Bat Mitzvah Fashion Cake

We were so fortunate to be asked to make cake for a Bar Mitzvah and a Bat Mitzvah a little white back.  Today, I want to tell you about the Bat Mitzvah cake.  When I sat down with the family the birthday girl was the first to tell me her vision.  She had it all planned out with pictures and everything.  She brought an inspiration picture from Pink Cake Box and their great artist Ann Heap.  She wanted to remove a lot of the extra "stuff" on the cake like candy that made it more juvenile.  We were also dealing with a budget, so when I was asked to shave a few dollars off of the cake, we removed a company logo and the tissue on the bottom tier.  We were going to have the lid raised a bit with big pieces of fondant tissue coming out.  I was happy with the change because it kept the cake more streamlined.  We already had two tiers with tissue, and that was plenty.

As far as technique for this cake the overall tip is to use modeling chocolate, the kind you make, not the pre-made stuff.  The hatbox was one large cake with four tiers.  I used a grapefruit spoon (which I don't know why I own...) to make the channel for the black tissue.  As normal, make it deeper than you want it to be.  A layer of buttercream and fondant will fill it back in to some degree, so dig a little more out.  I covered that whole tier in white fondant and then added the pink modeling chocolate on top of that.  I I was doing it again today, I would have made one big band of modeling chocolate for the sides or done individual stripes all the way around without any fondant under neath.

The blue box and orange bag are really straightforward.  My tip on those would be to fill in any uneven space with buttercream so that the modeling chocolate doesn't sink in at all.  Corners are notorious for doing that.   I have a pet peeve about droopy corners on all cakes, but that's for another day.  To make the tissue, I got some fondant/gumpaste mix rolled really thin in the pasta machine and cut squares out.  I scrunched them, my technical term...trademark pending.... and fluffed them.  I let them dry a couple of days and didn't put the pieces on the cake until  the morning of the party.  That way the moisture in the fridge didn't make them droopy.  No one wants droopy tissue!

The handbag was a "cheater" handbag. We used edible images for all the print.  I made it the size to fit one full page of print for the front and one for the back.  HA!  It didn't outwit me this time!  Did you know that REAL bags have upside down print on the backside because it's all one piece of leather?  I made sure I was accurate for this birthday girl because she would have known!  For all the tan pieces, I used a stitching tool and it made a big difference in the overal look and detail of the cake.

I was happy with the cake, even though I could have added SO much more to it (makeup, jewelry, etc.) but when we got it to the venue that was decorated beautifully, it fit in just perfect!  The staff at The Chattanoogan Hotel were all coming up and taking pictures and that is a real compliment since they see cakes all the time.

Wraparound String Wedding Cake

Most bridal cake orders these days follow a certain formula. About six months or more from the wedding I get a contact email or call from the bride, a consultation, design and tasting, quote and contract, then finally delivery. This cake was very different. Two weeks ago, a MOB (mother of the bride) contacted me wanting to book a wedding cake. Book, not quote or meet. I booked it but didn't have any details other than servings and delivery date. I spent the following few days trying to pin them down to flavors or design. I got one picture of a floral centerpiece for inspiration. Out of desperation I sent three pictures of basic cakes. She just picked one! Done! It was a strange way to make a wedding cake. I found out the the bride and groom had already gotten married and didn't even want the reception. So that explained a lot!

As far as this cake, I can't say too much, can I?  It is super smooth buttercream, (yay me!) with some Fondarific bands. The first time I put the green bands on I used the smallest section on the ribbon cutter. It was still to thick and heavy. I went to my faithful Artway extruder. I used a small die and extruded the "snakes" onto a cookie sheet. I chilled for a few minutes and then applied them to a very cold cake. That way, when I didn't like the placement, it didn't tear up the cake. The cake matched the venue's decorations and it was clean and neat. It was kind of an easy paycheck, but I still felt "cheated" out of my experience with the bride. That's silly I know, but sometimes those experiences are the best part of the job!

Sweet Sixteen Birthday Cake

This past weekend I made the cutest sweet sixteen for a young woman in Chattanooga.  I worked closely with her Mom to get a list of all her favorite things so we could surprise her with this grand birthday cake!

Our birthday girl is on the rowing team, so I made a replica of her rowboat in her school's colors.  The rest of her cake followed a salmon and turquoise color scheme.  Does anyone besides me have a problem mentioning salmon and cake in the same sentence? ;-)

I made her favorite shopping bag, and even a set of car keys, something every s16 year-old wants, but I had the most trouble with the birthday girls' pup!  I initially starting molding the dog using Fondarific modeling chocolate, but I had to scrap it.  It was just a little too wilty and wouldn't hold its shape the way I wanted.  I made a quick batch of real modeling chocolate and that worked much better. 

