Wedding Cake with a Twist...that I don't like!

Can I vent here?  Really vent because you are reading my blog, so it's OK right?  I have to say this cake just drove me crazy!  I don't like the twist.  I didn't want to do the quarter twist.  What is the point of the twist?  Where is the front?  How do I place it at the venue?  What direction should I install the monogram topper? OK, now that's out of my sys... no!  WHY?  If the cake was too "normal, we could have done a more daring, offbeat cake without making it look like I was drunk and riding the tilt-a-whirl when I was stacking it!
 
Are you new to cake making or client pleasing?  PUT ON YOUR BIG GIRL PANTIES and make what they want.  Then start a blog and complain a little to keep your sanity...well a little sanity.  I have a good eye and good taste.  I was paid well for a long time to use those talents in the retail world.  Not all people have those things and I've come to accept that.  I don't think this cake is tacky or ugly, it just goes against my nature of symmetry. But I have been and will be asked to make tacky cakes.  I have done some turned some down.  I'm an artist, but also a business person.  Momma has to pay the bills! If you can make a product and still lay your business card down right next to it because you made that product the best it could be done, then do it.  If you would be so ashamed for people to know you made "that" and would never make it again, then don't make it in the first place.  Learn skills today that will let you steer a customer to a better option that will suit you both.  That may include you making another design cheaper to encourage the customer to pick the thing you want to make  (or overpricing the item you don't want to do, but my honesty gets in the way).  Sometimes you need to give options because of you don't want to tarnish "your brand" or you simply don't have the skills to make a certain design or the customers budget does not agree with their first choice.  You need the ability to adapt and "roll with the punches" whether that means making a cake you don't like or coming up with a better plan.  I hope all your projects this week are ones that you love!

Tiffany Blue Wedding Cake

We delivered a cake to Trevitt Hall in Dalton this weekend.  I loved the bride, but the mom of the bride was precious!  She is the manager for a catering company so she sees weddings, and cakes, every weekend.  I was truly honored that she chose me to make the cakes. What a compliment!  My bride brought me a picture of this cake, in different colors, and didn't want me to change a thing.  I hate to copy other artists work, but I have to make what the brides want, especially when they are so sure.

I've been LOVING my odd size cake pans.  It has added a lot of options and I highly recommend them.  The flowered tiers are cake and the solid tiers are 3" tall styrofoam (from Dallas Foam).  The cake was 7/9/11/13" squares (duh) and the styro was 4/6/9/10".  I tried all of my teal and turquise colors from Americolor, etc but the winner was "5th Avenue Blue" from Albert Uster Imports.  It was the perfect "Tiffany Blue"!

If you decide to make this cake, I have a little advice.  First a 2" tall styrofoam seperator would be fine.  Use lots of supports included a couple of skewers in each styrofoam piece so they don't wiggle or float any.  I used two cake drums (10 pcs of cardboard) and 1/4" MDF for the cake board and then sharpened a long dowel and drove it through the entire cake for stability.  You have to use a "master dowel".  Count on cutting flowers out for 8 hours - yes 8 hours, just ask my sweet husband.  He cut and cut and then cursed me for not planning "better" as we worked until 11pm on Friday night.

Cake decorators are often lucky to have time to let gumpaste dry up for a bow, but we are know we should do better and plan better.  What I did right on this cake was to cover the cake board and styrofoam pieces on Tuesday so that they would be hard and dry before I manhandle them to death.  This makes the construction much easier.  Lastly,  turn your cake boards over and mark a square where it will line up with the styrofoam.  It's so hard to line up a cake with you are doing in from the underside.  Since the cake was 36" tall we had to put the top tier on at the venue. This made this very quick and easy since we are all the "entertainment" when we are setting up our cakes. 

Peach Monogram Eyelet Wedding Cake

Are you other decorators out there getting lots of requests for peach and coral wedding cakes this season?  They must be popular colors, because almost every couple I meet with has one of those colors in their mind.

This couple wanted some touches of that peach color in their wedding cake, and they wanted that eyelet lace look also.  For this look, Fondarific made this cake possible.  It's my go-to fondant when I need to cut shapes out without worrying about it stretching or deforming.  But it still has to be pliable enough to wrap around a cake without cracking or getting elephant skin.

Any cake that also features mine and Chaddy's initials also holds a special place in my heart.  Sometimes I wish that I was doing cakes when Chad and I got married, but then again, how could I have ever chosen a design??

New Tutorial - Smooth Square Cakes with Perfect Corrners

About a year and a half ago I recorded my first video tutorial and put it up on YouTube.  The first time I went to Food Blog Forum in Atlanta they advised us to do 2 things:  (1) Expand our experience by doing things we had not tried, and to (2) "find a need and then fill it".  My first buttercream video was my attempt of doing just that.  It was slow to be watched at first, but now after over 20,000 hits there's rarely a day that goes by that I don't get a new subscriber, comment, or "like" on my little video.  It's very satisfying, but it's also a constant reminder that I should probably do more videos.

Well, I finally bit the bullet and made a new video for you guys!  This time I am focusing on getting your square buttercream cakes silky smooth with sharp, crisp, corners.  The process I use is very similar to a round cake, but all those corners and edges really up the difficulty level!  Oh heck, why should you read my babbling when you could be listening to it?! ;-)  See my new video below!

Icing Square Buttercream Cakes Smooth with Perfect Corners

Click Here for the Post that includes my All-Butter Buttercream Recipe

AND THE WINNER IS:  If you entered our giveaway for the FMM Sugarcraft cutters, then today might be your lucky day!  We had quite a few entries, but the lucky winner today is:

Thanks Random.org!

And lucky #13 is Lydia from Ever So Sweet!  Congratulations Lydia, I'll have your cutters in the mail very soon!  And for those of you that didn't win, a 20 minute buttercream tutorial is a pretty decent consolation prize, right?  If you're interested in seeing more video tutorials, either leave us a comment here, or subscribe to our You Tube channel.  Have an awesome week!!