• THE TASTE OF SUCCESS…

Cake – 06.30.09

Lisa contacted me a couple weeks  in regards to a cake for Jeff Knott who will be the new “Dover City Manager”. I was bookedfor the next few weekends, but since this was a weekday cake, I decided to add it in.  She wanted a cake in the shape of a Desk Name Plate to feed about 75 people.

So with this info, I took off.  To feed 75, the cake came to about three feet long.  I did half vanilla and half chocolate.  I started with 2 11×15 cakes, cut them in half, stacked, and carved the slope of the name plate  (thanks to Ben and his genius idea of creating side guides, this was a breeze).  I covered the sculpted cakes with buttercream and then with brown tinted fondant.  We hand-painted the wood grain and placed a black strip of fondant on the front.  A few days earlier, I made the gold letters out of royal icing so that they could harden and easily be added to the cake.  After all the wording was in place I rolled up gold fondant beads and placed them around the black face plate. After 8 hours baking/decorating, the cake was complete.  Congrats, Jeff!  And thank you, Lisa, for the fun cake challenge.

• A FAIRY TALE BIRTHDAY…

Cake – 06.20.09

Jennifer contacted me a few months back about doing Emmy’s second birthday cake. Last year we did the pain palette for her for the theme of “Paint Your World”. This year’s birthday theme was books with a fairy tale vibe. She went with all buttercream and a funfetti flavored cake to feed 30.

I began by preparing the boards for the cakes. I first wrapped a flat board with silver paper and then sized the book cover and folded in to the spine so that it would be lifted on the sides as if you were holding the book open to read it. I wrapped the bard in a maroon paper and placed two cardboard pieces under the sides to prop it open and hot-glued everything in place. I baked 2 rectangle sheet cakes. I placed the first on top of the opn book, filled with buttercream and then placed the second cake on top. I then card the cake into an open book shape. I mixed up buttercream so that it have blends of khaki and brown to match the antique style invitations she sent out. I piped small lines on the edges of the cake to resemble pages, a green border around the edges of the page and the lettering of “Once Upon A Time Emmy was 2” that matched the invitation as well. She wanted a fairy tale theme for the second page so Ben dre me out the outline of a castle and I piped it on the cake. I came back and piped leaves and flowers and then added sparkles to the cake. For the finishing touches, I added a silver bookmark ribbom to match the base board and sparkly wool batting to look as if the book was sitting on clouds. After 5 hours, it was complete.

Happy Birthday, Emmy! And thanks, Jennifer, once again for the opportunity. I always love to work with your creative themes. Emmy is one lucky little girl!