Bakers Gotta Bake!

When do you not call your baker?  The day before the wedding!  Or the day of the wedding!  We had both happen recently and just wanted to tell you why it's not a good idea.  Toward the end of the month I pull all my orders for the next month and read through them.  I make a list of supplies I need, make sure no payments are needed, make sure everything is very clear (since it may have been months since I booked the cake) and make a task list for each week.  This is a best practice, even if I don't always do it, but I try!  If I'm really on top of my paperwork and cakes, I will email a bride a short note confirming the delivery date, place and time as well as any questions I may have.  Now this is the time for questions!
Here is an example of an email to send a brides a couple of weeks in advance of the wedding.

Your wedding day is almost here!  Please read over your contract, which is attached, and ask any questions or advise me of any changes that you need to make.  Here are the delivery details:
Date:  (include day of the week, like Saturday June 14, 2015)
Venue location:
Time we will be there with the cakes:

Please provide the name and phone number for the person that is going to return the cake stands the week after the wedding.

If you have a topper, please make sure it is at the venue and on the cake table.

Have you made arrangement for the florist to have the necessary flowers at the venue?

Brides that don't have a planner are typically more stressed shortly before the big day.  GOOD wedding planners will confirm the above details well before the wedding and often email all the vendors a list of all the other vendors and a time line.  If a bride has family help them out, they need to make a list of vendors, their contact info  and the expected delivery times.

We had a sister call us a 10pm the night before the wedding.  She was leaving a message with very inaccurate information when I picked up the phone.  She knew nothing other than I was making a cake.  She was panicking that they had been calling and calling and sent me several emails and I had not answered.  I was in the kitchen all day next to the phone.  I checked my email at Noon that day, but not since then because it's FRIDAY AND BAKERS GOTTA BAKE!  If I had sent the bride an email the week before , this would not have happened.

Then Saturday, the day of the wedding, a planner called to ask me when I was delivering the cakes.  Really? The day of the wedding?  What kind of planning is that?  We got to the venue and the bride had forgotten items for both the bridal and groom's cake!.  It's going to happen because they have so much on their minds, that's why GREAT wedding planners are awesome!

So if you are a baker, send that letter two weeks ahead of time!  If you are a bride, get a planner or at least make a really good "day of" list!

Little World Traveler Birthday Cake

We make very few birthday cakes and those that we do make as never money makers so I am doing them as a favor, gift or for someone very special.  One of our sweetest brides ever adopted a little girl and asked us to make her a special cake.  It had to be driven two hours to Atlanta, GA by the Grandmother so it had to be sturdy. 

One of my requirements for birthday cakes these days is that I get lots of artistic freedom.  They gave me very little instructions other than maps with muted colors and the color palette you see.  I gave them a few ideas and off we went!   Of course we did fondant so it could travel well and we printed the maps with edible images.  Finding a "pretty and girly" map is not easy!  I was teaching my intern some of the basics like making pearl borders, fondant bows, and "fantasy" flowers.  We spent a long time but she learned a lot about taking a basic flower and using the ball tool, textures, and how to dry them so they all fit together later.  We also made the handle, latches and luggage tag by hand.  The "smash" cake was just a little 1/2 globe with the edible images cut out by continent so we could make it pretty, but not accurate :)  There is really nothing technically hard about decorating this cake, but that doesn't mean it's quick either.  I think we had two full days of artwork in this one cake, which is why I say they are not money makers they are really labors of love!  I was really paid by the sweet and wonderful reaction that I got from the family!  I'm so fortunate to be able to make cakes for wonderful people and have an impact on their lives.

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!

Emerald, the Pantone Color of 2013!

I suppose they have a "color of the year" every year, but this time was the first I noticed it being mentioned everywhere.  EMERALD, so pretty, so dark, so beautiful and not so easy to color fondant in the right shade.  We are no dummies, we started with Satin Ice Green, but then added lots of "forest green" to get the color were we wanted it.  This cake is somewhat plain, but busy in the "texture" department.  I used a mold for the band borders because I'm tired of plain ribbon :(  The star of the show is clearly the bows.  I know bows are also getting old and tiresome, but I think this is a little different since it's on it's side.  The trick to this bow (a 50/50 mix) was to make the loops (three different sizes) and then before they get hard, start attaching them.  You have to have a little flexibility.

