Simplici-lilly

Elegant and simple. Handmade calla lilly floral sprays adorn this 3-tier beauty. Lemon cake with lemon curd for a refreshing sweet piece of a summer wedding.

Pretty in Pink

This swiss-dotted beauty has custom handmade silk flower sprays, complete with beaded crystals to compliment the bride's tiara and the cake topper. The top tier was strawberry cake with french vanilla filling; the middle tier was vanilla with pistachio filling; and the bottom tier was chocolate with a chocolate mousse filling.

Daisy Display

This gorgeous Springtime bouquet is made of fondant daisies. Lemon cake with strawberry filling and lemon buttercream made for a delicious cupcake display as well the main cutting cake. A tiny matching fondant daisy topped each cupcake, the colors of the brides bouquet. The fondant on the cake was brushed with shimmer powder to make it look like the satin of her dress.

Be-ribboned

 Carrot cake and lemon cream cheese frosting in swirls, with a bottom layer of rice crispies. Roman colums raise the cake above the fountain, and the sprays are daisies and apple blossoms, with tulle puff backing and green ribbons looping through. Green satin ribbon is wrapped around the cake and held in place with frosting.

The crystal topper (provided by the bride) is resting on a mirror and surrounded by bouquets of the wedding flowers.

Teal Appeal

This cake is a 3-tiered white cake, with raspberry truffle filling and buttercream frosting. Teal bluebells form clusters around the sides and a bouquet, accented with ribbon, adorns the top. Matchinmg teal satin ribbon brings the whole look together.

The top 2 tiers also feature a ruffled garland, overlapped by drop-strings and teal piping.

Lacey

Cornelli Lace is one of the harder decorating techniques, but is a beautiful effect. The surface is covered with piping, the line is continuous and cannot touch or cross itself. I did this cake for a friend's open house, where they had requested a very simple sheet cake.

I really liked the effect of the border of cornelli lace. It was a nice touch to formalize this simple cake, to fit the occasion.

Fall-ing in Love

I love the fall. Early fall, when flowers are still blooming and the colors are rich and vibrant with the change of season. This cake was for a wedding open house style reception. We weren't sure how many people were going to be coming through, so we made plenty. A typical two tiered wedding cake, with an additional matching sheet cake just in case.

When doing tiers, pre-assemble the cake before delivering to make sure it all fits and the colums are positioned correctly. Then take it apart and transport with colums in place. You reassemble the cake at the event. So here are shots of the seperate tiers, the final cake, and the extra sheet cake.

I used white daisies, blue forget-me-nots, red primroses, and rusty chrysanthemums. Top and bottom borders are the shell borders, and I used a ruffled garland on the sides.

Sotas? Sotas Anyone?

Course 3, Wedding Cakes!

I had survived the first two grueling courses. Hey, it's hard work learning not to lick the frosting off your fingers! I think everyone was sick of frosting after the second week, and those who buy my cakes need not fear me licking. I don't actually eat my cakes very often, I have played in the frosting too much.

For my last assignment, I chose to do a chocolate cake. Tip: chocolate cake is one of the worst for crumbs. Plus, the crumbs also show up the worst. Well, not thinking about this, I ended up with the worst crumbs all over the frosting of the wedding cake. PANIC!

Then I remembered a decorating technique. Very sophisticated, daring, bold... The Sotas! This "hard to master" (wink wink) technique consists of getting a very small round tip, thinning out your frosting, preferably with a tiny bit of karo syrup or piping gell, and squeezing the bag like crazy. All over the place, like a frosting pile of angel hair pasta. Seriously! I tell you what, it not only works fabulous, the teacher was impressed (as was the class), and you couldn't see a single crumb!

Finished, in all it's glory!

A top view. You can really see the amazing texture the sotas gives the cake. The flowers are petunias. Beautiful flowers, and actually quite easy to do.

Just a detail shot of the top. The petunias have stamens in the middle, if you look closely, just like the real flower. These are plastic balls on top of hard strings that you set in the flower before it dries.

Incidentaly, my son's speech therapist came to work with him the next day and saw the cake sitting on the table. She was so impressed that she bought the top of the cake from me to take to work for a friend's birthday! Less cake I had to eat...