Libby Swirl Birthday

Every baker is given pictures from their customers and asked to reproduce them and it happen most of the time.  It happens to the most famous cake people!  It's not a knock on your abilities, so don't take it that way.  Customers get on Pintrest and Google to start their wheels turning but get their hearts set on a certain design.  It stinks because if they are willing to give you some freedom they may get a better cake.  All cake designers are sitting on a pile of designs that really want to create.  Sometimes my job is trying to convince someone that I can take their ideas and customize it to fit the event even better.  Some cake designers just say "no, I won't reproduce another bakers work".  I don't get that since almost no design is an "original" and is certainly not copyrighted.  I do try hard to mention the person or company IF I KNOW IT, but often I don't and I don't have hours to research.  

Some customers will not let you change anything from the picture they provide you.  If you were to really push them to change the cake, you may lose the sale.  If you are a baker, my advice is to make sure you advise them, especially on the contract, that anytime two people make the same thing, they will not come out the same.  Even when I am supposed to make a cake that I've already made before it will come out different.  If you are a customer, be sure you understand that we are not "copy machines".  Your baker may not have the same abilities as your picture from a magazine.  It's not wrong to ask your baker to see a picture of a cake similar to the cake you are wanting.  If you want a stadium cake, you should look at other cakes that would require the use of blueprints and need to be to scale.  It's not apples to apples but it's better than blindly trusting.

   As you may have guessed, a customer asked me to make an exact copy of another bakers work.  I did just that but a made a "cleaner" and more finished version of the original.  This design is super simple so if you haven't tried it, Google a tutorial and give it a try!

Rustic Burlap Cake

As a cake decorator, every client you meet will have a budget.  Big budgets can easy and fun to work with, but that doesn't mean that limited budgets can't be fun too.  A client with a limited budget can still get an elegant, gorgeous cake, but it might require just a little but of resourcefulness on your part.

Take this cake for example.  This cake is so pretty, and so elegant, and it's available to my clients a my base price, which is $3.75 a serving.

This buttercream beauty is anything but plain, and the burlap ribbon and flowers give it that rustic feel that's all the rage these days.

Burlap Pattern & Rose Wedding Cake

Some of our brides discover a cake online, bring in the picture and want nothing changed.  This cake was one of those projects.  I wish we could credit the original designer, but we don't have the name at this time.  The venue for this cake was a barn with lots of rustic decor, burlap table cloths and a very elegant bride.  The imprint on the fondant was to look like a burlap pattern. I found a great clay pattern mat for clay that had a sort of wavy pattern but the "thread" was too thin.  I could not find a burlap rolling pin anywhere!  So what was I to do?  I used a large piece of rubber shelf liner that I use for non slip mats under all my cakes.  It worked great but wasn't "natural" enough until the pattern got "distorted" while covering the cakes.

The pleating did not come naturally since we are all conditioned to not have pleats, but as you can imagine it wasn't had.  I don't have room for a huge fondant sheeter, so I've found a GREAT alternative, "The Mat".  I think that tool and Elite fondant are the key to covering cakes.  We use many different brands of fondant for many different applications, but Elite is by far my favorite for covering cakes.  

This picture better shows the burlap pattern

I used two boxes of "Bloomed Garden Roses" from Caljavaonline.com as well as several smaller roses for "filler".  I really love these roses because they come with four sizes and are very natural looking.   The biggest challenge were trying to get the flowers to "match" for ivory fondant (straight from the tub ivory).  I ordered them in ivory but they were very peach!  I spent 5 hours airbrushing coats and coats of petal dust to get the color right.  The bride wanted the entire cake and flowers to have luster dust airbrushed on also.

My real challenge on this cake was self inflicted.  I keep letting brides pick their favorite cake stand regardless of the diameter of the cake.  As you can see on the first picture, there wasn't a very big lip on the cake board.  You really need a cake board at least 6" larger than the bottom tier, or the cake will be too top heavy and more likely to fall. When you are traveling with these tall guys the extra cake board act like "training wheels" so that it doesn't fall over.  When we have done this in the past, we still put a larger board so that we can carry it and not put our fingers in the sides.  This doesn't give you close to the stability, so don't use that as a solution.  I'm not going to keep making that mistake!

Fondant is INSURANCE, not a Guarantee!

We live in the South, so heat and humidity are just what is expected this time of year.  Oh, how I long for the days when I don't have to run the car's A/C for ten minutes before we can load a cake or when the condensation appears so quickly on our cakes.  To make matters worse, the new trendy place to have a reception is in a "Barn".  Not all barns are created equal by far!  Some are beautiful and elegant and some are so "rustic" that I can't believe how much they are charging.  For the record, my very favorite barn venue is Walnut Hill Farm in Dalton,GA.  Nanette has impeccable taste and the landscaping is flawless.  There is nothing rustic about their venue and that's the way I roll!

Cakes and heat do not play well together, especially real butter-buttercream!  Last year we delivered to a very "rustic" oven... er, I mean barn, and I was sick all day worrying about the cake.  The family didn't want to spend money on portable A/C units and the giant fans were only making the oven/barn feel more like an outdoor convection oven. They also didn't want fondant so the cake was all buttercream.  The bride did have to move up the cutting so that the cake didn't melt.  We came home and our best friend Chris, who is a bankruptcy lawyer, came over for a visit.  I explained how worried I was about the cake holding up and how I told the bride, at the consultation, about all the bad things that can happen to cakes in the heat.  For example, bugs fly up and get stuck in the buttercream or lightweight decorations like pearls/dragees slide down as the cake heats up (I've seen this happen five minutes after putting a cake outside).  Chris's answer to me was "did they sign something that says they understood what could happen and that you aren't responsible?" "No, but I explained it!"  His answer is what we all need to remember, "If they didn't sign or initial something, then it didn't happen".  I made two major changes that hot day.   One, I have an amendment (lawyer term) to my contract that lists everything that could happen and that I'm not responsible if the client chooses to go against my recommendations.  Two, on the form my potential clients fill out they have to list if the cake is going to be outdoors.  That way, at least one of the samples have fondant.  Speaking of fondant, it is now our policy that ALL outdoor cakes have to be covered in fondant.  That way I help them avoid tragedies that will tarnish their day.  I will back down on this if I am pushed hard, but I tell them to trust my experience and I'm not doing it to make "extra money".  It's INSURANCE, but not a guarantee!  Please protect your business and the couple's cake "experience". 

Oh!  The cake...not much to tell you about this one, hence the hot weather advice.  Don't get me wrong, I really do like it, but the simple design doesn't lend itself to an entire blog post.  I used the very large rose tip to do the buttercream ruffle.  It's very "rustic" and not "too" perfect, which is a good thing when you are busy :)  The only non-buttercream element on the cake is the large flower thing.  I made two, one for a back up in case the first broke.  I used gumpaste and the thinner you roll it the better.  Just make a big circle a little smaller than what you want the "flower".  Now insert two wooden skewers into the circle so you can install it safely on the cake later.  Think of the skewers like the two supports that come on monogram toppers. Then make strips of fondant, wet one edge and gather them like putting curtains on a rod.  Use some sugar glue and attach it on top of the circle, letting the edge of the ruffle hand over the circle.  Add another row or two and a center piece.  It's just a ball of fondant, but you could use pearls, rhinestones or dragees. Let it dry for a few days because it is going to be "thick" with all of those layers.  Have fun with it!