure if this is a football or basketball team! LOL!

But we had a great time making this logo cake nonetheless! I put Chaddy to task making a cut file for the Cricut from their logo. He worked his computer magic and imported all the pieces into SCAL.

I have talked about how I like using the Cricut Cake to do logos before. Even though their basically still a flat decoration, the layering gives some measure of dimension to the cake. I thought the angle of the picture above really shows the layering effect nicely.

Have a great week! Who's planning on getting up early to see the Royal Wedding on Friday? I know I am!

Orchid Wedding Cake

2011-04-22T08:27:00.001-04:00

I do lots of wedding cakes where i decorate with swirls and/or curls, but this bride brought me a photo of a cake that had, for lack of a better term... slashes. They were very different and created a really cool look. I thought the cake turned out great!

During our consultation, the bride said she wanted orchids on the cake. That's what I sketched out and that's what I was planning on seeing at the wedding and I even discussed it with the florist before the wedding. But when I arrived, the florist had other flowers. The florist and I quickly scoured the facility and gathered the few remaining orchids from all the arrangements. We used a few rose petals to add an extra little splash of color.

The lesson here is that sometimes no matter how much pre-planning you do, sometimes you just have to roll with the punches and make the best of things even when ideal conditions are not present.

Have an awesome weekend and Happy Easter to all!

Gold Egyptian Display Cake

2011-04-19T08:30:00.000-04:00

I really like doing display cakes. It's one of the few times that I get to create any cake I want! And since the "cake" is actually styrofoam, I don't feel so compelled to use all edible materials on the cake.

I was walking through the hobby store when I came across this cute little peacock feather wreath. I made a comment about how it would make a really cute cake stand. Before I left the store I already had all the details worked out in my head and bought a few things too boot!

I covered the tiers in fondant and then airbrushed them gold. I made some fondant in some of those peacock colors and used them for draping and the border. Then I topped and placed the peacock feathers all around. The jewels are actually a pair of earrings that I ordered super cheap online. They arrived the day I was working on the cake and when I opened them, they were already broken! Even though I couldn't wear them as earrings, they still looked great as my swag connectors!

Just goes to show that cake inspiration can come from the darnedest places!

PS - Happy Birthday to the best mother-in-law a girl could ever hope to have! Have an awesome birthday Trish!

Peanut Butter Addiction Grooms Cake

2011-04-15T08:17:00.000-04:00

Have you seen the new Reese's minis at the grocery store? They are smaller than the Reese's miniatures, taste super yummy, and best of all, you don't have to unwrap them! Thanks Hershey!

This cake might just put you into a peanut butter coma! First, it's a dark chocolate cake with peanut butter buttercream icing. The cake is then topped with a full case of regular Reese's cups, 2 large bags or Reese's miniatures, and 2 bags of the new Reese's minis.

If your groom is a peanut butter addict, he'll flip his lid over this cake!

Have a great weekend and stop back in on Tuesday to see what else we have in store for you!

Some of my First Cakes

2011-04-12T08:21:00.004-04:00

A few weeks back I blogged about how I got started into cake decorating and how I wound up where I am today making a living doing something I truly enjoy. Your comments were all so sweet with many of you expressing that you shared the same dream.

Since I did my buttercream smoothing tutorial I get maybe an e-mail a week from someone who has tried my method and still not happy with the way their cakes look. I always tell them to keep practicing and keep decorating. Just like any other artist, you will develop your own methods and your own sense of style over time. And your cakes WILL get better!

So why am I saying all of this? Well... I was going through some old photos the other night when I ran across some of the cakes I did when I was first starting out. Chad and I looked through them and snickered and giggled at each one. But, I was doing the best I could do at the time and I was really proud of them.

So for the novice bakers out there that see my current cakes and think "Wow, I could never do that", I wanted you to see that I didn't start out doing 5-tiered cakes or flawless buttercream. Everyone else can just sit back and laugh like Chad and I did!!

Click on the picture for an even better look!

