Fairyland Club Wedding

This is such a simple, elegant cake that there isn't much to say but it's pretty eye candy. The texture was done just with a small offset spatula. It's not hard but not easy, so practice ahead of time. We delivered this cake to the Fairlyland Club on Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga TN. The florist was The Clay Pot, and they did some WONDERFUL arrangements for this wedding. He gave me these roses, ranunculus, peonies and some rosemary and I arranged them. He was so busy and I was very happy to help. I asked him to check my work and I got a thumbs up which meant a bunch considering the source!

Great florals from The Clay Pot

Now, enjoy more awesome cake photos!

Mickey Wedding & Pet Peeves

We will make this week's blog short and a little sour..... Is there something you see in your line of work that bugs the fool out of you? We all do I'm sure. In cake decorating we all start as beginners and I never judge those people. If you charge money, and sometimes a lot of money for a cake then it should be well executed. Piping should be neat and consistent. I'm not the best at piping so I use a small paint brush to even out and blend in my lines. Sometimes, I need to scrape things off and start again . One of the most popular borders are fondant pearls. If you will pay attention some decorators don't use the right product (it needs to be partially modeling chocolate or Fondarific so it will harden in the cooler) and stretch them out when unmoulding or applying them to the cake. It's a minor thing to most, but a pearl border that isn't rounded pearls is not clean work to me.

Last pet peeve is disintegrated dragees. Whether pearl, silver or gold those little balls cannot be applied and then put in the fridge. They break down and loose their sheen all together. This really does stink because you can't apply them ahead of time. I'll give you two things that I do. First, I put them on ahead of time when the icing is a little soft so that they will not just sit on top of the buttercream. If the cake gets room temperature and those dragees aren't pushed in a little, they will slide down the cake. Trust me, we stayed almost until a wedding started just gently pushing those things in before they all slide down. Did you catch that I just told you I do what I said you shouldn't? Well at the last minute, I take the bad dragees out and add fresh ones. Yes it takes more time, but I don't have to measure last minute or get a cake soft before adding the last minute. Oh! Get a gem/rhinestone setter for applying these and not leaving tweezer marks. They are just a little wad of wax on the end of a stick. It is easier to pick them up and apply them (but not removing, stick to tweezers for that). Yeah! I got those things out of my system!

Walnut Hill Fresh Flower Wedding

 

How could I ever make flowers this pretty!?!?  I arrive at the venue, Walnut Hill Farm, and the florist has left me the MOST gorgeous bunch of flowers!  Ranunculus, Peonies, perfect roses, hydrangeas and some lambs ear for greenery.   I was in love with all of them!!!  Here are some "professional baker tips" for the week.

1,  Allow yourself PLENTY of time when fresh flowers go on the cake.  If the florist is gone, it's up to you to finish the cake (my opinion and also I agree to this ahead of time).

2.  Allow wiggle room for the type of flowers and their arrangement in your contract.  This cake was supposed to be all hydrangea.  You can see how many I had and I could not have achieved this look with a small amount or with one kind.  I still get sick-at-my-stomach when I knowingly deviate from the contract.  I never want to be the vendor that blames in on another vendor.  "They didn't leave me the right kind or enough".  I should have called the florist and emailed them a sketch/size of the cake they knew what to plan.  I ask the bride to give the extra copy I provide to the florist, but that doesn't seem to happen

3.  If a customer wants to "float their cake on a bed of flowers" this is the easiest way to do it.  Just allow for a bigger board and stick them in the cake.  You could put a smaller piece of Styrofoam under the full cake for the flowers are truly UNDER the cake, but that is not nearly as stable.  Charge extra for that!

