4-tier Wedding Cake and a Set-up Tip!

I had the pleasure of making this elegant 4-tier wedding cake with handmade sugarpaste orchids (my favourite!!) and gold accents.  The cake was chocolate sour cream cake and strawberry vanilla cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream.

Here's another photo of the cake with flash.  Make sure you check out my facebook page to see the gorgeous photo that the bride posted.

Cake Decorators Tip:  Always bring a level tool!  Actually in this case, I didn't need a level because the cake table was ridiculously wobbly.  You spend so much time levelling each tier and stacking the cake perfectly, so it really sucks when the table is not level.

I will not mention the venue because they were very nice, as helpful as they could be and vowed to get a new table for cakes.  I'm not sure if you can see, but the table is a little "battered", on an elevated platform that also wasn't too steady and the resolution was actually a pad of paper tucked in all corners of the stand to keep it level.  However, in the end, I was satisfied with what they could do and they also allowed me to take photos of the paper-tucked table.

So, my tip is to have the venue help resolve the issue to your satisfaction and document it somehow.  If you are still uncomfortable, make sure you have the table moved to a different lower traffic area or set up the table somewhere else. 

Can I put wires in a cake?

I have learned so many new techniques over the years, so I thought I'd pass along this tip that I learned early in my cake decorating career and I still stick by it.  I was told by one of my instructors that you should never put a wire directly in a cake.

Why?  Well, in rare cases, it may break and someone could ingest it.  No, I have never heard of it happening, but better to be safe even if you provide good instructions on how to disassemble a cake before serving.

What are the options?

#1 - Use a coffee stir stick to house all the wires.  This bowling cake has a starburst of many wires.  This monkey cake also shows the stir stick which makes it easy to disassemble before serving.

#2 - Wrap your wires with floral tape.  However, most floral tape have latex in it and you have to watch for latex allergies.  Have I ever heard of any allergic reactions?  No, but its better to be careful and inform the client.

#3 - Use Floral Spikes.  These are usually used for fresh flowers, but I use this for sugarpaste flowers.  They are expensive, but worth it.   For this cake, they were easier to remove and preserve as the sugarpaste petals didn't touch the cake.

#4 - Dip in white chocolate or white candy melts.   If none of the above options works for your design, you can also dip the wire ends with white chocolate or white candy melts.

I hope you find these options helpful.  Again, it is rare that there are any issues, but I do this to be on the safe side.  Anybody do anything different?

Bar Mitzvah: Gold Maserati Cake

It all started with a gold maserati cake....

Then add a few tire cakes, 4 to be exact....  Stack them a little offset.. and....

,

....add the Gold Maserati on top and voila!  You have a fabulous, eye-catching 5-tier centerpiece cake for a Bar Mitzvah.

 

A view from the top.

 

Cake Decorator's Tip:  For cake tiers that are identical in design and shape (as in the tires above), ensure that you somehow mark each with the cake flavor.  You way want to do this discretely or in the back of the cake for yourself and the servers.  I always provide printed instructions of all the details of the cake and serving instructions.

Purse Cake Tutorial

In September, I posted a cake carving tutorial which continues to be a very popular blog post.  So, here is another step-by-step cake carving tutorial of a very popular cake design - a Louis Vuitton Purse.

This cake was for a bridal shower and was a replica of the bride-to-be's checkerboard LV purse with a matching wallet.

Step 1:  Prepare the cake for carving:  The cake was strawberry vanilla and chocolate sour cream cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream.  I usually put the wrapped cake in the freezer prior to carving so that it is as solid as possible.  The cake is on a small fitted cakeboard and then on a turntable - ready for carving!

Step 2:  Carve Carefully:  I always post photos on my wall of the purse images in all different angles.  Make sure you have a sharp knife (I use a large bread knife and a smaller one for finer details) and I cover my work surface with the plastic wrap that my cakes were covered in.  Very easy clean up and you should always keep your work area and sinks as clean as possible. 

For this design, I started with the front angle of the cake, then moved to the side angle. I carved only small pieces off and then stood back regularly to look at the cake from every angle.  For this purse, I also added in some extra indentations as purses are never perfectly pouffy (is that a word?)

Step 3:  Cover the cake:  Clear away the cake shavings and clean your work surface.  I iced the cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream which I find the best and sturdiest for my carved (sculpted) cakes.

I added some additional white fondant to my chocolate fondant to get the proper LV brown.  

Once the fondant is fitted perfectly around the cake, I cut off the excess fondant with my scraper.  Some people use a pizza cutter, but I prefer the scraper.

Step 4:  Decorate! For this LV design, I had to find the perfect shade of gold.  I had to use a mixture of 3 lustre dusts, edible gold paint and some lemon extract.  This designed required perfect squares to be painted on the uneven surface.  I found some make-up sponges that I cut into a square and then I used it as a stamp.  Note: For the LV Logo purses, you have to freehand paint every logo.  I don't know of a stencil or any easier way to do it.

Once it was painted, then I moved the cake to the sturdy cakeboard.  It was covered in a pastel pink which I think makes the brown stand out more.  Then I added the rest of the decorations and it all came together. 

Step-by-Step Cake Carving Tutorial

I've been asked by many people to post a step-by-step tutorial on how I carve a cake. So, today's post will be step-by-step pictures on a very interesting cake order.

The order requested was for "One Male Brown Butt". It seems that this was a joke gift for an office going away party.... I really don't mean to offend, this is for fun - so please don't scroll down further if you don't want to read anymore.

Step 1: The cake was Chocolate Velvet Cake with Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttecream. Depending on the type of cake, I usually put the wrapped cake in the freezer prior to carving so that it is as solid as possible to carve.

