Les Miserables Cast Party Cake

 

I have to admit that I don't normally entertain last-minute orders.  My time off is just as precious as anyone else's, and lack of planning just doesn't cut it as an excuse.  But when I got in late from a Friday night wedding and listened to Paul's message, something pulled at my heart strings.  Paul had ordered a cake from another baker over a month ago, but on Friday he found out they had lost the order and would not be able (or willing) to provide him with his cake.  This cake was for the fine young men of the McCallie School and the girls of GPS (Girls Preparatory School).  They had worked hard all year on their production of Les Miserables, and this cake was supposed to be the centerpiece of their cast party.

I had already endured a very trying week, still had 2 weddings cakes to deliver on Saturday, and was REALLY looking forward to some rest and relaxation.  But that message kept haunting me - it made me angry that another baker would let down a client like that.  I discussed it with Chaddy and we both agreed that it would be a shame to let all those kids down after they had worked so hard.  I called Paul first thing Saturday morning and told him that we had limited time, but we would love to help out.  He gave us open reign on the cake, but said he would like the iconic girl from the poster, the McCallie and GPS logos, and something signifying the "barricade scene".  Alright, that's something we can work with!!

I did some quick reading on "Les Mis" and started baking.  Chaddy started getting graphics ready.  The top of the cake is mainly edible images (4 sheets pieced together to be exact) with the logo lettering cut out using the Cricut.  On the sides we used a blue, white, and red border to keep with the French theme.  We then made lots of modeling chocolate barrels, stools, planks and pallets to build up a barricade at each corner.  We didn't finish the cake under after 1:00 am on Sunday morning, but we had a blast making it! 

I know this was a long post, so as a bonus for sticking with me, here's a top-down shot of the cake, along with a little secret:  When I was baking, I made a blue layer, a white layer, and a red layer.  When the cast and crew cuts into the cake, they'll get another little piece of the French flag!

 

Simple Monogram Tutorial

OK, so a couple of weeks ago I ran across this little technique and it was one of those "Wow, why didn't I think of that before?" moments.  Monograms have been a big trend with wedding cakes now for a couple of years.  I do at least one or two monograms a month.  I have several different methods I use, but this will be my new "simple monogram" method.  And I must confess that I been obsessed with Pinterest lately, so I asked Chaddy to help me make my tutorial "Pinterest Friendly".  I'm not sure that it is Pinterest Friendly (its longer than I expected), and I'm not so sure how it will look here on the blog.  But I suppose that's the way we learn - whether it's cake decorating or blogging, huh?  It's always an adventure!!

OK, so I could already tell by the preview that things were looking a little wonky, so I resized the image and it looks pretty good now.  Let me know what you think in the comments!
 

Tennessee Riverplace Wedding and Toppers

When I met with this happy young couple, they were very sure of the cake they wanted.  They wanted the look and the whimsy of a wonky cake, but they didn't want to use triangular risers and they wanted each tier to maintain it's rectangular shape (no cutting the base/top at an angle.  It was a bit of a challenge, but I decided creating an angled well in the cake below was the best way to accomplish this.

The rest of the cake was fairly easy, and as you can see I decorated it with some scroll piping, some gumpaste tulips, a fondant ribbon, and gray gumpaste bows that I textured to give a more realistic fabric feeling.

I delivered this to the Tennessee Riverplace, which is the beautiful location where they had the reception.

Click to Enlarge

But take a look at this topper the couple picked out!  Isn't it just the cutest?  They got it from Etsy, but I am not sure of the seller.  They were SO cute that they just had to have their own special photo session!

Even though their groom's cake was a simple, budget-friendly design, they also had a specialty topper made for it.  Unfortunately, I don't know this Etsy seller either.

Now, they didn't explain their design to me, but I'd like to think it stems from the episode of Friends where Phoebe explains that "Lobsters mate for life" and that Ross and Rachel are each others lobsters.  I'm not sure if lobsters actually do mate for life, but I can certainly appreciate the sentiment.

As always, thank you for stopping by, and I'll see you back here next week.  If you have any questions, please leave a comment and I will reply to it using Blogger's new(ish) reply feature!

New Tutorial - Smooth Square Cakes with Perfect Corrners

About a year and a half ago I recorded my first video tutorial and put it up on YouTube.  The first time I went to Food Blog Forum in Atlanta they advised us to do 2 things:  (1) Expand our experience by doing things we had not tried, and to (2) "find a need and then fill it".  My first buttercream video was my attempt of doing just that.  It was slow to be watched at first, but now after over 20,000 hits there's rarely a day that goes by that I don't get a new subscriber, comment, or "like" on my little video.  It's very satisfying, but it's also a constant reminder that I should probably do more videos.

Well, I finally bit the bullet and made a new video for you guys!  This time I am focusing on getting your square buttercream cakes silky smooth with sharp, crisp, corners.  The process I use is very similar to a round cake, but all those corners and edges really up the difficulty level!  Oh heck, why should you read my babbling when you could be listening to it?! ;-)  See my new video below!

