Winter Wedding & Happy New Year!

The holidays are such a busy, but fun time to catch up with family, friends and colleagues.  It is all about celebration!  In my family, we had another reason to celebrate.  My sister is getting married in a couple weeks in a private ceremony all the way in Narvik, Norway.

For weddings, the bride is usually presented with something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.  So, as part of her Christmas present, I wanted to give her something blue - a cake!  She wouldn't be able to take it with her - but we enjoyed it with Christmas dinner.

The cake was winter-themed with snowflakes and a snowball on top - as its quite cold up in Norway.  The flavors were Strawberry Vanilla and strawberry buttercream on he bottom tier.  Then Chocolate Sour Cream with Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream.  The snowball was lemon cake.

I wish my sister Cindy and her fiance Jon Arne an amazing 2010 and a lifetime of adventure, travels, fun and happiness!  Stay warm in Norway!

To all my family, friends, blog readers and clients - thank you for the most amazing 2009!  It was my first year officially in business - everything was better than I expected!  I'm looking forward to 2010 and wish everyone health, happiness and lots of Sweet Things!

Sphere Mini-Cakes: A Holiday Wedding Reception

I had the pleasure of designing this magnificent cake tower filled with sphere cakes.  My client and I have been talking and dreaming about this cake for many months now.  Her son was married in late summer in London, England.  Their wedding cake was based off a wonderful design by the talented cake artist Makiko Searle of Maki's Cakes.  I have been a fan of hers for quite some time!

The Toronto reception was planned for a few days before Christmas with all the family and friends flying in - that is how the colorful ornament theme came about.

The event was took place last night at the Market Kitchen which is a wonderful space at St. Lawrence Market.  It is in the Upper Level and overlooks the market area.

Here is another angle of the cake and you can see that they have a open kitchen.  They use this space for all sorts of events and also cooking classes.

I have made sphere cakes before, but not this many in so many sizes.  There was enough to feed 100 people.  There were 3 different sizes and the 2 different flavors:  Zesty Lemon and Chocolate Sour Cream with Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream.  There were also 2 special soccer ball cakes for the big fans - the groom and the bride's father.

I think sphere mini cakes will be a very popular trend for 2010!  Let's see if I am right!

Holiday Cupcakes

It's one week before Christmas - I hope everyone is taking time out of their busy schedule to breathe, bake and enjoy a sweet or two.  I wanted to share with you all of the holiday cupcakes that I've been making over the last few weeks.  All the cupcake toppers are handmade out of sugarpaste.

Snowflakes and sleds...

Snowmen and Penguins

Fondant Gingerbread men.

Scarves and Mitts on banana sour cream cupcakes with cream cheese icing.

More snowflakes.  Banana sour cream cupcakes with cream cheese icing.

Colorful Christmas tree ornaments on Lemon Cupcakes with lemon cream cheese icing.

Lastly, holly on chocolate sour cream cupcakes with chocolate buttercream.

Wishing everyone a safe, fun and happy holiday season filled with lots of Sweet Things!

Twilight: New Moon Cake

Sometimes I wonder what I'd do without Google.... I often get cake requests for cartoons, characters or movies that I have never seen at all.  It will be something like Ben10, Pororo, Ugly Dolls or kids movies that I've never heard of.  With google, I have downloaded lots of picture and even watched lots of snippets of cartoons to get images for the cakes.

A few months back, I received a request to design a Twilight cake.  It wasn't as popular as it is today and I had no idea what that meant... but I noticed it was a trending topic on Twitter and followed the links to the web.  What would I do with out the internet?  Do research at a library, have my client fax or mail me a picture....

The book was alternating layers of chocolate sour cream and vanilla butter cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream.  The apple was lemon cake.

5-tier Baby Shower Cake

All my cakes are custom designed for the client - no two cakes are the same.  So, I find it hard to recreate past designs.  However, in this case, I just tried to make it even better.

Earlier this year, I made an extravagant baby shower cake - definitely one of my favourite cakes.  This past weekend, I recreated this cake for a baby boy shower.  I also added in an extra tier of the mini baby block at the top.

Here is a view from the top of the cake.  The flavors were:  Vanilla Butter with Swiss Meringue Buttercream for the bottom tier and the blocks.   Strawberry Vanilla Cake with Strawberry Buttercream for the drum.  Chocolate Fudge cake with Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream for the book.  All items were handmade out of sugarpaste.

Baptism and Christening Cakes

Another very special occasion for a cake - a baptism or christening.  The terms are sometimes used interchangeably, but they do have different meanings for different faiths.

Here is a 2-tier cake that I made for a Christening.  There is a small 3rd tier that the client requested so they can save the topper.

And matching red butterfly cupcakes...