What colors have you been digging lately??

Khaki Wedding Cake in Trenton

This past weekend I made this wedding cake for a sweet couple getting married in Trenton, GA.  This couple was a little older than my average wedding couple, but they were super nice and allowed me a little leeway with their cake for the big day!

Our color scheme for this wedding was khaki, white, and gold.  White is an easy color to bring to the party; here we used white in the borders, piping, and in the roses I got from wholesalesugarflowers.com.  A little gold goes a long way on a wedding cake and can be easily overdone.  I used a cosmetic sponge to lightly edge each of the roses with gold luster dust.

I had a rough time getting the right color combination to get that perfect khaki color.  Khaki is WAY different than ivory.  My final recipe included mixing in brown, green, and just a smidge of purple coloring into my white buttercream.

Baby Shower Reveal Cake

I blogged about Matt and Nikki's awesome Converse cake a little over a year ago.  They are such an awesome couple!  When they called me about making a "baby reveal" cake, it broke my heart to say "we only make wedding cakes".  Matt was super sweet and willing to bend over backwards to get any cake from me so I had to do something.  He agreed to a 9" cake with NO decoration, but this is the cake he got.  It's not awesome, but I had a little extra time and felt like doing a little something for such special people. 
   
I REALLY like Jonathan Adler's designs and pottery.  I have a wish list a mile long on that website (hint, hint..) so when I found this stencil (and a few others) on DesignerStencils.com.  it had to be mine!  Something about me wants it to go the other direction, but I'll get over it.  Do you see it or does it look right to you?  I used a hounds tooth impression mat for the bands and border.   I love to mix patterns, but it does often look messy to me.  I added piped the borders because I had extra yellow icing.  At least I'm honest :)  It probably would have looked better without the piping.  The cake was lime cake with lime French buttercream filling and rum French buttercream outside.  It's kind of a mojito cake!  By the way, it was blue on the inside!

Snowflake Winter Wedding

A snowflake theme always makes for an elegant winter wedding.  And it really sets that winter mood, even if you're in Georgia and it's 72 degrees!

Our bride wanted really delicate snowflakes, so I wound up piping almost all of them.  I used some octagon and hexagon cutters to make the tiniest impression on the buttercream.  I then used a #1 tip to freehand pipe a snowflake using the cutters shape to make sure that the final snowflake kept a (mostly) symmetrical shape.  I printed a page of snowflake clipart to use as inspiration.

I did make a dozen or so gumpaste snowflakes on wire that I added at the church's fellowship hall, and they did add a nice touch of dimension to the cake.

In one week we will be celebrating Christmas.  I hope you all have a very happy holiday.

Art Deco Wedding Cake

We delivered this wedding cake to the Hunter Museum in Chattanooga Tennessee this weekend.  I had such a great time making this cake.  This is certainly not your typical wedding cake, but the couple really wanted a colorful art deco cake.

I had not done an art deco cake before, and I really wasn't super familiar with the style, so I hit up Pinterest and starting doing some research. When I met with the bride, she immediately fell in love with a cake I found on CakeWrecks that was similar to this one.  (Baker Unknown).  We did change things up quite a bit though, and the bride had these koi fish that she wanted to incorporate into the cake.

The cake was covered in butter cream, and all decorations were made from modeling chocolate.  Well, except for the koi fish; they were printed on edible image paper.

Is this art deco style a trend now?  Have any of you bakers done any art deco cakes lately?

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a great week!

Peacock Inspired Wedding Cake

I don't know if the Katy Perry song has had anything to do with it, but lots of brides lately have been considering peacock for their bridal inspiration.

When I met with this couple, they definitely wanted peacock incorporated into their wedding, but they wanted something not so literal; more of a "hint" of peacock, I guess you would say.

When the bride saw a similar cake from Art Eats Bakery in SC, she completely fell in love.  We tweaked and loved on the original design, and made into something that would really fit in with the couples big day!

We delivered this beautiful wedding cake to the wonderful ballroom at The Chattanoogan in downtown Chattanooga.

Congratulations Hallie and Joel!!

Lena's First Birthday Cake

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!!

5 Tier Scroll Wedding Cake

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!