I know the firefly cake was one I recreated (I use the term very loosely) from the Whimsical Bakehouse book. The rest I probably saw in a Woman's Day magazine or some such place. That purple two-tiered cake was my Wilton final cake! These were all giveaways, so luckily none of them should ever wind up on Cake Wrecks! LOL!

Thanks for visiting!!

Better Cake Photos using the iPad

2011-04-08T08:33:00.001-04:00

Screen shot from Shuttersnitch
(click picture to see details)

I have blogged before about how we are always striving to take better pictures of the cakes we make. The problem a lot of times is the picture in the little mini viewer looks fine, but when you see it on the big screen something is off - too dark, too bright... too something! This past weekend we found a really cool app for the iPad that allows us to see our pictures on the iPad as we take them on our camera. The process is called camera tethering, and while it's not the most straightforward solution, it was neat enough that I thought it was worth sharing with you here.

Things you'll need to make this work:
Apple iPad (or iPhone if you don't mind a smaller screen)
Camera that accepts SD memory cards
A Wi-Fi network
Shuttersnitch App ($16)
Eye-Fi SD Memory card (about $40 at Walmart or Amazon)

Eye-Fi is like a regular SD memory card that contains a mini Wi-Fi adapter inside. It's very cool in itself. As you take pictures, the Eye-Fi can transmit your pictures to your computer or to sharing sites like Photobucket. The Wi-Fi capabilities are what allow Shuttersnitch on your iPad to grab the photos.

Shuttersnitch is a an app you get from the Apple App Store. Once you load it you will configure it with your Eye-Fi account settings so it can communicate with the Eye-Fi card in your camera.

As you take pictures, the app automatically downloads them to your iPad so you can see a large preview (or full size even). And best of all it only takes about 15 seconds per photo. Shuttersnitch even tells you all your camera settings (ISO, aperture, shutter speed, etc.) If you don't like the picture, just adjust your settings or your lighting and take again.

The biggest problem with this solution is taking pictures outside of your Wi-Fi zone. If you want this to all work anywhere you go, you'll have to invest in a battery operated portable router. That's just more than I need at this point. I take most of my photos in the kitchen (or just outside).

It seemed pretty technical, but Chaddy set it up without any issues. There are several places on the Internet that walk you through the setup, but Chad said that he used the directions at Rob Galbraith's site.

I realize that many of you might not have an iPad. But if you do, pairing it with the Eye-Fi card and the ShutterSnitch app will definitely help you take better pictures by allowing you to see them on the fly.

Question for today... Do you like reading articles about how technology can be used in the baking business? Do you want to see more articles like this? Tell us what you think in the Comments section!

UPDATE: May 2011 - Just a month or so after publishing this article, Eye-Fi has came out with a firmware upgrade to the Eye-Fi cards that will allow them to create their own wireless networks! This means that we can now carry our iPad on deliveries and get real time pictures without any additional hardware (the battery operated router mentioned above). We have been out several times now and it works like a charm!!

Grandview Peony Wedding

2011-04-05T08:21:00.003-04:00

This weekend we were back at the beautiful Grandview Inn delivering this gorgeous buttercream wedding cake.

This time around the bride wanted the cake to match her color scheme - navy and olive. I used navy ribbon as a border and I used the leaves to bring in that olive color. The bride also wanted peonies, but wanted to make sure they were darker than the cake itself.

I got the peonies at Wholesale Sugar Flowers. Honestly, I like making my own, but the time I have to put into them makes them cost prohibitive for my customers. I dusted the flower petals with ivory and champagne, and the centers with a silver luster dust.

Stop back in on Friday to read our next installment!

Content Theft vs Design Theft

2011-04-01T08:30:00.006-04:00

Sometime late last year, I found another blogger that had literally taken dozens of my posts - text, pictures, and all, and posted them on her blog as her own. I found each post and left a nasty little comment and asked her to take down the stolen content. Nothing ever happened and not knowing where to go or what to do, I let it go.

Over the weekend, Chaddy found a group on Facebook called Stop the Cake Thief. It's a group where you can "out" these unscrupulous people that would take another's cake pictures and present them as their own.