4.  Be friendly to everyone at the venue, even when you are stressed out and in a hurry.

It took me a full hour to put all these flowers on the cake, while at the same time fielding questions from the wedding party that was mulling about and grabbing a little girl's hand right before she poked it right into the cake.  I don't want to ever be unfriendly because people remember rude.  But don't you think that very early guests should give a vendor the space to do their job?  They are always on us like we are on a cake show, asking "is that fondant? I hate fondant!" or "how did you do that?".  Like that's an easy questions in the allotted time.  It would be nice if we had nothing else to do but to visit with guests and answer questions, but vendors just don't have that luxury.  Our work, food-flowers-cakes-venue-photography, is very time sensitive and we have to get in and get out.  So please don't think us rude.  We are really sweet :)

Golden Inspiration Wedding Cake

Edible sequins are one of the new big trends in cake design, at least with Chattanooga wedding cakes  We shared one a few weeks ago that had "large" sequins but now we have one with tiny sequins.  I'm just going to say it, I used A LOT of gold! But it's SO pretty! We baked and iced a 6/8/10/12" combination in all buttercream.  We created the lines with a little pairing knife dipped in warm water every few minutes.  The borders were fondant and the sequins were colored quinns painted gold.

 

You can get a five pound container at Pfeil and  Holing.  Don't kid yourself, 5 pounds is a big container; it should last you a while!

We bought a bunch of these flowers to make the cake more economical for the bride.  As usual, my favorite flowers are the big pretty garden roses from Cal-Java.  They are SO big and pretty and they really popped against those gold sequins!  I hope you get a little bit of golden inspiration from this pretty cake!

Our Cross Country Cake Adventures

 A few months ago I was approached with a rather odd request... make my nephew's wedding cake.  Now I know that upon first read that doesn't seem terribly odd, but let me finish... his wedding was going to be in New Hampshire, and I live WAYYY down south in GA.  Yeah, see?  But Sean and his fiance Kirsten were such a cute couple that I just couldn't turn them down.

Delivering a fully decorated wedding cake 17 hours and and little over a 1000 miles away can be a daunting task and honestly one that I didn't feel I (nor my cake) was up to.  So several months ago I started formulating a plan to actually make the cake there.  The venue where the wedding was held was an absolutely gorgeous working orchard named Allyson's Orchard.  I spoke to Fran, the venue manager about my dilemma, and she graciously offered me their kitchen space to work on the cake all week long.  The kitchen had the essentials, oven, sink, and refrigeration, but any other tools I needed I had to bring with me!  GULP!

So I went back to the drawing board, because everything we were bringing (Chaddy and I, a weeks+ supply of clothing, and all the components we needed to make a cake had to fit in our Honda CRV.  It's not a compact car mind you, but it's no stretch limo either!  So I made the decision to bake the cakes and make the icing before we left and freeze them.  That way, the only "major" appliance I would need to bring would be a Kitchenaid mixer to re-whip the icing.  I would place all the wrapped frozen layers in our big marine cooler along with some disposable ice packs (the kind I get when I order chocolate) and we would just stack, fill, ice, and decorate on site.  Theo couple had chosen a mud cake, which is very dense, so I really did feel that the frozen layers would hold up to the drive.  I also began the process of making the gumpaste flowers and wrapping them to thwart the nastiest, kickiest delivery driver.

 

Well, Sunday morning came and we packed everything up in the cooler, along with our 2 suitcases, and our Rubbermaid tote of kitchen goodies and we left the sweltering Georgia heat on our way to New Hampshire.  We left late because we were up late the night before, so we made it to Frederick, MD (my sister and the groom's Mom's home) really late Sunday night.  I was somewhat worried about the contents of the cooler, but the outside felt cold, so I decided to not risk opening the lid and letting any cold out and just let it ride.  We visited with my sister for a few minutes and hopped in bed.

We awoke (late) the next morning and after a quick shower and breakfast, we were back on the road to New Hampshire.  We drove at a good clip, made a few stops for food anf fuel along the way, and reached our hotel late Monday evening.  I thought I had never been SO tired of being in the car!  We stayed in Keene, NH and was a pleasant surprise it was!  We were within walking distance to downtown and we explored it pretty extensively during our off times.  But I digress...