Thanks to everyone that stops and reads my blog; I enjoy telling you my tales in the cake trenches.  Friday is Valentine's Day, so hug someone you love!!

Woodland Owl Birthday Cake

Sweet Kaeley is one of the only kids I still make a birthday cake for these days.  Her mom is a vendor and sends me lots of business, so it is pretty cheap pay for an unofficial outside sales person.  This year's party was at the Chattanooga Nature Center in their "Tree House" and they were having a real owl come to the party.  Birthday parties were not that cool when I was a kid.....jealous ,  I am.

I love it when  I'm given a few parameters and let to go.  A "fairy, owl, woodland, princess theme" is what I was told.  I didn't want to use "traditional" forest colors, so I went with a silver bark bottom tier, purple owls and mushrooms and bright green leaves!  That's the kind of world I want to live it!   I finally got to use a tree bark impression mat that I just love.  I 'm sorry to say, they don't make it anymore :(

My "lesson" on this cake is to tell you about over building or cake insurance.  When you have any type of heavy fondant figure or item, like my owls, put a wooden skewers up the middle with plenty of skewer to go into the cake.  All my mushrooms and letters/circles have thick floral wire in them.  For the cake support there are big straws in the 11" tree trunk to hold up the top tier.  It was only two layers. The 7" tier was four layers with a cardboard cake board under the bottom two layers and one under the top two tiers.  There are also fat straws supports in the bottom two tiers to hold up the top two.  I used four skewers through all those layer to keep the tier straight and stable.  After I stacked them, I ran a sharpened master dowel through the whole cake.  I never let  a cake out the door without a center dowel.  It's a great insurance policy in itself.  When you drive up a mountain to deliver a cake, nothing is going to move if you build yours in this way.

Unfortunately there are times when all your over building can't stop a bigger problem.  As is the norm, I was carrying the cake to the customers car.  I have four steps to go down as you leave my shop.  I was watching Kaeley and her mom and lost count of how many steps I had already taken.  As I took the last step I realized there was still another step.  I went SMACK on the concrete and so did the cake.   As stupid as I felt, I was more worried about poor Kaeley because she was looking at me with a look of horror.  The first thing she said was "Are you OK?" and then "Is my cake ruined?"  Oh, I hurt but I wasn't going to let her know that.  I said "It's OK, I can fix it.  You are just going to have to stay a little while longer".  She was happy because I have a pink kitchen and edible glitter :)  I gave her and her Mom some fondant and said "help me by making a few butterflies".  That was good because it's hard to work when everyone is looking at you and thinking "How is she going to fix that?" 

I'm truly lucky that I caught the top tier so it didn't land on the ground and because the cake was super cold.  Since my buttercream is all real butter, it's get really hard in the cooler.  That is great for traveling with any cakes.  It took me about 20 minutes to fix the cake, but it felt like two hours.  I am also grateful that the customer was a fellow vendor and she has seen a lot go wrong during wedding set ups and is cool as a cucumber.  She was much more worried about me than the cake which I so appreciate.  I was too busy being embarrassed.  At the end I told Kaeley that the fixed cake has lost all it's glitter and I needed help to get it sparkly again.  She was a big help!   I think all the after boo boo glitter really helped!  (The smaller picture is the "after".  Take my word for it, there was a lot of glitter!"

Kaeley and the "After" Photo!

Taking Care of Display Cakes

This post is a baby lesson in dummy cakes and how to repair them. I really liked this cake when I made it, but about a year later it had a little accident. I was storing/displaying it on a silver cake stand on top of a refrigerator. Next to the refrigerator was a cooling rack on wheels. One day I moved the rack and the stand was apparently being held by the rack because it the cake went flying across the room! My first hint is to put little pieces of shelf liner under each each foot or the entire stand. Every time you open the fridge, the cake stands moves a little bit so avoid the problem with shelf liner!

I use to cover cake dummies with piping gel to attach the fondant securely. My cake friend Kimberly told me to use Crisco to attach the fondant. When you are done with the display cake, you can soak it in hot water and reuse the styrofoam dummy! That is tip two! Since I had used Crisco, when the cake hit the ground, the fondant completely came off the top tier. Totally gone! Naked! There was also a big hunk out of the deer tier.

The cake was in good shape before the accident, so instead of trashing it, I decided to do some fixing! I recovered the top tier and then added the ruffles. I think I have to make an entire ruffle cake soon! I was going to leave it, but then I felt like I needed more height so I added the topper. Just some gumpaste and a bit of floral wire.