He still had the link to the blog, so he decided to list it on the group so that others might see if their content had been stolen too. Within a day or two, a few people commented that they recognized some cakes. But then someone commented that not only had someone stolen her cake but that someone else had stolen it again by claiming it as their own! And the claimer was me!! It was the first time I had been accused of doing something un-cake-ethical. The other decorator was accusing us of design theft. Chad looked at the 2 photos and while they were entirely different cakes, one was definitely inspired by the other. Chad quickly worked things out with the lady and wound up giving her a shout out on the post thanking her for the inspiration.

Anytime my family sees a cute cake, they send me a picture. Not to mention that I get e-mails and printed pictures from clients every week of cakes they like that will inspire their own cake. If a client is looking for cake ideas, I generally direct them to flickr. They never provide me with the original baker (or the price!). I'm absolutely sure this is where this lady's cake came from.

If I know who did the original cake, I like to give them credit, but as I stated before, I usually don't know. If another baker does a cake that I came up with originally, it really doesn't bother me. Odds are, you aren't near enough to me to be a competitor, and if you are and can do the cake better, more power to you!

I think there's a huge difference between design theft and content theft, and to be clear, Stop the Cake Thieves focuses solely on photo/content theft, not design theft. But I do have a renewed sensitivity to it and I will try harder to give proper credit when and where I can.

Have any of you ever had your actual photos stolen and presented as your own?

What are your thoughts on people using one of your cakes as inspiration for their own?

For the record, I got the graphic above from iStockPhoto.

A Few Of My Favorite Tools!

2011-03-29T08:46:00.011-04:00

I had a fun conversation with a fellow bakery owner today and it inspired me to blog about my favorite tools. Not to mention that I had NO cakes last week. We spent the week working on taxes but you really don't want to hear about that do you!?! Most of you that follow this blog know that I LOVE my metal scraper that enables me to get my buttercream smooth as well as my Cricut cake machine (most of the time). What you might not know is the little things that help me make pretty cakes every week.

One tool is a sewing gauge that I use when marking tiered cakes. For instance if you are stacking a 9" and 6" round, once your 9" is cold you can basically center a 6" cardboard circle or cake pan on the top. Then use your sewing gauge to get your 1.5" on all sides of your board. Since the tool is so light it's also good for leaning up against the side of the chilled cake to mark something you need. The little arrow that slides up and down is very handy too!

ACE 1" Food Barrel Extruder

One of the other favorite things is my large Polymer Express Clay Gun. It's an extruder gun that is easy to load, easy on your hand, holds a lot of fondant and is easy to clean. Did I mention that it's very cool too? There are small fondant extruders, which are fine if you are just a hobbyist, but if you are going to make a lot of cakes, spend a few extra dollars and you won't regret it. The three circle die is cool because if you twist it slightly it looks just like rope. Trying to make a fondant rope that looks even and smooth is not an easy task without one of these fantastic little tools. I love this site in general because of all the cool stuff you can't find anywhere else, like some of their great impression mats.

What are some of your favorite tools and why?

Beer Glass Grooms Cake

2011-03-25T09:00:00.003-04:00

OMG! I'm so glad it's Friday!! Last weekend, I did a cake for a groom that loves Dogfish Head Beer. We discussed carved bottles and beer steins, but the standard beer glass shape fit the couple's budget better. The couple also wanted this to be fondant free... no problem!

We have several different methods for recreating logos, but anytime the logo is distressed (like this one) it makes it much harder. For the Cricut, you almost have to edit out the distressing, but then you don't really get a super accurate logo. For this cake, we decided to go use an edible image.

This cake is pretty tall, it was really 3 tiers, with 3 layer cakes making up each tier. I wasn't exactly sure if this particular beer "foamed", but I thought it made for a much nicer presentation.

Damask Buttercream Wedding Cake

2011-03-22T08:55:00.004-04:00

The damask pattern look has been so big in wedding cakes for a while, but until now I haven't actually done one for a client (I did make a display cake). I have had the stencils now for oh, like... ever!

I finally had a couple interested in a damask cake, but they did not want fondant on their cake. I have stenciled on buttercream before, so I knew it was possible. I really thought it would be harder, but it was actually not too bad. I found the key was keeping the cake nice and cold while decorating it, and working in small sections.