Tuesday I called Fran at Allyson's orchard and she agreed to meet us and show us the kitchen.  It was a very nice catering space and I knew it would work well, as long as everything had fared well in the cooler (which had STILL not been opened since Sunday morning at this point).  We got the cooler inside, opened it, and believe it or not, everything was still VERY cold.  Those disposable ice packs were still mostly frozen.  The cake gods had indeed smiled upon the work I was trying to do.

I made gumpaste blueberries!

We pulled out the layers and let them thaw a little more while we unpacked our kitchen and got setup for the week.  Over the course of the next few days we worked on the cake a little each day, just like normal, stacking, filling, making the textured bands, and coloring those gumpaste flowers.  When we left the orchard on Thursday the cake was all done and we had the whole day Friday to spend with the rest of the family. who had now joined us at the same hotel in Keene.  It was like a mini family reunion.

I made an extra trip over to the venue on Saturday to set the cake out in the venue space (just a few steps away from the kitchen space I had been using) so that the caterer's would have all the cooler / kitchen space they needed.  A quick trip back to the hotel for a freshen and a change and it was ceremony time!

Now I go to a lot of weddings, but we're there while the linens are going on and the DJ is setting up; We rarely get to see ANY of the wedding, and especially not the ceremony.  It was nice to get to witness all the love and all the pieces of the puzzle fit together so nicely.  Sean and Kirsten had a beautiful ceremony outside by the lake and then the reception with a crazy good BBQ dinner.

When you start adding up gas, mileage, and all the other expenses, this was definitely the "most expensive" wedding cake I have ever made, but I wouldn't have changed it for the world. The new Mr. and Mrs. Seymour loved it, and I loved seeing the smiles on their faces all throughout the night.

And even though I like to preach that other decorators shouldn't take orders they don't know how to do, the lesson to be learned is that it's OK to stretch your wings and go outside your comfort zone on some occasions, just as long as you have a good game plan!

A very special Thanks to Fran and the entire staff at Alyson's Orchard for extending their hospitality, sharing their beautiful facility, and making my task much easier!

Wedding Cakes with Fresh Flowers

No matter how much a cake decorator wants to make/sell gumpaste flowers, many brides only want fresh flowers.  I have found that most of the time that it's not about the price, but the a overall look.  Fresh flowers are just soften the entire look of the cake.  

The logistics of fresh flowers on wedding cakes can be tricky.  A wedding cake should not be at a wedding too early.  If the venue is air conditioned, I recommend not delivering a cake earlier than two hours before the reception.  Most often, the florist has already completed their set up by the time you arrive with the cake.  That leaves you at the mercy of the florist.  Did they leave you enough flowers?  Are they the right kind that the bride wanted?  Do you know how to arrange them?  These are all very real world problems that I have experienced MANY times.  In fact, I had a bad feeling once this year and gathered flowers and herbs and brought them with me.  I had plenty for the grooms cake but the bride completely forgot the succulents for her wedding cake and they were the entire decoration on the cake!  They were giving mint julip cups with succulent cuttings as wedding favors.  With permission, we had to take a few apart and wash them really well just to get something on the cake.  Honestly, it was not how I wanted to leave the cake, but that's all we could do.  I should have trusted my spidey senses and brought some succulents too! 

Rose Column Wedding Cake

We made a cake recently that the bride wanted the top tier to float on top of flowers. That's a nice way of saying that she wanted a 2" space in between the tiers. In the olden days, seeing white plastic columns was expected, but today it's considered tacky or old fashioned. I have found that the "hidden pillar" system from Wilton is great for this application (only one or two tier separated at the most.). You will need to buy a plastic plate that has stubs on the underside. I hot glue my cake board to the plastic board and flip the cake upside to cover the plastic edge with buttercream. In almost all instances, you want to use a ribbon border to hide the Union of the two boards.

