Gotcha! Groom's Cake

I have said it before, and I'll say it again, I really love it when a client gives me some artistic leeway with a cake.  This couple really liked this topper and the term "Gotcha!"  It reflected their playful personalities.  We kept the design simple, which is what they wanted.  We just cut the letters using the Cricut Cake.

I have talked about how much we use our Cricut Cake because we have a program (no longer available) that allows us to cut any image or font we want.  I have been very worried lately as to what I would ever do if/when my Cricut Cakes decides to die.  As luck would have it, Cake Central user JackiSto mentioned in a thread that she is using a Cricut Explore with Cricut's new design software to do the same thing.  It was a great relief that I now have an option if something were to ever happen to my precious Cricut Cake.

ITEMS USED:
Wilton's "Now I Have You" Cake Topper

FULL DISCLOSURE:  As a member of the Amazon Affiliate program, I receive a small commission if you buy a product from the links on my blog.  I actually own the products I recommend and all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Khaki Flower Sanding Sugar Cake

As you all very well may know, I am known for getting my buttercream nice and smooth.  It's a skill I have developed over time - it certainly didn't happen overnight.  I get questions from people all the time that want a solution for covering some of those beginning boo-boos without using fondant.  I have found that sanding sugar fits this bill quite nicely.  It's relatively inexpensive, it goes on fairly easy, and it will go a long way to covering up some of those small mistakes in your buttercream.  It gives a really nice effect too; I fins myself using this a lot for winter weddings.

I actually used the sanding sugar here because this is a dummy cake.  I wanted to showcase something besides fondant to my brides, so I started covering the tiers with royal icing.  I wasn't very happy with the look, so out came the sanding sugar.  One note: when applying this, it can get messy fast.  I recommend sitting your cake inside a large sheet pan as you put the sanding sugar on - it will catch the "runoff" and you can scoop it up and use it again.

Texture on Buttercream Cakes

Almost all my customers say "I don't want fondant!" and they mean it, so I've worked hard at coming up with buttercream alternatives. Since we make a bunch of all white wedding cakes, texture seems to be a huge trend that I'm seeing.  Brides don't want very busy or piped cakes, but they do want some design.  They are bringing me pictures of rough iced cakes, stenciled cakes, combed cakes, and sugared cakes.  I want to go over a few options they you may want to consider when designing a cake for any occasion.
I've blogged about stencils before, so please give it a read.  It's a great option in all one color for texture or two different colors for more detail.  It's also a good idea to add pearls or extra piping on the stenciled design.

Buttercream ruffles are very trendy and you don't have to do the entire cake.  Just a few rows will give you lots of  femininity and texture.

Diamonds and lines are are classic and easy.  Use a bench scraper and blow torch or super hot water and melt the design into the cake.  Sanding sugar or pearl dragees are great on buttercream for sparkle and opulence.  Covering a cake in this material also keeps you from having to get a cake perfectly smooth.  If you a beginner, give it a shot.  Just keep in mind, it gets everywhere!

Lastly, buttercream combs are a great way to add a side design and it's super easy!  Wilton and many others sell all kinds of different designs.  Just get your cake level, basically smoothed and chilled.  Add another thick layer of buttercream and quickly run your comb through it and poof! You have a design.

Tell me about any great ideas you have for buttercream texture!

Happy caking!

Super Bowl Cake Strategies

So most of my regular readers know I'm not here to talk about the Super Bowl, but since football has been all over the news lately so I thought it was worth discussing.  Lots of grooms are into football, and as much as I like making sculpted helmets, a lot of times our clients are looking for something more economical.  A football field cake can show the groom's love of his team while not breaking the bank.  Here are some tips I have learned through trial and error that I thought I would pass along.

It's pretty easy to figure out that you can print team logos using edible images or even using cricut cut outs, but getting the field just right can be a difficult task.  I have struggled with the field lines and in the end I have found that using small strips of edible paper.  They lay very flat and stick well to the fondant underneath.  The yard markers can be hard to get just right.  In this case, the cake was large enough that I was able to use my small number cutters and they looked good.  If this cake was any smaller though, the letters would have been too large.  What to do then?

Well, it was a problem SO many times that I finally found myself a high quality image of a field with all the lines and numbers.  That's what I used to make the cake above.  If I'm not mistaken, I had to use 2 pages and piece them together, but it makes for a good look.  With minimal skills on the computer, you should be able to print this to match whatever size cake your making.

And since this isn't the Super Bowl and we can all be winners here I wanted to provide all my friends here with my football field image to use however you see fit.  You can download the image here.

Hope you guys have a great week!

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!

Buttercream Ruffle Flower Cake + Tutorial!

I made this cake this past weekend for a dear friend of ours, Daisy Moffatt - owner of Daisy Moffatt Photography.  Truth be told, I was actually conspiring with her husband, Beau, to make her a cake with a surprise design.

As I looked through Daisy's Pinterest board, I saw lots of romantic cakes with frilly ruffles and fantasy flowers.  But almost every one was mostly fondant.  Knowing that most people aren't huge fondant fans, I got out some icing tips to see if I could possibly recreate those ruffles in buttercream.  It didn't take long before I had worked out a technique that I liked.

