Golden Anniversary cake

My friend approached me several months ago about making a cake, and I was already booked on the weekend she needed it, so it didn't work out for me to help her out that time.  She recently called me again about making a cake for her in-laws' 50th wedding anniversary. I couldn't very well tell her "no" twice, so we got together to talk about cake designs.

The couple of honor is German, and Germans LOVE their desserts, so this cake will be the centerpiece among many desserts at the reception.  My friend decided she didn't want anything too fancy or flowery, and she quickly fell in love with this quilted fondant pattern. Only the one in the magazine was white and had colorful flowers on it, so we looked for other options to decorate the top of the cake and came up with a bow. She was fine with the cake being white, but wanted to incorporate gold in the design somehow.

The cake inside was white chocolate with raspberry preserve filling.  I have never had good luck with fruit fillings, and this time was no exception.   I put a few rows of icing around the outside border of the bottom layer before spreading the raspberry preserves.  Then I stacked the layers of the bottom cake (9" round) and put a crumb coat of icing on it. When I tried to put the second coat of buttercream on the cake, it seemed unstable, and the filling was trying to escape and leak out.  The icing between the layers kept bulging out and making the cake look slumpy.  I was so worried that I was going to have to re-do the bottom tier, especially after adding more weight by putting a layer of fondant AND a second tier on top of it.

But, as you can see, the fondant ended up holding the cake together after all.  I used a roller to make the criss-cross pattern in the sides of the fondant. Then, I stacked the tiers, sprayed them with edible gold paint, and piped the white border around the bottom of each tier. Hayden helped me attach all of the sugar pearls. I assembled the gumpaste strips into the bow on top and attached the gold "50" to the gumpaste heart and outlined it with pearls too.  After it was dry, I flipped it over and attached a flat stick to the back with candy melts.

I was really pleased with the way this cake design came together.  My friend was thrilled with it too!  Can't wait to hear how much the Germans enjoyed it!

Masquerade Cake

My friend's daughter was turning 13 and having a fancy masquerade party with all of her girlfriends this weekend.  They all got dolled up in dresses and masks with feathers and sequins.  The birthday girl picked out this gorgeous mask as the theme of her cake. I will admit that I was a little intimidated by the color scheme of black and gold, especially since they didn't originally request fondant. When I said that I wasn't sure that I could accomplish the design they wanted in the colors they wanted with buttercream, my friend wanted to be sure she wouldn't be missing out on my icing.  Once I assured her that there would be plenty of buttercream icing under the fondant (and agreed to bring her a bowl of icing), she said that I could use fondant.

Of course (just keepin' it real...), it wasn't all smooth sailing, especially since this was the weekend that I took on TWO cake projects, and procrastinated on both of them all week because I wasn't feeling well and had no energy.  I finished the bridal shower cake late Friday night, and began making the fondant for this one on Saturday morning. For some still-unknown reason, the powdered sugar would NOT incorporate into the melted marshmallows, and my KitchenAid stand mixer was proving to be inadequately small for the job. So, I ended up running to Michael's and using a 50% off coupon to buy fondant as a last resort. Ugh.

The cake was white chocolate with buttercream filling, and I covered the cake in white fondant, sprayed it with edible gold paint, and added black fondant stripes and border. There is a dome-shaped cake underneath the mask, which is covered in black fondant. I added the feathers for a little extra flair. I wanted to be a little fancier, but was running short on time, so I had to call this the finished product this time.  The good news is that the cake was a big hit and the birthday girl loved it! That makes me happy.

Wedding Dress Cake

It can be really fun when clients have a photo of the exact cake that they want, and want me to re-create it! The photo that my friend Joanna sent me had a pink background, and a plain-er dress, but the bride-to-be's color scheme is black & pink, so I had to find a way to incorporate the black into this very feminine design.  I added sugar crystals to the bodice for some sparkle, and some edible pearls to the skirt for some elegance.  The cake itself was white chocolate with pink buttercream filling between the layers (to match the flowers, of course)!

Girly cake

This birthday girl LOVES anything pink, so I tried my best to imitate the colors on her party invitation. I hear it was a BIG hit!

Photo cake

For my son's 16th birthday, he wanted a cake that represented his swimming.  I found a photo that my dad had taken at one of his swim meets last year, a profile of Nate in his swim cap and goggles.  We took it to Publix (grocery store) on a USB drive, and they printed it on edible paper with edible ink for $8. All I had to do was ice the cake and put the sheet on top and pipe a border around the edge.

I made some edible goggles by pressing some black fondant into a pair of his goggles and painting the front with silver luster dust (mixed with clear vanilla).  Voila!

Quinceañera cake

My friend's neighbor had a daughter who was about to turn 15.  The neighbor is from Puerto Rico, and in her culture, that is the age where they celebrate with a quinceañera.  It's kind of like a mini-wedding because there is a church service where they have a ceremony rededicating the girl to the Lord, as well as acknowledging her becoming a young woman. The ceremony is followed by a big reception celebration.

Joy chose to have a Hollywood theme to her reception, and wanted her cake to reflect that theme with a red carpet and lots of glitz and glamour.  They had purchased the figure in Puerto Rico and wanted to incorporate that somehow as well. Joy brought me several photos of cakes that she liked, and I tried to combine most of the ideas as well as make it her own.

When I delivered the cake to the country club where her reception was being held, the staff raved about it.  I later got a note from my friend who photographed the event and also from Joy herself letting me know how much they loved the cake. That made me feel really good. :)

Wedding cake

This is the wedding cake I did for my friend's daughter's wedding in August.

I enlarged the photo so you could see some of the detail.

Everyone was really happy with the outcome of the design, including me!

This is definitely the largest cake I've ever made, but I was very confident in the structure and support that I used this time. The only nerve-wracking part was transporting it OVER AN HOUR from home to the reception hall!

Don't you just love the beautiful wooden cake stand that the bride's father made?

I think it was the perfect way to showcase this beautiful cake.

I just felt bad for my husband & son who had to carry the cake in from the car, because it was so very heavy! The stand itself wasn't solid, but still probably almost weighed 10 pounds before any cake was added to it. Then, four two-layer tiers of cake, with however-many batches of buttercream icing that I had to make to fill, cover and decorate this enormous cake.