You can still see the columns here

The next teams you need is a set of "hidden pillars". After you put one in you can measure the height of the space you will need. Mark it, remove it and cut the rest all the same height. Learn from me, if your cake is less than 8" in size, install all the pillars BEFORE you decorate the cake. They are so big and can displace so much cake that you might have a blowout. We had that happen at the venue one time. The cake was completely covered in piping and it was hard to fix. Lesson learned.

Extra petals will make the columns disappear

A few more helpful hints for these types of cakes. To transfer the cake that is hot glued to the plate, before you add the cake find a piece of styrofoam (a 1" tall disc that is a couple inches bigger than the cake) works well. Make sure you have plenty of flowers and preferably different sizes. This cake had over two dozen roses. Install all or most of the flowers before you put the next tier on. Also before you install that tier, glue (with buttercream) a few rose petals to the plastic pillars. You have to sacrifice a rose but I means that none of the plastic will be seen. After you install your next tier, you will need use some of those sacrificial petals to fill in black holes. Just fold them and insert them or put on top of flowers to make them bigger. You can really see the difference in the pictures where I've added extra petals.

As an added bonus here is a topper tip. If you need a toppers stub to be longer (always when they are 1" long) then floral tape some skewers to them. It will make it more secure. If you have long stubs but need the topper to NOT sink down (like this one that needs to float above the flowers) we hid a straw under the topper and then his it with flower petals glued with buttercream to a straw. Ha! I'm a wizard!

Piped Lace Wedding Cake

I'm going to post a little quick entry today.  It's the first week of May and I have a BUNCH of cakes to work on!  We are getting a lot more requests for colored wedding cakes and I think that's great!  This a khaki color which isn't always the easiest color to achieve.  I sure wish I had one of the paint color mixing machines at Home Depot!

I used an Evil Cake Genius lace stencil and the piped an outline with a #1 tip.  I really like the look of the lace with that extra step.  The people at Evil Cake suggest putting a piece of tulle fabric  on the cake with the stencil.  I guess it's just to have a more realistic texture.  I personally don't think it's worth the effort, but that's just my taste.  My tip for the week is to add your edible pearls and silver dragees to your cake a few house before the cake is due.  If you put them on the day before they will break down and not be pretty.  OK, bonus tip!  Only make your pearl borders with Fondarific or modeling chocolate (or add 50% to your fondant).  The fat in those products will let you put the pearls in the freezer for just a couple of minutes and they will harden.  Then unmold them and they won't get all stretched out and disfigure.  When you see a really pretty cake with stretched pearls, it makes me a little sad that the decorator didn't know this tiny thing that makes a big difference.

Chattanooga Lace Wedding Cake!

Naked Cakes

 

We were asked to make a "naked"cake last year.  I was pretty excited until we actually did it.  So I had a culinary student as an intern for 11 weeks.  The cake was a 6/8/10/12" combination.  The first time it was baked, I think the oven was opened way too much, cakes were jiggled and batter wasn't whipped enough.  So Friday afternoon, I decided to bake it again, only doing it myself this time.  The picture above is the exact same size cakes and number of layers, they were just fluffier on the cake I baked.  I thinkshe learned a big lesson that day!

I had a lot of holes and inconsistencies that I wanted to "fill" on the skim coated cake.  Is that a term?  If not, what do you call these different styles of naked cakes?  Maybe the skim coated cake has her undergarments on?  I wanted the look on the left, but I worked with the cake too much and once you have that skim coat of buttercream on, it is on.  After baking the layers again, I put my buttercream in a piping bag with a #12 tip and piped the ooze onto the side of the layers before I stacked the next tier on top.  It wasn't a real "organic" ooze of buttercream, but I was happier than the first attempt and there would not be another!

 

 

 We did brush all the layers with simple syrup to try and keep them moist.  The family said it was yummy!  I wouldn't bake it or put in together until as close to the event as you can comfortably stand it to help it not drying out.

 

Once at the venue, we had to put on the fresh flowers and it took no less than an hour!  I guess it felt so unfinished to me that I needed to keep adding flowers.  The bride wanted lots of flowers and the florist left me a big bucket of gorgeous blooms so I had to use them, right?  I don't know where I stand on this trend yet, but maybe it will be out of style by the time I decide.