A 2-tier baptism cake.  Vanilla Butter Cake on the top tier and Chocolate Velvet cake on the bottom tier.

1st Birthday: Baby Einstein Cake

Baby Einstein is such fun and colorful theme.  This cake was for a 1st birthday.  I get a lot of inquiries for this design which I posted back in March and September.

This cake feeds about 35 people.  The top tier was chocolate velvet with chocolate buttercream and the bottom tier was Banana Sour Cream with chocolate buttercream.

80th Birthday: Sewing Machine Cake

When I booked this cake order 6 months ago, I was so excited for the challenge.  I pondered over and over how I could make this a sturdy cake that needed to travel 3 hours to its destination.  I don't like to use too many inedible supports or non-cake items, but I have learned in the past that gravity always wins.

This cake was assembled onto a finely engineered cake stand with 2 wooden boards and 3 dowels.   A very small amount of rice crispy treats was also used.  All decorations are edible and handmade out of sugarpaste.  The cake was gluten-free chocolate cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream - approx. 20 servings.

Here are some matching cupcakes: strawberry vanilla with strawberry buttercream.

Car Cakes: A VW and an Audi

Who wouldn't want a cake of their car?  I love getting requests for cars because it is always a surprise and you can really personalize it for that person.  And the front view of the car always looks like a big smile!

This VW was for a surprise 30th birthday for a guy who loves his VW and of course, his dog.   His wife was planning the surprise for about 6 months ahead - and it worked!

This Audi was also for a surprise birthday.  His fiance requested a cake his car and a sugarpaste figure of him with his best friend.

1950's Cakes: The King is Back... in Cake!

A couple months back, a client ordered a 1950's-themed cakes for her grandmother's 70th birthday party: A bust of Elvis and something poodle-themed.  I have never made a "head" before and pondered for many weeks how I would actually do this.  I wanted it to be realistic, sturdy and not use too many inedible supports.  And I did NOT want the head laying flat.

The party was a few weeks back, I'm happy to say that he was sturdy and I only used three dowels to separate the 2 cake tiers.  He may not look exactly like Elvis, but I was pretty happy with my first "head" - although, I don't like the thought of anyone cutting into it....

My client said the cakes were a hit!  Her grandmother didn't have the heart to cut into it and the poodle cake fed everyone.  As of last week, it is still sitting in her basement cold storage.... which I wouldn't want to bump into late at night because I'm sure it would scare me every time :-)

Elvis "In Progress" -  I started with 5 layers of vanilla cake iced with Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

Then, I started to carve the cake... yes, he now looks like Chewbacca...

He's starting to come to life with a bit more carving and some more buttercream.

And now sporting a new look - kinda Zorro-ish.... Such a fun cake!

Sweet Things for Foodies: Hamburger Cake and Cooking-themed Cupcakes

Who wants a Hamburger.... cake, that is....?  I have only made one small hamburger cake in the past, so I was very excited to tackle this cake and all its fixin's.  This cake was for a surprise 60th birthday party for someone who loves to bbq and eat hamburgers.

This was a 4 layer cake which fed 20 people.  The top and bottom bun were Strawberry Vanilla cake with Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream covered with fondant.  The 2 meat patties were actually triple chocolate brownie which I didn't have to cover because it looked like meat.  The tomatoes, lettuce, cheese and sesame seeds were made out of sugarpaste.  The ketchup and mayo were buttercream.

For other foodies, I also made this Two-Four of cupcakes for the Calphalon Culinary Center in Toronto.  These cupcakes were Chocolate Sour Cream and Strawberry Vanilla.   I loved making those tiny potholders and oven mitts.

2nd Birthday: Toy Story Cake

This past weekend, I made a wonderful and fun 2nd birthday cake based off of Disney's Toy Story movies.  The client was very flexible and said I could do whatever I wanted.

I really wanted to put my sugarpaste modelling skills to the test with these characters.  I'm so happy with the result and I had so much fun doing it!  I think my favorite is Mrs. Potato Head.

Topsy Turvy Wedding Cake

This past weekend, I made a wonderful cake for a fabulous couple.  This wedding cake was a Topsy Turvy Cake, also known as Whimsical or Mad Hatter cake.  A friend of mine had described it as "sophisticated and fun" - I love that description!

What I loved most about their cake was the color palette that they provided me - you just can't go wrong with the colors strawberry ice cream, pistachio green, lemon yellow and deep burgundy.  The orchids were handmade out of gumpaste to match their room decor.

They also picked some fabulous flavors:  bottom tier was Vanilla Butter Cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream, middle tier was Zesty Lemon Cake with Lemon Buttercream and the top tier was Strawberry Vanilla Cake with Strawberry Buttercream.

And here is a view from the top.