Sunday, October 9, 2011

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)!