Y'all have a great week!

Pleated Fondant Wedding Cake

We have done a few cakes like this, but I do have a little advice and "new thoughts" on the technique of the pleated fondant.  I've noticed on some of the FB cake groups I'm in that a lot of people ask how to do this look.  Many people are doing a version of it by cutting several angled pieces of fondant and layering them on top of each other.  It's a much flatter look.   There is nothing wrong with that version, but it's not the same as trying to make the fondant look like pleated fabric.  If you are brought a picture like this cake but don't make it the same way, out of one piece of fondant, the look will be very different.  BEFORE you sign a contract saying you will do it , try it on a cake dummy so that you can prove to the bride and yourself that you can get the same look.   If you are a customer and you aren't SURE your baker can do something, offer to pay for a small trial run, like a top tier size. 

This cake was made using 3" styrofoam  cake dummies in between the tiers.  I painted all the flowers with an airbrush ahead of arranging them.  The flowers we stuck in if they had wire, but most were "glued" in place with royal icing.  My advice here is use as many different size flowers as you can so that you don't have blank spaces.  I  have been known to make a few roses petals and squeeze them in when the are soft so it looks very full.  We also airbrushed the dickens out of this cake when it was all stacked and ready to go!  My bride wanted a pearl finish so she got it!

Anytime you have a tier of cake floating above flowers you have to deal with hiding the edges of the cake boards.  For me, ribbon is the answer because it is not heavy and you can pull it tight so it doesn't sag.  Buttercream borders can fall off due to gravity, as can fondant pearl borders if they are large.  Have you ever noticed that when the bakers in Europe make this type of cake, they still have a larger cake board under each tier?  So a 6" cake would have an 8" cake board, then a 10" cake and 12" board, etc.   I don't like the look myself, but it sure would be easier! 

                                                  

*I owe you a close up picture.  I accidently deleted it :(

Border Knot Wedding Cake

We were asked by a very good friend to make a cake for his employee. The company was buying it and gifting it to the couple.  Wow! That's a nice gift!  They were going for an Art Deco theme and wanted to carry that through with the cake.   The knot fabric effect was the most challenging part of the whole thing.  I've even made a little video about it and posted that on our Instagram page.  I found it a little easier to work on a square cake dummy that was turned on it's side.  That way, the pieces were measured correctly and dry fit perfectly before we attached them. They would have stretched and deformed if we worked with them horizontally for the extended period of time that I needed.   The flower ball separator was styrofoam covered in fondant.  I didn't want to build a structure just for that tier so it was easier that way.

The etched lines and jewels on the top tier were kind of a nod to "The Caketress" and her designs.  The lines are easy to do as long as you use a tool that won't cut the fondant, so a dull wooden clay tool works great.  The jewels were done out of isomalt, which is sugar and that was a mistake.  They did a little bubbling or something due to the moisture of the refrigerator.  Next time I would mold them with melted chocolate and then paint silver as normal.  It takes a bunch of them so the time to apply them all was about two hours for that one area.

For the vertical stripes we just used a texture mat and embossed the fondant, then we cut them.  When doing any stripes and strips of fondant, it's better to chill the fondant a little before applying it so that it won't loose it's shape.  The flowers are basic, meaning we cut them, press in a flower veiner and let dry in a cup shaped form.  Once dry, we used a little royal icing and added a sugar pearl for more opulence.  We enjoyed getting to make a cake with lots of texture and jewels!

See our Flipagram video below!

Fabric knot effect with fondant.

A video posted by Jenniffer White (@cupadee) on Oct 10, 2014 at 10:43am PDT

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.