Icing Square Buttercream Cakes Smooth with Perfect Corners

Click Here for the Post that includes my All-Butter Buttercream Recipe

AND THE WINNER IS:  If you entered our giveaway for the FMM Sugarcraft cutters, then today might be your lucky day!  We had quite a few entries, but the lucky winner today is:

Thanks Random.org!

And lucky #13 is Lydia from Ever So Sweet!  Congratulations Lydia, I'll have your cutters in the mail very soon!  And for those of you that didn't win, a 20 minute buttercream tutorial is a pretty decent consolation prize, right?  If you're interested in seeing more video tutorials, either leave us a comment here, or subscribe to our You Tube channel.  Have an awesome week!!

Fancy Fantasy Flower Wedding Cake

Lately, I have been watching several videos on how to make life-like botanically correct gumpaste flowers.  I certainly appreciate the time and talent that it takes to make a gumpaste flower that is indistinguishable from its real life counterpart, but there's just something about fantasy flowers that I adore.

Maybe it's because they're easier to make, and that anyone can make them.  Or maybe it's because I'm only limited by my imagination, and not just flowers the world has to offer.

Like this flower here, which spans about 15 inches from top to bottom.  I made lots and lots and lots of petals for this flower, but when it's the only element on an otherwise bare cake, you can't be stingy with the petals.  It seems like I made a bazillion, but I filled 3 full sheet pans with petals.

I have been getting SO many compliments on my You Tube tutorials lately, and it has inspired me to make more.  This is one of the cakes I want to film into a tutorial.  I have some footage on the computer and hopefully Chaddy and I will have time this week to sit down and polish it up a little.  With any luck, you'll have a new tutorial video to see here next week! (keep your fingers crossed!!)  Thanks and have a great week!!
 

New Yellow and Gray Cake AND Giveaway!

I, like many others, am currently obsessed with Lori Hutchinson, aka The Caketress.  I am seeing works inspired by her designs all over the Internet.  The more I see, the more I like her work.

I had been looking for one of her cutters for literally months, and last fall when we were at ICES we kept seeing people using her "signature" cutter on lots of display cakes.  Chaddy took a picture with his phone and we hit the vendor room, showing each and every vendor our picture to see if they had a matching cutter.  Finally, one of the vendors had one and sold us her last one!  I was SO excited!

So, I used her cutter to outline the yellow section of a new display cake, another in my so-called series of yellow and gray cakes.  And ruffles are such a big trend in cakes right now too, that I had to add some.  I did want to add my own flair to it, so I found this petal border cutter and decided to use that to make my ruffles.

AND NOW FOR THE GIVEAWAY!

Well, I don't have an extra set The Caketress cutters, but I did somehow find an extra set of the cutters I used to make the ruffles on my cake. It's the FMM Sugarcraft Straight Frill Set 3 (9-12) cutter (read more about it here). It's still in the package and everything!!  If you interested in winning this, just leave a comment on this post from now until April 2nd at Noon EST.  Just leave me your e-mail so I can contact you if you've won.  I'll announce the winner here on the blog on Tuesday April 3rd.  This giveaway is sponsored by little-ol-me!

Happy Third Blogiversary... to Me!!!

Chaddy reminded me yesterday that Wednesday was our 3rd year blogiversary.  It doesn't seem like I have been marking up this little corner of the interwebs for 3 whole years, but it's true!

I started writing this blog because I thought it might bring more brides to my website, and it does, as sometimes brides will mention it during a phone call or consultation.  But I soon found that I was finding it personally rewarding as well.  It was just nice to write down my feelings and troubles, and not to get all ten-dollar-wordy on you, but it was truly cathartic.  And soon after, other decorators showed up and agreed and sympathized with my problems.  And lots of you told me what a great job I was doing as I honed my cake skills.  Cleansing, validation, and respect (with a smidge of marketing) all in one place - why would I ever leave??

I do admit there's times when the blog becomes more of a chore, but I'm an opinionated girl, so I always eventually find something to talk about.  But I also want to hear from you!  As my little blog begins it's fourth year of existence is there anything you want to see more (or less) of?  Would you be heartbroken if I switched to blogging once a week instead of twice? 

Let me know in the Comments!
  

This Ain't Your Mama's Review

Cake decorators get very few perks... Occasionally we get a better parking spot while delivering cakes, and I guess we get all the free cake scraps we want!  But this weekend we were invited to visit the This Ain't Your Mama's Wedding and Party Expo.  We love working with brides that think outside the box, so we really wanted to be a vendor, but all the available vendor spots were already taken.  But the coordinator of this event, Ayesha from Homespun Parties and Events was nice enough to invite us to the show as her guests.  And I'm SO glad we attended.

This was really unlike any bridal show we have attended and in a good way.  There were some traditional wedding vendors, but there were lots of artists there actually selling their wares onsite.