The borders are just ribbon and the roses are real roses provided by the florist. This cake was delivered to the Loose Cannon Art Gallery in Chattanooga.

Rose and Lace Display Cake

2011-03-18T08:32:00.000-04:00

It seems nowadays I don't get to do smaller cakes anymore, even though I do enjoy doing them.

So when I needed to do some new display cakes for the shop, I opted to do some smaller ones. Smaller cakes still showcase my skills while taking up a lot less space (and that's a good thing!)

This cake is pretty simple, but I loved the way it turned out! I must be honest here - I did not make those roses. I only wish I could make roses that looked that good! I got them on clearance from Cal Java. The lace is from a new mold I got at Earlene's Cakes, and every time I use it, I am amazed by their detail. Not to mention how easy they are to use!

Thank you so much for stopping by and I hope you have a great weekend!!

Take a Picture Before It's Done

2011-03-15T08:34:00.003-04:00

For some of you this little tip may seem too obvious, but I was amazed at how long it took me to realize it. Do you ever get a cake order and there's one part of the cake that makes it less marketable to other customers? Not that there's anything wrong with it, and not that I expect people to only order cakes I have done before. Take the cake above. On the left was the finished wedding cake - the couple wanted a splash of their colors (hot pink and green) and a sign language topper. The cake turned out beautifully and I was very proud of it.

As I was working on it however, at some point I had it all decorated except for the extra color and the topper. So I pulled out the camera and snapped a few pictures of it in that pre-finished state. If you're still trying to build your portfolio, this is a good way to get 2 pictures for the price of one!

So don't hesitate taking a photo for you before you finish making it for them!

For the record, this whimsical wedding cake went to Chattanooga's Creative Discovery Museum.

Happy Second Blogiversary!!

2011-03-11T08:39:00.000-05:00

Holy cannolis, can you believe that's been 2 years since I first started this little blog? In the past year my number of followers has tripled and I have made some really good friends along the way!

Birthdays and anniversaries are good times for reflection. And since I have had more than a few people ask me how I got to where I am now, I will tell the tale of how Cup a Dee came to be!

Seven years ago I lived the corporate lifestyle. I worked for a big retail chain as a regional visual director. I was on the road constantly traveling to 50+ stores. I made good money, but I was never home to enjoy it, or my house, my kitties, or my husband.

But I had been bitten by the cake bug! Heck, I had always liked baking, but the more frustrated I became at my job, the more I baked on the weekends to relieve that stress. It felt good, and people were always happy to see what I brought them on Monday mornings.

One fateful business trip to New York we visited the Magnolia bakeshop. People were lined out the door to buy cupcakes for $3 a piece! And you were limited to a dozen!! Somewhere in the back of my mind, wheels began to slowly turn. If they can do it, why can't I?

During this time I continued to do free cakes on the weekends, and I bought every Woman's World or other checkout isle magazine that had cakes on it. Chad and I started taking Wilton classes at Michael's craft store.

And then we booked a trip to Cancun using my frequent flyer miles, and stayed at the Westin resort using my hotel points. It was the off-season and the resort wasn't busy, and honestly, we were having a fabulous time just resting by the pool. I'm a big fan of "self help" books and I used to buy them all the time hoping I would find the time to read them. One of the books I grabbed for this trip? The Practical Dreamer's Handbook by Paul and Sara Evans. I sat by the pool all week, sipping pina coladas and reading that book. And it changed me (the book, not the drinks)! I suddenly realized that there were others out there that had left the rat race for something simpler, something happier. That week I gained a laser focus - I would someday be a baker. I discussed it with Chad and we started a rough plan on how to make this dream happen.

Things at the corporate job got worse and worse, and now, since I knew something better was on the horizon, I was unwilling to put up with it. I knew my simple happy life making cakes was just around the corner. One day I came home after a horrible week at work and told Chad that I wanted to quit work and sell cakes. The only problem: I didn't know how to sell cakes and I still wasn't great at it. I considered culinary school, but we really didn't have the money for me to quit work AND spend tuition money. As fate would have it, I found out about a pastry chef opening in Chattanooga. The job was making cakes and pastries for 2 restaurants, a B&B, and a coffee shop. It didn't pay much, but it would keep the bills paid. I took the job and turned in my notice at my big girl job.