Purple Orchid Wedding

I hate purple, well at least purple wedding cakes. It's so hard to match, with some purples having lots of blue and some shades having lots of red.  Not to mention the super dark colors like these orchids.  It takes a lot of food coloring!  Also, you have to have a good photographer or all the purple throughout the wedding decor will photograph as black.  Well  that isn't so bad, right? Well after you kill yourself to get the right shade of purple, any UV or natural light fades the colors!  This fading happens fast! We recommend keeping all your purple covered with something light cannot penetrate like foil.  The one thing I have found that helps in painting your items with petal dust.  You can start with dark purple and just paint over it.  We heard about adding some baking soda to the fondant would keep it from fading, but in our experiments it didn't make a difference.  Stupid purple!

There where some interesting colors on this cake, but as usual when we get it to the venue with all the other decorations, cloths and flowers, it was perfect! It is hard to tell, but the top and third tier has sanding sugar all over it.  It's pretty and adds a little texture and crunch to the cake.  The monogram was done with Fondarific.  We used a stencil to trace the letter with a wooden tool and then really "carved" it in and then painted it with petal dust.  The stencil was done with buttercream and on buttercream.

So today's project?  Making dark purple flowers for this weekend's wedding! Argh!

Day of the Dead Wedding Cake

I made this wedding cake back in March... MARCH!  You have no idea how hard it was to sit on these pictures so that I could save them for this Halloween post!  NO IDEA!!

This couple was a baker's dream couple.  Super nice, easy to work with, and enjoyed thinking WAY outside the box.  This whole wedding was Day of the Dead themed, which is a celebration and remembrance for loved ones that have passed on.  It is a huge celebration in Mexico and other countries.

I had such a fun time making this cake.  And I think the best part of it all was during the delivery, someone walked into the reception site and yelled "Holy Sh*t, is that the cake?!"  When the wedding cake in question is purple and lime green with dancing sombrero-ed skeletons and a huge skull tier I think that's the best reaction you can hope for!

What are you doing for Halloween?  We are going out with some friends and we are all dressing up like characters from the Wizard of Oz.  Doesn't that sound like a hoot?

Chevron Cake

We were asked to make a cake for a "Chapel talk" for GPS seniors.  The young lady that speaks at the service provides tea and snacks for all the attendees.  My clients had a very specific design that was very similar to a Charm City Cakes design.  We added a little something here and there, but I certainly give them credit for the design.

The bottom tier was six thick layers high.  The very dark teal was hard to make and probably the most challenging part of the project.  When making a super dark color, start with dark pre-colored fondant, never white.  Make sure to add some black.  If you can purchase some powdered color, it would help.  The amount of gel color you have to add makes your fondant very sticky and loose.  You will need to work powdered sugar in with the color to keep the fondant the right consistency.  For the chevron design, we made a stencil and traced the design with a scribe (a pin with a handle).  We used Nu-silver and painted on the design.  We did the same with the pink layer, but just painted the stripes with super pearl luster.

 

For the total silver baby tier, we painted it instead of airbrushed. To remove the brush strokes, just go over with a soft brush in a circular motion using a little more dust. For the silver dots we trimmed off the tip of a stiff paint brush so it was a dot stamp more or less.  We had to do more than stamp it, but it got the job done.  The peonies were purchased at Wholesale Sugar Flowers.  Last but not least, the pretty backdrop is from Ink and Elm.  I love their backdrops!

Gumpaste Flowers... Buy or Make?

 Do you buy any of your gumpaste flowers?  Let me guess!  If you are a cake hobbyist, you make your flowers.  It's fun and challenging and your time does not equal money.  If you sell cakes professionally, I will guess that you buy at least some of your flowers.  Why would you not?  Are you some sort of flower purist? Do you think it's cheating? I made some beautiful ranunculus for a magazine shoot and they took me eight hours per flower! 

