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!

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!

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! 

Our Most Popular Display Cake Ever!

This display cake has long since served its usefulness, but at one time I carried this cake to so many shows and it always got rave reviews.

I initially made it because I wanted to play around with a wonky cake and I wanted to play around with a hot pink / lime color scheme.  Then I sold some cookies at a small art show (gee, that was a LONG time ago) and I brought it along.  Everyone wanted to know more about it, and I got lots of cake orders just because I brought that silly dummy cake along.

About a year later I did my first bridal show and even though I didn't think it resembled a wedding cake in the slightest, I brought it along anyway.  And I had brides raving over it again!!  Several said that it was the perfect cake for their wedding, although none on them wound up picking anything like it when we designed their cake.

That's when I learned that you should always bring a real attention getting cake with you to any show.  A bride might want a simple ivory cake with swiss dots, but seeing one won't necessarily get her into your bridal booth.

Think of it this way - the road is full of Hondas and Fords, but people line up to see monster trucks or the Batmobile at an auto show!  Have an awesome week!

Gold Egyptian Display Cake

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!