My 8 months in that pastry kitchen is what I now affectionately refer to as "pastry bootcamp". I went in at 4am and I generally got home about 6pm each night. Most weeks I worked 6 days, and it was a salaried position... so no overtime for me :( But I was learning how to do things I never imagined, and best of all, I was learning the business aspects too. I was also seeing mistakes they were making, and all the while taking notes on how I would run my own business someday.

Eight months later I finally felt I was ready so I began working with the local health department on what I needed to do to legally bake from my house. The answer was building a separate addition on to my house. We got a home equity loan and over the course of about 5 months made that happen..

I was now open, but where were all the customers? I leveraged all my friends. My friend Mark was a real-estate agent and he needed "Thank You" gift baskets for his clients. So I made gift baskets with banana bread and cookies. Another friend called to ask me if I could cater a luncheon at her office... sure I can! If someone was hungry and had money, we could do business!

As I said when I started, that was almost 7 years ago. I have continued to take classes and watch videos to hone my skills and now I exclusively do cakes from my little pink kitchen. And I am happier than ever!

As I blow out these 2 tiny blogiversary candles, my wish is that everyone out there who hasn't already will find their dream and live it!

Celtic Monogram Wedding at the Grandview

2011-03-08T08:51:00.000-05:00

This past weekend I delivered a cake to the Grandview, and it was a real cutie! This time around, the couple wanted a fancy monogram on the middle tier.

I found a Celtic monogram font on dafont.com and printed it out on the edible image paper in really light beige font. I then used this as a template to pipe my buttercream over it. Pipe a layer and let it get cold, then pipe a layer on top of that. Once I have built it all up like I want it, I take a paintbrush and smooth everything out nice and smooth.

Amanda with Divine Designs did the florals on this cake and they really make it pop, don't you think?

Also, to my fellow decorators: are any of you planning on attending ICES 2011 in North Carolina? I have been looking at the schedule and trying to decide whether we want to go or not.

Our First Icing Smiles Cake

2011-03-04T09:00:00.001-05:00

A month or so ago, we received our first call to action from Icing Smiles. This cake was to be for Corey, who is turning 15 on March 1st. Corey's dream cake wish was for a Flatbed tractor trailer cake. Corey's uncle drives for Sunbelt Transport and Corey's entire party was going to be Sunbelt themed. The problem is that a flatbed trailer just doesn't equal up to a lot of cake. So we decided that the flatbed truck needed to be hauling some presents for Corey.

But that wasn't our biggest challenge. Corey had some dietary requirements; namely no chocolate, no caffeine, and no dairy. No dairy!?! But I'm known as the "all butter" buttercream lady! I did some research and found that certain flavors of Duncan Hines cake mix (we used Vanilla for this cake) do not contain dairy. And I made shortening icing which I haven't made since I was a wee decorator. I had such a hard time trying to get that Crisco icing to do what I wanted! It wouldn't firm up and it wouldn't smooth properly! And then I found that most of my fondants (even my candy melt modeling chocolate) contained milk products. Only my Satin Ice fondant was completely milk free. Luckily, the truck was supposed to be blue and I had a full unopened bucket of blue Satin Ice.

We were so excited when Corey and his family pulled up to get their cake! Corey, all of his ailments aside, was still a typical 15 year old boy. He liked his cake, but he seemed even more interested in the templates and the storyboard pages we put together. So we gladly gave him those as well!

It was a very positive experience and I can't wait to be called upon again. If any of you bakers reading this aren't already an Icing Smiles partner, please contact them today to join their expanding network.

The Chattanooga Competition Cake in Detail

2011-03-01T09:00:00.005-05:00

I have talked about the Formal Affair cake competition, and last time I discussed the bridal show and my encounter with Duff Goldman. But I wanted to take another post to go into some detail about the cake we put on the table and some of the things we learned while doing the cake. This is another long post and you can see much bigger pictures of each image by clicking on it.