As I was putting the cake together, I just kept liking it more and more and I realized I was really on to something.  So as soon as Chad got home we got out the video camera and shot some footage so we could present you with a very quick mini video tutorial.  I didn't even get ready because I really didn't intend to be seen on camera.  One thing lead to another and before I knew it we were in full fledged video tutorial mode!

Here it is in all it's glory!  LOL!!   Enjoy and let me know if you have any questions!

Buttercream Ruffle Flower Tutorial
 

Laptop Groom's Cake

This cake is a great example of how you can give your client's a 3D "looking" cake, but not blow their entire bridal budget on the groom's cake.  Our groom here was a big PC gamer, and his favorite game was Starcraft.  He also wanted his gaming laptop represented on the cake.  Here's a couple of ideas we incorporated to minimize the complexity, and thus the price.

Keep the 3D elements on a smaller scale.  On this cake, the majority of the cake is actually just a sheet cake, the laptop has just enough cake for the couple to cut into.  And the back of the laptop is just corrugated plastic coated in black gumpaste.  Since it was so light, we were able to use a small bent metal angle bracket to hold the laptop lid open.

Simplify decorations where possible.  We have no problems making individual keyboard keys for a laptop cake, but that gets pricey fast.  Printing out a keyboard on edible image paper not only looks great, but saves you decorating time, and your client money. On this cake, we used edible images for the keyboard, the laptop screen (logo), and the side decorations.

All of these concessions gave the couple the cake they wanted, while still keeping the price at an affordable level.  We delivered this to the Hunter Museum of Art in Chattanooga and it looked great.
 

Happily Ever After Wedding Cake

I really liked doing this wedding cake.  The couple were fun and not afarid to bring some color to their otherwise traditional wedding cake.  Not only was the bow hot pink, but the inside of the cake was pink strawberry with hot pink cream cheese icing!

You can click on the cake for a larger picture, but the piping reads "And They Lived Happily Ever After".  What a great way to start your fairytale life!  To do the piping, I started by printing out the wording on paper with the printer's settings changed to "mirror image".  Then I used a #1 tip to pipe faintly over the wording onto a sheet of parchment paper using royal icing.  Once I finished piping, I carefully lifted the parchment paper, flipped it over, and placed it on my cake.  That gave me a nice outline that I used to pipe over again using royal icing.  Once the royal icing had dried I then went back and painted the words with Nu Silver.

There is one other thing I wanted mention, and it applies to all cakes.  If the bride has a topper she wants to use on her cake, make sure you at least see it before the wedding day.  This bride had a cute carriage topper, but it was on a large base.  It hung off the sides of the initial 5" top tier, and it didn't look right.  Luckily, I caught it in time to rebake the top as a 6" cake.  And Wilton cake toppers have a nasty habit of securing their toppers to the box with lots and lots of screws!! So make sure you always carry a screwdriver in your emergency kit!

Thank you all so much for stopping by and visiting my little blog.  I'll leave you with a little closer shot of that piping, just so you can see it better.

 

  

Sydney's Sweet 16 Cake

When I started selling cakes, I only made birthday cakes until I felt confident enough to make a wedding cake.  I think I made one wedding cake my first year in business and I was a nervous wreck! 

Now, it's the total opposite as I only do a handful of birthday cakes each year and they tend to be freebies to vendors or friends.  This cake was for a photographers daughter who loves to bake and came to visit me when they picked up the cake.  She was so sweet and genuinely interested in talking to me and seeing my kitchen (unusual for a teenager).  Had I known, we could have made it together!  

When I get a birthday cake order from a friend or vendor, I take the order like they are any regular customer.  I try to get an idea of what they want, size, and budget.  That way I can decide if I want to gift the cake or discount it.  I read on Earlene Moore's website one time that she does this with her family and wedding cakes.  She said that in her experience, if you tell people something is going to be free, they tend to take advantage of your generosity, whether intentionally or not.  In Earlene's case, in the beginning they picked the most expensive cake with large amounts of gumpaste flowers and she learned her lesson.  Now, I've never had that happen to us but it's because I took her advice from the beginning. 

I don't think any of my fellow wedding professionals expect a free cake.  That's not why they come to me.  I have always charged, but now if I can afford to, I like to repay the people that send me business and talk so kindly about me to brides.  Truth is, I would do this all for free if I could, as would Chaddy.  We really do enjoy all aspects of this business.  I'm really not blogging about this cake am I?  Well, sort of... right?  My point is that no matter what you "do" or "sell" don't let people take advantage of you by accident.  Be up front from the beginning by quoting a price or saying that you can offer a discount but can't work for free.  You never want to be in a position that you are resentful or a friend/colleague is mad.  Cakes are mostly time, but time IS money!

