Sunday, September 20, 2009

Most Gorgeous Wedding Cake EVER!!!




As you can see we had a really big week here at Designer Cakes and this cake was the crowning jewel. I wish I could take credit for the design but I can't. This cake was based off of a Ron Ben-Israel (A famed cake and sugar artist in New York City) cake photo from Brides.com. The bride really wanted something fabulous and she did a good job picking this one. Sorry you have to see a crappy picture of me after a long week of crazy work but I had to show you the scale of how big this cake was. It was so much more work than I could have possibly imagined but when it was done I got a little bit emotional. There are so many things about this cake that are so incredibly difficult I'm not sure where to start. First of all, the bottom 3 tiers were styrofoam which is difficult to cover with fondant to begin with but when you make it HUGE and TALL and square, it doesn't get much more difficult than that to make it look good. Then trying to take that fabulous design on the front from a 3 inch photo and turn it into a 32 inch tall cake while trying to keep everything to scale and making sure the mirror image of the design was the same size and scale on each tier. Math was always my worst subject but I've had to pull it out of the recesses of my mind and put it to use to make cakes like this one happen. Then there's the stand..... This was more work than the entire cake! Heather's dad made us a fantastic custom stand out of wood from a crappy little drawing I made him (good job on that one!) and then we covered it with tons of fondant lace molds that took HOURS to make. This cake was ENORMOUS! The biggest one I've ever made. But you can't really appreciate the details unless you look at it up close. Thinking about what it took to make it almost brings a little tear to my eye. It was a definite mile stone in this crazy creative journey that I've been on for the last almost 3 years. I used to think that I didn't have any skills so realizing that I do have this gift and talent and realizing that I can take on whatever project I want to and then find a way to make it happen even if I have no idea how that is going to happen when I agree to it. I am so grateful for my gifts and talents.

This cake was so much fun to make!!!  This has to be the luckiest girl in the world.  She and her friends are going to the "Pink" concert for her birthday and this is her glam rock cake for the party!!!  I had completed three other cakes this same day and I was completely wiped but after a 14 hour day I finally finished it.  Melissa my cookie artist decorated the gum paste guitar to match the guitar sugar cookie favors she made for this same party.  I had to make custom bags for the cookies because the bags we had were too short so I had to use cello wrap and satin scotch tape but it worked like a charm and they fit the cookies perfectly!  :o)

  Looking at these photos really makes me think I should get a backdrop for my photos.  The red floor and yellow walls in my new shop are just not doing the photos justice.  Aaaahhh!

5 year old birthday party

Is this a darling little cake or what?  The colors were so florescent and bright I don't know how any little girl wouldn't love this cake.  My sister who is not into this sort of thing was kind enough to help me this weekend and I made her cut out all the tiny dots on the bottom tier and then put the polka dots on the 2nd tier.  She didn't think it was the funnest thing in the world.  The cakes look super fun when they are done but sometimes getting to that point there is a lot of tedious little details that make it so.

Engagement Party


This was a take on another cake I've done but we added the white daisies with the purple centers and the gum paste rings in the bow since it was for an engagement party.  We tried to make the "diamond" out of melted sugar but it was too full of bubbles so it didn't look that good so we just used white gum paste and painted it with pearl.  We did so many cakes this weekend I was a little spacey.  I almost forgot to paint the rings silver and put the flowers on the cake.  It was a little embarrassing but at least it got done.  

Monday, September 14, 2009

Very Elegant Wedding Cake

I LOVE this cake!  I did this one a couple of weeks ago before I went to Europe.  I originally put it together with 4 inch tiers and then realized before I started decorating that it was supposed to be 6 inch tiers so I had to start all over again.  I was up the entire night working on this cake.  It was crazy.  There was originally a monogram on the top that matched the decorations on the sides but it broke in transit so we had to put flowers on the top but I think it turned out really elegant and gorgeous!

Dinner Party Under The Stars

I got a napkin as inspiration for this cake and it was really fun to do.  The instructions were to make it look elegant but not like a wedding cake.  I hope we succeeded.  The napkin had greens and tans and golds and then these bright pink stripey flowers.  It's hard to see in the photo but there is a gold stencil on the green that is a nature theme with branches, flowers, and birds.  The beads around the bottom of each tier looked like little tiny roses up close and we painted them and the butterflies and dragonflies with gold.  The flowers were originally one flower with 2 layers but then I ended up liking it better as two flowers with only one layer.  I LOVED this cake!

Music Note Cupcakes

These cupcakes were so much work but totally worth it in the end.  The notes were so fragile and they kept breaking.  It's a good thing we made like 80 of them even though we were only doing 50 cupcakes.

80th Birthday party

The darling ladies who ordered this cake were so cute!  It was her husband's 80th birthday and she wanted something different and fun.  I think we accomplished that.  The "dots" on the middle tier are tennis balls because he is very into tennis.  It was really fun doing this cake.