Let's talk flavors first. I almost never talk about the flavor of the cake or the icings, as most time it doesn't affect the look of the cakes. But the competition was based on taste too. I wanted to do something unique, and it very well may have backfired on me. I chose to make the cake a banana cake with a salted caramel filling and my vanilla house buttercream. Chad and I both thought it was delicious, in fact we ate it for most of the week.

OK, on to the cake. With the exception of the very top of the Aquarium tier, everything on this cake was edible. Only cake, fondant, and modeling chocolate. We didn't even use any rice crispy treats, but we did use just a few small edible images.

Bottom Tier

Since this cake was suppose to be a Chattanooga Themed Groom's cake, we decided to make the cake about places that our fictional groom likes to visit. So we decided to make it about the places in Chattanooga that WE like to visit. The bottom tier was a 16" square cake that represented downtown Chattanooga. Our initial plan was to make this bottom tier one business, but we wanted our cake to be decorated and pretty on all sides. So we took on the job of making a separate business on each side of this tier. And here they are in no particular order:

Clumpies Ice Cream

Clumpies Ice Cream has some of the best Ice cream in Chattanooga. We cut the logo out of modeling chocolate and made the ice cream scoops by actually scooping out modeling chocolate with a mini scoop.

The Comedy Catch

We have seen SO many great acts at the Comedy Catch that we thought it would just be un-Chattanooga-like to omit it. Although once I started making it, I realized there weren't a lot of "accessories" I could make to go with it. I molded the comedy masks out of modeling chocolate, as well as the logo. The awning was made using fondant with tylose. I had real intentions of making a microphone stand, but I ran out of time.

The Terminal Brewhouse

The Terminal Brewhouse is just a stone's throw away from the Chattanooga Choo Choo. We have dropped in many a Saturday afternoon to have lunch after delivering cakes. They have great beer, even better food and they're one of those rare companies that don't take themselves too seriously. Their menu is filled with humorous bits that on first glance you might not even notice. The accessories were all made from modeling chocolate, and so was the logo, except for the name (we used an edible image for the "THE" and "BREWHOUSE" lettering.

Chattanooga's Julie Darling Donuts

CJDD is probably the newest business on this cake, but in a very short time they have won our sweet-loving hearts. They make some of the BEST donuts. Anytime we go near there, Chaddy wants to stop for a pancakes and bacon donut. I made all of the donuts and accessories from modeling chocolate, fondant, and icing and piping gel (for the fillings). I initially hand-painted the Julie Darling heart, but the white-on-red was the only thing that looked bad, so after this picture was taken we printed the whole heart with wording as an edible image.

TIER 2 & 3

Lupi's Pizza and UTC Mocs

I wanted a short tier on my cake and an extra tall one. Why not put them together? The pizza tier represents our favorite pizza place in Chattanooga, Lupi's. Lupis is another place where you can go and have fun. There are action figures glued to the walls, Christmas lights used to make tree sculptures, and they're always cranking some eclectic tunes. The pan is cake airbrushed silver and the pizza is fondant that I dry brushed to give that hearth baked look. One cool technique here was that I froze and grated fondant to make cheese. I wasn't entirely happy with it, so Chaddy suggested I take the blow torch to it. Amazingly enough, it melted and browned, just like real cheese!

The next tier I wanted really tall, but I also wanted more of a traditional "cake" shape. Now I realize that the corset shape is not the most traditional, and still carved, but I liked the look. We cut the harlequin shapes out of modeling chocolate and we used the Cricut to cut out the UTC Mocs logos. Chad worked on the graphics files and cut the logos. It took him 2 nights to put them together, but they were extremely detailed and clean.

TIER 4

Krystal Burger

They're hot, small, and square - it's the delicious Krystal burger. And since they're headquartered in Chattanooga, how could we NOT include them? The box and the logo are modeling chocolate and the burger is cake covered in fondant and again dry brushed with various colored dusts to give that baked look. Even though we wound up cutting some of the "burger" off for the aquarium to sit on, we made it as a standalone cake so we could get some really good pictures of it.