For the deer tier, I measured the thickness of the fondant still on the cake and rolled some fresh fondant. I cut a nice straight line for the bottom and then pressed it up against the cake. Basically this made an impression on the fresh fondant so I knew where to cut the patch piece. It then fit right in. I just blended it with my finger and it really wasn't noticeable. I added a few ruffles to hide some imperfections as well as some gumpaste flowers, pinecones and berries for a more wintery feel. Hide those boo boos with flowers!

Next tip, when adding flowers or something to a very hard display cake, you can add a good size piece of fresh fondant and attach it with gum glue or water. This will give you something to poke in to and hold your new additions. It this isn't feasible, because you can't hide the big piece of fondant, use a drill with a small bit to pre drill holes. You may have to use a really small bit first and work up to a bigger size. That will give you a nice hole to poke flowers into.

I am glad that I loved on the cake instead of trashing it because I think I like it better now. Maybe I was just tired of it :) My last tip is for dusting old cakes. If the cake is very dusty, take it outside and use a hair dryer on cool, an airbrush, or just a clean large paint brush and dust off the big part of the dust. If you just have a little dust left, use a clean paper towel soaked with PGA or vodka and wipe it down. If this doesn't get it clean enough, use a very clean dish rag that is wet but rung out well. Wipe off all the dirt or discoloration that you can't this way. It will make the cake gooey because of the water, but it will dry out and your display will look much better!

Quatrefoil Wedding Cake

There are not a lot of really new cakes out there these days.   Occasionally I find cake goodies and I want to purchase them all!  This was the case when I found sugarartstudion.com.  Their pictures of gumpaste flowers make me want to make a flower half as pretty!  They are unbelievable!  Gumpaste spider chrysanthemums, really?... I mean really?!?  Just let those flowers inspire you and you will soon spend way too much money, unless of course you book the cake first and then buy the tools.  That's what we should do....

This little cake was made with the Ali quatrefoil cutter to make impressions on the bottom tier.  I really wish I could find a way to use these on buttercream cakes.  We were asked to make a simple display cake for one of our favorite venues, The Grandview on Lookout Mountain, Georgia.  They have a great cake room when you first come in the door of this beautiful old house.  The display cake is going to be there for all the brides that tour the facility as well as being there for a hopefully unneeded cake emergency.  That's one of the reasons I made the cake all white.  It should fit into anyone's decor, should any baker not arrive with the bride's cake.  

We used some garden roses from Cal-Java and the rest of the flowers came from wholesalesugarflowers.com.  I hope you like it and that we inspire you to give your favorite venue an emergency cake. 

Golden Globes Red Carpet Birthday Cake

 

 I really love award season! The dresses, the hair, the jewels and oh, the awards. It all starts tonight with the Golden Globe awards! I got a last minute birthday cake request from a favorite long time customer. I was so happy she wanted a cake to match her Golden Globes party theme! I was asked to include the "Happy Birthday..." Inscription and use a red and gold color scheme. The cake was supposed to be a simple 9" round, but when I realized it was Mary Margaret's 16th birthday, I had to do more.

I choose an oval cake so that I had a flat front for the carpet to be draped. I made the stars out of a golden/spice mustard color and just painted the front with a gold glaze to make them sticky. I then sprinkled lots of edible gold disco dust. You could also do this by wetting the stars with a little bit of water so they are tacky.

The film was all Fondarific. I made a big round middle and made a ribbon of black with some side detail by using a ticking wheel . I cut a few squares out of ivory and drew some squiggles to add a little details. The Fondarific helped because of the added work time,I was able to manipulate the "film" so that it didn't crack and break.

For the spotlights, we just used black modeling chocolate and used a large diameter dowel to hollow out a space to drop the light inside. We let this firm up a little and cut a hunk off the bottom so they sit at an angle. We added a few strips and various poked holes for a little detail. I thought it was a cute, small way of adding some fun into this red carpet ready cake!

Items I used to create this cake: 
American Gold Disco Dust
Ateco 6-Piece Graduated Star Cookie Cutter Set
Fondarific Buttercream Fondant Black
Fondarific Buttercream Red Fondant
Edible Image Paper
FMM Sugarcraft Ribbon Cutter & Stitcher
Mini Party Lites

FULL DISCLOSURE:  As a member of the Amazon Affiliate program, I receive a small commission if you buy a product from the links on my blog.  I actually own the products I recommend and all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Make Your Own Top Pot Doughnuts

As a baker, I enjoy cooking, but I'll admit that baking just cakes can become tiring at times.  But that doesn't mean that I don't want to experiment with other kinds of sweet treats.  For Christmas I received the most awesome doughnut book - it was Top Pot Hand-Forged Doughnuts: Secrets and Recipes for the Home Baker.  I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed this book.  It's not just a recipe book; you get stories about how Top Pot got its start, and you get loads of information on what ingredients they use and why.  It's amazing how different doughnuts are than cake.