So that you got a little something "cakey" out of this I'll tell you how I made this cake.  Go to YouTube and type in "buttercream ruffles" or something similar.  There are many videos that show this new and popular technique.  It was super easy but used a lot of buttercream.  I used a BIG rose tip, the #127.  The "flowers" are just gumpaste circles that I thinned and ruffled the edges with a ball tool on a foam mat.  Real easy, just try it!  I let them dry in different size cups/flower formers so that they would have some variation.  Glued the circles together with dab or water and added pearl centers with a dot of buttercream.  Since there was no "flat" surface I choose to do the birthday girls name on the little circles floating on the edge.  It's not like you can pipe a name on top of these ruffles and it look like anything.  I'm tired of plaques and banners on my cakes, so voila!  Circles!  I know it's not all that, but sometimes you have to "embellish" your blogs!  :)

Have an awesome weekend!

Gathered Fabric Autumn Wedding

This cake was the first cake I have done this season in more traditional autumn colors.  I really like cakes with varying tier heights, and this one's got it all; half-height, regular height, and double-height tiers.  There's even a couple of styrofoam risers thrown in there for good effect.

I did learn an important decorating lesson with this cake.  I was having trouble finding styrofoam circles in the right size, so I got one closed cell and one open cell.  Closed cell is the really smooth sytrofoam; open cell has a rough surface and is scratchy (like sandpaper).  The open cell styrofoam is NOT good for covering in fondant.  The fondant wanted to droop very badly.  I don't know if it was the piping gel or the fondant, but from now on I will get the right styrofoam for my risers!

And another quick tip I learned on this cake.  The bride wanted a dot border on most of the tiers.  I was sitting in the kitchen with my tape measure pondering just how to make these dots not only straight, but equally spaced as well.  Chad then mentioned my dot impression mat, but that is a whole page of dots.  I only needed one row.  Then he said, "Well, why don't we just cut one row off the mat and use that?"  Now that's my Sweet Genius!!  Well, we cut a strip off and it worked like a charm!  It certainly made quick work of those dot borders!

Are any of my readers going to Food Blog Forum Nashville this weekend?  If so, make sure we meet, OK?  Chaddy will be there too!

Ultimate Fighting Grooms Cake

I make a lot of cakes, and almost every weekend I take my iPad and show my in-laws pictures of the cakes I have made during the past week.  Most of time, my father-in-law looks over them and says "Those are some pretty cakes".  He's the fisherman/hunter type and certainly not into baking, so I don't expect a lot of "oohs" and "ahhs" from him.  But when he saw this cake, he immediately perked up and said "Wow, now that's an awesome cake!  What did you charge for that, $1000?"

Unfortunately, I charged a lot less for it, but I definitely appreciated the sentiment.

Of course, this cake was for a groom and his favorite thing was Ultimate Fighting.  While it was no UFC fight, this cake presented a few challenges.

I started with a square cake and used a paper template to cut it into an octagon.  The cake was covered in blue fondant and then modeling chocolate panels around the sides made things nice and clean.  Chad broke out the Cricut and cut some UFC logos.  But what about the posts.  We sat down and did some brainstorming on that little bit.

We finally decided on extruding the posts from modeling chocolate.  We could skewer through the middle of the post and all the way to the base of the cake.  I used gelatin sheets and an edible black marker to make the fencing and cut slits in the sides of the modeling chocolate.  These slits would hold the edges of the gelatin panels.  We were certainly in untested waters, and luckily for us, it turned out great and held up just fine.

As always, thanks for stopping by!  I appreciate your comments, your readership, and especially your friendship.  Have a great weekend!

UT Vols Grooms Cake - Smokey the Dog

Click for a larger image

Sometimes a cake just needs one super wow element to take it from average to awesome.  On this cake, old Smokey the Dog is definitely the star!  And I have Chaddy to thank for him!

We have done sports logos before, but Chaddy said that this was the most intricate we have attempted.  Most of the logos we have done previously allow for a lot of layering; placing one color on top of another.  This design really didn't allow for that though; everything had to be inlaid.  It was one GIANT modeling chocolate jigsaw puzzle!!

From start to finish, he worked on the design over 3 nights for a total of 8 hours.  He spent about 2 1/2 hours the first night just sorting out the graphics.  That means taking the logo and not only breaking it down into its separate colors to make cut files, but also mapping out a strategy for how each color will fit together or layer onto each other.

As a side note:  I just found out last week that due to legal actions taken by the makers of the Cricut Cake that current versions of neither SCAL (Sure Cuts a Lot) nor MTC (Makes the Cut) will cut on the Cricut.  This is truly sad news indeed, as I wouldn't use my Cricut near as much if I couldn't cut custom graphics.

An in-progress shot of the black logo after the charcoal inlay.

The rest of the time was spent making the various modeling chocolate colors and cutting them out and then putting them all together!!

Since the resulting topper (do you even call that a topper?) came our so great, we wanted to really go all out on the photo.  I have been contemplating "propping" my cake pictures for a while, and this was the first time I really did it.  We got 2 yards to Vols fabric as a backdrop and used the football helmet I bought long ago to use as a model for a sculpted helmet cake.

How about you guys?  Have you used props in your wedding (or just regular) cake pictures?  If so, what worked well for you?