TIER 5

The Tennessee Aquarium

The Tennessee Aquarium is one of the most recognizable buildings in Chattanooga. We pulled multiple pictures off the Internet and even scouted the location and took our own pictures to make sure we had just the right angles. The walls are painted modeling chocolate, but the logos are edible images. The roof, oh that roof! I thought about using isomalt, but I was really worried about the weight and the fragility of it. The actual roof has a grid pattern to it, so I decided to use gelatin sheets instead. I made a wire frame and used tylose glue to adhere the panels to the wire frame. The sheets were very brittle, but a short stay in the cooler softened them enough to make them pliable without getting too gummy.

If you have any questions, please leave me a comment and I will comment back with the answer. Check back on Friday when I blog about our first Icing Smiles cake!!

Bridal Show and Duff Meeting

2011-02-25T08:14:00.003-05:00

Duff Signing our Ace of Cakes book

Wow, what a whirlwind weekend! We worked on our show cake until 4 in the morning, setup our booth, finished 1400 samples, networked with vendors, and had a brief encounter with Duff Goldman! It seems that all of the advertising brought in a lot of potential brides and cake fans from around the area.

At only 1 hour into the show, we had to leave out booth and wait in line in the VIP room to get Duff autograph. This took us almost an hour and we only got to spend about 15 seconds with him. We really hoped we would have had more face time with the Ace of Cakes!.

Than it was back to our booth and a few minutes later at 3:00 Duff came onstage for a live interview. Since we had been out of our booth for so long, we had a line of brides waiting to talk to us, so we didn't get to hear a lot of what he said. The tidbits we did hear:

He told bakers and potential bakers to make sure they always value their work and make sure they always got paid for their time. You bakers out there know that we have all made this mistake.
The biggest news was that Duff has purchased a bakery location in Los Angeles and will soon move out there to start Charm City Cakes LA. Geoff will be promoted to executive chef and will be running Charm City Cakes Baltimore. I was SO shocked to hear this, Duff without Geoff is like peanut butter without jelly!

At 4:30 all the bakers in the competition were asked to go over to the competition area and wait by their cakes. Chad and I left our booth once again and went and waited (and waited). Eventually we were told that only one baker from each team (sorry Chad!) could go back stage with Duff to wait for the competition results. When we got back there, Duff was not there, the coordinators had whisked him to some back room area.

Our cakes were judged, but we weren't present for the judging, and we didn't get to see our score sheets, but my brother was nearby taking pictures when Duff starting judging our cake. Duff's first words were "Damn, that's a nice cake!". Whooooo, I was on cloud nine when I heard that (still am)!

Duff wasn't the only celebrity there!

We also got a visit from Shannon from Family Bites Blog! She came all the way down from Nashville! We hadn't seen here since the Food Blogger Forum back in September and it was good to catch up with her.

Rumor even has it that she got so close to Duff at point that she could have hugged him, but resisted the urge! LOL!

And we met some new friends too. I spoke to these 2 ladies for the longest time. They are aspiring decorators and we talked about the wonders of modeling chocolate. Once it was all said and done I don't even think they told me their names. So ladies, if you happen to read this post, please leave a comment and introduce yourselves!!

As always, I appreciate all of you that stop by and read my blog and especially those of you that take the time to comment on my posts. This blog has been cake poor for the last week or so, but I will definitely have a cake for you on Tuesday. I am doing my first cake for Icing Smiles this weekend!

Formal Affair 2011 Cake Competition

2011-02-22T08:51:00.008-05:00

OK, so the bridal show and the cake competition is finally over! Sadly, we did not win, but we had a great time making the cake and an even better time visiting with the other cake competitors. There is a lot of great cake talent in Chattanooga, and it was great to see everyone's different styles come together. I am proud to be among them.

I will go into greater detail in future posts, but today I'll be discussing the cake competition.

This is going to be a lengthy post, so click the link below to read all about it!