We ran into some old friends:

Meghan and Eric from Soli Photography

Rich Smith from Rich Smith Photography

But we also met some new friends too!

The Button Florist

These "floral" arrangements were SO cute!  They were made from antique buttons and upcycled materials, and if the artist, Celia will pardon the pun, were as cute as a button.  These would be so great for a bride that wants to keep her bouquet as a keepsake or maybe even some cool boutonnieres for a steampunk wedding!

Large Kusudamas by The Paper Pimpernel

I have known about Darcee, the artist behind The Paper Pimpernel for some time, but this is the first time we have met.  Darcee takes origami to a whole 'notha level with these beautiful, delicate, paper flowers.  I have a couple of upcoming brides that plan on using her paper flowers and one is looking to have matching edible versions on her cake!  Maybe Darcee can give me some pointers!  Photo appears courtesy of The Paper Pimpernel.

White Lace Headband from Judith Lauren Designs

I knew I would like Jill from Judith Lauren Designs the minute I saw her cute little booth and her awesomely glittered high heel shoes.  Jill makes very affordable bridal jewelry and accessories and they are all available on her Etsy Shop, or she can custom make pieces to suit your needs.  She was very passionate and energetic about her work and I'm sure we'll all be seeing great things for her in the future! 
Picture appears courtesy of Judith Lauren Designs.

If you're in the Chattanooga area look for this show again next year and make plans to attend.  If we're not there as vendors, we'll certainly be back as guests!!

Simple Cake, Beautiful Pictures

As I said on the last blog, I'm scraping for un-blogged about cakes at the moment.  Instead of making more cake dummies, I've been working out in the yard.  Spring is just too tempting!  So here is an old cake with great pictures.  My friends and long time clients, Mike and Tammy Houston (Houston Studios Photography) took these great shots of a simple little cake that I made a while back.

It's cute when a client calls you and says, "You have to make a cake, it's all she wants for her birthday.  I'll be in the dog house!"  Mike is much more proactive these days.  Now it's a cake that stays on my calendar from year to year.  This is such a simple cake with a #3 tip for grass, some plunger flowers, and a few gumpaste yellow flowers (plus a pretty purple ribbon!)  I didn't love this cake until they sent me these pictures!

It's just amazing what a good photographer can do!   I think it's the same with us cake decorators.  We do things effortlessly, and make them look so easy.  When I was teaching a cake class, I told the students that the hardest thing about decorating cakes was the most basic.  Icing a cake smooth.  If your cake is bumpy or humped on top no amount of great decorations will make a perfect project.  There have been over 18,000 hits on my silly one-take YouTube video on icing cakes smooth.  There are a lot of people that have a hard time.  All I can say is that it takes a lot of practice and then you will also pick up some speed.  I'm planning to make a video on how to ice a square cake perfectly.  If you have any hints that help you do this well, PLEASE leave a comment or email me your suggestions.

Photos taken by and appear courtesy of Houston Studios Photography.

New Favorite Wedding Colors

We decided not to participate in the two area bridal shows this Spring, so it's not been crazy busy like this time last year.  My big sister is recovering from a small stroke so I decided to visit her in Maryland for a little while.  It was very lonely without my sweetie, but someone had to make some money and take care of all our kitties!  If I'm not baking, we have no cakes to blog about!  Chaddy will not let me only do one blog a week, so it's dummy cake time!  All my display cakes need to be replaced.  They are old, dirty and I'm super tired of looking at them! 

The hardest part of making a display cake, for me,  is deciding on ONE design.  Pinterest is killing me!  There is so much inspiration out there to get your wheels turning that it becomes overwhelming.  I mean, OVERWHELMING.  So I have start with some guidelines.

1.  It's not a cake contest.  I don't have to use the hardest techniques or do everything I know, on one cake.  No one is judging them!
2. These displays are for brides, not me!  It's not my wedding, so I should tailor the designs to types of looks that my brides like and can afford. I would love to add an extra $500 worth of gumpaste flowers to a display but I don't have that customer at this time (maybe one day, Sylvia Weinstock!).  
3. Combo of 1 & 2... Keep it simple.   Sure, I have the rare bride that wants something really different, but most want buttercream icing, a little color, a few flowers, a little personal detail (monogram, graphic from the invitation, etc).

We will see if I can follow my own rules in the next few weeks!  I still want to be proud of these cakes and they should represent my style too!  This little cutie cake is the first in a group I'm going to make in the same color scheme.  I just love this gray and yellow combo!  My idea here was to get the bands of color without using plain ribbon (which is a constant these days).  It was hard for me to paint flowers a "not so natural" gray, but it had to be done!  Tee hee!  A lot more "could" be added, but I'm trying to follow rule #3.  If you think differently, please tell me!  Also, I want to make some gumpaste "billy balls" for one of my upcoming displays, so if you know how to make them, please let me know!