When I meet with a bride, I ask if they want flowers and then if they want fresh or sugar flowers (they don't know what gumpaste flowers are...yet).  They will often hesitate and I fill in with "I buy most of my flowers and they are often close in price to fresh flowers".  At that point, they are interested.  If I said the flowers would be three times more than fresh, I'd hear "I'll just use fresh".  There is a rare bride in Chattanooga that would not baulk at a handmade flower price, but as I said that is rare.  On some cakes, I really want to use gumpaste flowers so I will make it even more attractive, as in price.  I charge the cost of the flowers plus shipping and the time and supplies it takes me to paint them (if needed).  I include extra flowers in the price to allow for breakage.  If I have to buy a flower that I will never need the extra (5 for the cake and have 4 left) then they pay for the whole box because that is still fair.  If you book a cake in January with gumpaste peonies, order them then because they will be out of stock when you need them.  Just write on the box of flowers so you don't accidentally use them on another project.  We also will make extra petals to add some softness and fill in gaps between flowers. 

 

The flowers from the pictured cake were bought from Cal-Java and Wholesale Sugar Flowers.  The challenging part was that the cake was ivory/yellow because that is the color of my buttercream (with whitener added) and all the purchased flowers were bright white so they had to be painted.  Luckily, I could paint them with the airbrush so that cut down on my time. 

We entered a contest and won so our cake picture is one the front (and some inside) of the Wholesale Sugar Flowers catalog.  We really like their flowers and the prices! Please let us know how you sell your gumpaste flowers and if you make them, buy them or a mix of the two. 

Calla Wedding for Out-Of-Town Bride

We recently had a bride from Texas contact us.  She was getting married the Monday after the 4th of July holiday weekend.  There was part of me that thought "this just can't be right".  The Mill was kind enough to recommend us and she said they spoke highly about our work.  I believe she got most of her vendors by other vendors recommendations.  She was so sweet and EASY to work with.  She sent me a picture of almost the exact cake you see below.  It didn't have as many calla lilies and wasn't iced as pretty :)  She picked basic flavors and booked the cake.  Like I said she was easy to please.

We deal with a lot of out of town brides.  Far more than I would have guessed since Chattanooga, TN isn't a real tourist destination.  Many people move away for school and careers and want to come home to marry with their families.  The holidays are a very busy time for these brides as they all are home anyway.  I try to save weekend openings for out of town brides too.  I don't even list them on my online calendar because in towners would take them all.

If you have a bride that will do everything over email and phone, you would think that is easier but it's not.  All the information I go over in a consultation, almost two hours, is a class on wedding cakes.  They leave much more informed and understand how their particular cake is constructed and designed for them.  They get to know me and hopefully like me which leads to trust.  I really prefer sitting down and getting to know them and their event.  Sometimes the cake they want, just doesn't go with their event and you need to lead them in the right direction. 

I suppose this cake was "easy money" but I feel like we both missed out on a experience that would have added to the specialness of the wedding day.  Unfortunately, this poor bride had some other mishaps and bad vendor experiences like the hair/makeup person cancelling the day of the event.  That is just horrible!  Much less her grandmother got stuck in an airport across the country and a groomsman broke his nose in a car wreck the day before.  I'm glad that I spent some extra time making the cake a bit better than she was expecting.  I know it didn't make up for the rest of it, but I sure didn't let her down either.  Maybe I'll still meet her one day?

Raspberry / Blackberry / Succulent Wedding

Sometimes a bride enjoys picking out her wedding cake so much that she does it three times.  Luckily the final choice was one that I really wanted to make.   This cake is very different and "natural".  I was given the picture and asked to make a few minor adjustments like the colors on the succulents, vanilla bean specks in the fondant, and two layer had a royal icing texture that was very subtle with a bit of gray to lightly mimic river birch.  I went very light on the gray because I didn't want it to stand out and take away from the focal point.  To keep things clean and simple, I put a little bean specks in some royal icing and "caulked" the tiers together instead of any kind of a border. 

For the "Hens and Chicks" or succulents, I really didn't have the time to make them since the bride changed the design fairly close to the wedding date and I was too busy to learn and try (or maybe just tired...).  I ordered them all from "A Cake To Remember VA".  Kara was absolutely great to work with on these!  She changed the color to just a pale grey and I used petal dust to make them match the wedding colors.  She was so helpful and VERY quick in getting them to me.  If you ever need pre-made decorations, molds, supplies or great tutorials check out her Etsy store. 