THE CAKES (All can be clicked on for a larger photo)

OK, so it's my blog, so I get show off my cake first! :)
Don't ask me how many hours I spent on this or what I would even think of charging for it. It was truly a labor of love for Chad and I. The theme of the contest was "A Chattanooga Themed Groom's Cake". A very broad theme, so we decided to make it about our favorite places. I will SO get into that in more detail in a future post!!

Here are the rest of the cakes, listed in alphabetical order:

212 Market
212 Market is one of the nicest restaurants in Chattanooga. We have been there several times on our anniversary. I met the chef that made the cake, but for the life of me I can't remember her name (sorry!). The building you see there is the Tennessee Aquarium (you'll see it on lots of these cakes). And when you click to see the bigger picture, you'll notice that those are blown sugar penguins. They were SO cute!!

Cake Boutique
Patti and her staff at the Cake Boutique decided to recreate the Chattanooga Choo-Choo out of cake. This is a fondant free cake, it's all buttercream! I was especially smitten with the little gazebo in the back. Too cute!!

Chattanooga Cupcakes
For a place that just sells cupcakes, Sonya and her baker (sorry, I met her too and can't remember her name either grrr...) sure brought their "A" Game!! Volkswagen just built a new plant in Chattanooga and has generated a lot of buzz. They did a great job with their wonky beetle and their molded figures are really cute!

Couture Cakes
Kimberly and Andrew with Couture Cakes make all their cakes gluten free and all organic. And they make a mean cake to boot! Click on the picture to see all the details they did on the Tivoli Theatre. And look at that Cake bottle... that's sugar! And hollow sugar at that! Duff even had to ask them how they did it.

Lady J's Monster Cakes
LeMont and Renita "Lady J" Johnson are some of the sweetest people you will ever hope to meet. And at their restaurant, Cafe LeMont, they can cook up some awesome food... "Soul in a Bowl" as they call it. They poured the roof of their aquarium cake using sugar (not isomalt), a real culinary feat. That sugar was really heavy and just more than her delicious sweet potato cake could withstand. We've all had days like this, and I commend her dedication and bravery.

Mountain Oaks Catering & Event Center
To be honest, I had never heard of Mountain Oaks before Sunday. They did a great job recreating the "See Rock City" barns that can be found all throughout the South. I thought their sunflowers were really cute too!

Piece-a-Cake Bakery
I also met Mark for the first time on Sunday at the show (see I can remember a name occasionally). He did an awesome job on the VW beetle and his Duff figure (inside the car) had the Charm City Cakes logo and even Duff's tattoo! PAC received an Honorable Mention in the contest (same as placing 2nd).

Sweet Angel Cakes
Last, but certainly not least, is Toni Repko's winning entry into the competition. Her cake had a working train and her cake also rotated on a turntable. I highlighted some of her figures - these things are really small, but extremely detailed! Toni is such a sweet lady and I am so proud of her. Congratulations on being named "Chattanooga's Cake Ace", Toni!

This post has took longer and went WAY longer than I initially intended (that and I'm still exhausted from the show) but I know you wanted to hear Duff news. I'll write it up soon, but I will leave you with a picture my brother took while Duff while was judging our cake!

Update: More cake, show, and Duff photos can be found on Charis Photography's blog, and they are much better than any picture I could ever take!! Here's the linky: http://charisweddings.com/?p=954

Still Working on Competition Cake!

2011-02-18T08:23:00.000-05:00

OK, gang... so really the only extra time I have had since the last post on Tuesday was to find another picture of Duff to post - at least it's cute and cartoony, right?

Chad and I have been up until almost midnight every night working on decorations for the big cake at the Formal Affair Bridal Show on Sunday. If you are in the Chattanooga area, drop by the Trade Center for a chance to see Duff Goldman, and maybe even see me too! I am proud to report that we are just a wee bit behind our schedule, but we are having a good time even though we are getting really tired at this point.

I still have all day (and night) today (Friday) and I'll have time on Saturday after we set our booth up to put on those finishing touches. We'll take a camera and maybe even ask some of our photog friends if they'll snap plenty of pictures for a nice mega-post on Tuesday to make up for these last 2 wimpy ones!