To date, I have made the three basic doughnuts; yeast, sour cream, and cake.  The sour cream ones have been my favorite, but tonight as I was making a batch of cake doughnuts I thought this might be something that you guys might be interested in too. I'm going to provide the recipe here, but it you like doughniuts you should really get this book!

Basic Spice Cake Doughnuts
Taken from "Top Pot Hand-Forged Doughnuts" (Chronicle Books)


INGREDIENTS
2 3/4 cups cake flour,  plus more for rolling and cutting
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp iodized salt
3/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2/3 cup sugar
2 TBS shortening
1 large egg, plus 1 large egg yolk
2/3 cup whole milk
Canola oil for frying

Powdered Sugar or cinnamon sugar, as a coating (optional, but not really ;-) )

DIRECTIONS
1. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg into a large bowl. Set aside for later use.

2. In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, mix the sugar and shortening for 1 minute on low speed, until sandy. Then add the egg and egg yolk, and mix for 1 more minute on medium speed, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary, until mixture is thickened and light in color.

3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in three separate batches, alternating with the milk, mixing until just combined on low speed each time. The dough will be very sticky. Transfer dough to a clean bowl and refrigerate, covered directly with plastic wrap, for 1 hour (or up to 24 hours).  I found that my dough was REALLY loose, so I added about a 1/4 cup of flour to the dough.  It worked much better!

4. Heat your deep fryer (or large pot of oil) to 370 degrees. Gently roll out the chilled dough on a floured surface until roughly 1/2 inch thick, using more flour as necessary. Using a doughnut cutter, cut as many doughnuts and holes as possible, dipping the cutter into flour before each cut. Fold and gently re-roll the dough to make extra doughnuts.

5. Remove any excess flour off the doughnuts before adding them to the oil, taking care not to crowd them. Once the doughnuts float, fry for about 1 minute per side. Drain on paper towels, and roll in powdered sugar, or cinnamon sugar while still hot.

Enjoy making your doughnuts!!

FULL DISCLOSURE:  As a member of the Amazon Affiliate program, I receive a small commission if you buy a product from the links on my blog.  I actually own the products I recommend and all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Domed Wedding Cake with Lace Doilies

Sometimes we are lucky enough to have a bride that really has a vision. They know they want a cake to blend into all the reception decor as well as the venue. For this particular event the venue was the Tivoli Theater in Chattanooga, TN. There are dark red curtains, gold and silver fixtures and lots of pretty marble. The bride chose darker shades of orange and purple to accent her Fall wedding.

It is really a challenge to add a lot of color to a bridal cake while ensuring it doesn't look like a fancy birthday cake. A baker can add tons of tonal details and the cake rarely looks busy, but color really changes things.  The "easy" part of this cake was the bottom stencil and the drop strings. For the bottom tier we used the "princess lace" stencil from Designer Stencils. This is the largest design in the set.

My tip here is that we air brushed the gold while the stencil was still on and in place. We also cheated a little and used a little swag marker for all the drop strings. It keeps things so consistent and easy. The cake is all buttercream with a little fondant for accents.

There is a cake all over Pinterest that shows a beautiful cake with a domed top tier and the same lace doily design. When the bride presented me the picture, I thought "holy moly that is a lot of intricate piping!" and therefore a bunch of money. She was on a budget and I wanted to help. I got so lucky and found the the lace was all done with a SugarVeil mat and SugarVeil.

I found the same mat on Etsy for a lot less money that Sugar Veil was charging. It worked great! After I removed the lace, I dry brushed it with gold luster dust and immediately applied it to the dome. It really did cut down the work while still looking like we had done a lot of hand work. I was really happy with the final product and the Bride loved it too!

Peony Curl Wedding

This past weekend I delivered this beautiful wedding cake to the The Mill in Chattanooga.  I have made a cake similar to this one a long time ago, but the bride brought in a photo of a cake she likes.  The petals on the tiers were curlier and a little less sparse than the one I did previously.  I knew that making the cake wouldn't be a problem. what I was really interested in was making those beautiful sugar peonies.


I have confessed on numerous occasions that I normally buy my sugar flowers.  But the peonies the bride wanted were extra full and  pretty and she also wanted a blingy rhinestone center.  Well, I could find anything like that online, so I set out to make my own.

I used gumpaste with a little fondant mixed in so I could get a little extra work time and so I could get those petals really REALLY thin.  They took longer to make than I expected, but I think that the extra time was worth it, don't you?

Well, it's almost Christmas time, are there any cake goodies you hope that Santa brings you this year?  If so, let me know what it is in the comments!