We made 80 raspberries using silicone molds that I also found on Etsy. I bought six kinds of raspberry molds but I think this is the one I used the most,

We started out by using a little tool and making the natural indentation on the top but then there wasn't enough to poke my wire into!  So no hole!  Ron Ben-Israel would not be proud of me :)
The most realistic raspberry mold that I purchased was this one. 

The reason I didn't use it is because it is impossible to get the berry out without distortion unless you use a material that will get hard in the freezer, like Fondarific or modeling chocolate.  I did not have time to do that 80 times!  If you are making five, cool, but not 80!

The "blackberries" that were "purpleberries" to match the wedding colors were much more challenging even though there was only ten!  They are not hard, just require some patience.  Make a grape size piece of gumpaste/fondant mixture, dip your wire in tylose glue and insert.  Let these sit up a few hours.  Now make a TON of tiny, varied sized, balls and let the dry.  When you are ready to make them, make a few fresh balls so they will squish and make a more natural look overall.  paint the "grape" with tylose glue and stick all the balls on it.  I tried rolling it and that will just get you a few and then fill in all the spaces.  Poof!  You have a blackberry!  I enlisted my friends to help me and it took four of us 90 minutes to roll all of the tiny balls.   That's six hours!   I was glad there was only a few!

If anyone knows the original artist for this cake, please list them in the comments.  I would love to give them credit for the beautiful design!  Now go cover a cake with summer berries! 


TIEREDCAKER GIVEAWAY WINNERS!

OK folks, we a A LOT of people register to win the Tiered Caker app giveaway.  I can tell that there's lots of interest in the product.  Special thanks to Calculated Cakes for sponsoring the prizes.  Chaddy put all the comments into the randomizer and picked out 2 names:

I have heard from Thelma already, but we are still waiting to hear back from Judith.  Once we have proper contact info from both we will get the information sent to Calculated cakes for your prize!  Congratulations!

Mint Green and Lavender Wedding Cake

Last week you read about our Bender cake, well this is the wedding cake that went along with it.

I was so jazzed about the bride's choice of color's on this cake.  Our color palette here was a light mint green and lavender.

This was a great cake to remind me about how colors and icing can mess with you.  I had the perfect color of icing made up for the cake and even let the colored buttercream sit for a day for it to darken a tad.  Everything was just right... and then I iced the cake.  And the icing darkened... a lot actually.  I wound up giving the entire cake a heavy spray of pearl dust, which gave the cake a beautiful sheen and toned that color back down to where is should have been.

When will the Home Depot develop a color matching system for icing!?!

I did find another shot... thanks Jim!

Actually, one of the best features of this cake didn't make it into this photos, simply because they were made at the absolute zero hour.  I printed some dragonfly wings on wafer paper and used them to make little edible dragonflies.  They really were cute - if I get one of the shot s from the wedding, I'll come back and include it here.

Do you get bored?

I'm tired and maybe a little grumpy, so you get a grumpy blogger. :) Too many weddings, graduations and parties happening at the same time! We are in the height of the event season. We have made a version of this cake so often that I don't think I can say another thing about it! I'm getting bored with this design. I've made it in every combination, color and shape! But brides keeping asking for it as a whole or in parts! They all think it's an "original" idea. I've removed it from my inspiration scrapbook that brides look at as well as my Pinterest page. I don't think decorators should talk brides out of designs they have their hearts set on, BUT we don't want to copy another decorators work and we want to make something we like. That doesn't really matter does it?

I've been making cakes for over eight years and I still don't feel like my cakes show my taste and vision. They show good workmanship but are often not my original idea. Some brides have to see a cake in a photograph, often in their own colors. I really envy companies like the Caketress and Cotton & Crumbs. They have a distinct style that was perfected by them and is now being copied all over the world. Maybe they get bored with those designs too!