Next, you need to get a clear picture in your head of the cake, if the images have not been provided by the client. I dared to google "Male Bum".... I didn't open any of the images, but the thumbnails were quite sufficient :-)Step 2: Make sure you have a very good cake cutting knife. I have a larger one and a smaller one to carve the finer details.

I started with a major part of the design, the crack, and started to cut. Then I just began carving - you have to just go for it. You can't stare or think too long. Carve small pieces and stand back regularly to look at the cake from different angles - there is no "undo".
For my cakes, I try to add in all the fine details in the carving, instead of leaving it to buttercream or fondant. Here are the dimples in the butt.Step 3: Cover the carved cake in Buttercream. I usually put this in the fridge until the buttcream cream hardens a little bit. Then I take it out from the fridge and smooth out the buttercream as much as possible. For this design, I had to smooth out using my hands - picture that! :-)Step 4: I dyed my fondant to the proper shade of brown - make sure you ask specifics from your client to ensure you meet their expectations. They will usually provide a photo or color palette. I rolled out the fondant and covered the cake. Smooth your hands over the curves of the cake (now that was funny...) and cut off the excess fondant.
Step 5: Prepare additional details for your cake. For this cake, I created something that looked like the top of jeans with a belt out of sugarpaste.And Voila! The final cake - One Male Brown Butt. Hope you enjoyed this lighthearted tutorial on how to carve a cake.

Star Wars: Yoda Cake

"Do or do not.... there is no try" ~ Yoda.

And here is Yoda - 9 layers of Vanilla Butter Cake!

I really had a lot of fun (and stress) making the Yoda cake for a little boy who turned 4. Yoda was quite challenging, as he is a pretty thin character and he's got a big head. I also wanted to make him all out of cake, so I didn't want to use Styrofoam or Rice Krispies.

I worked hours and hours on him into the wee hours of the morning. At 2am, was still a bit shakey so I thought I'd let him "settle" overnight.

In the morning, I made a little tweak to his cane, turned around to do some dishes and "Thump"! He fell over on the table and cracked in half....

His head survived, but the body did not. I had less than 2 hours to make buttercream, dye more fondant, carve out his body and decorate him again.... I never worked so fast but the result was great - he was a little fatter than I planned - but now he was not going to fall again. Here's a view from the top!

Cake Decorator's Tip: Don't try to push the limits on gravity, gravity always wins! :-) And always make extra cake for sculpted cakes. I lucked out on this one as I had lots of vanilla cake on hand which was for my next cake.

Party Cake for Gail Vaz-Oxlade and TV Show: Til Debt Do Us Part

A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to be asked to design a cake for the TV show Til Debt Do Us Part. They were celebrating their 100th episode and it was also the host, Gail Vaz-Oxlade's, 50th birthday. The party was held on the the rooftop terrace of The Fifth Grill and Terrace in downtown Toronto. For this cake, I tried to really incorporate the elements of the show (the money jars, credit cards) and of course Gail, her big black bag and her TV crew. Her TV crew is so important to her and she truly appreciates them.

The cake was 3-tiers: Chocolate Sour Cream Cake, Lemon Cake and Banana Cake. I was also able to incorporate the glass money jars in the cake and even made sugarpaste coins and bills inside. Aside from the sugar people, the calculator was one of my favorites to make.

I was also lucky enough to attend the event in Toronto and meet Gail and her daughter Alex. They were the most friendly, down-to-earth and wonderful people. They loved the cake, appreciated the small details and even saved some of the sugarpaste items.

Lots of pictures today - most of them (I'm sure you can tell which ones) were photographed by Tanja at Double Crossed Photography.



These next 3 photos are sound guy and the 2 cameramen looking at themselves made out of sugar. I love the picture below as the sound guy, John, is laughing that I included his rolled up sleeves in his sugar character.


Behind the Scenes: Some of my regular readers have asked that I post some of my "in progress" pictures. You can see how I made the sugarpaste money and divided them up into their proper amounts. I know, I know - that is a bit excessive... :-)



Cake Decorator's Tip: The event was held on a hot evening on the rooftop terrace in downtown Toronto. Can you imagine how worried I was about that? I was trying to negotiate an inside spot to display the cake - but there was a nice breeze, so I set up on the terrace. However, throughout the evening I kept my eye on the cake and was ready to repair at a seconds notice in case any of the sugar characters started to tilt over. So my tip really is to get yourself invited to the event! :-)

Max & Ruby Cake

Last weekend, I made this fun Max & Ruby cake for a little girl who was turning 2. The cake was 4 layers of chocolate velvet cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream decorated with handmade sugarpaste decorations.

A couple weeks before the party, the mother called to order a second "plain" cake as there would be actually be 2 parties. She would just move over the sugarpaste decorations to the plain cake on party #2.

It was not a problem to do a plain cake.... however, I discovered that I actually cannot make a plain cake. I still had to dress it up with some decorations - this must be some sort of illness... I can't let a cake out of my studio without any decorations. :-) Have a look at my "plain" cake posted below.

btw - I should also mention that my inspiration for this cake came from a wonderful blog called the Frosted Cake n' Cookie.



Cake Decorators Tip: Sometimes it is hard to sculpt something that is a cartoon character and make sure they have a likeness and are cute. For Max and Ruby, I found a picture of cute 3D stuffed animal picture of them to use as my guide.

Sphere Cakes: For All Occasions

I guess I could have thought of a better blog title, but it is exactly what I'm writing about this morning.

When looking for simple, elegant, yet "different" cake - many clients love to top their cake with a very round cake. Or you can call it a sphere or an ornament cake topper.

I once created an elegant wedding cake with a baseball on top which I talked about in this blog post.  Here is a wedding cake I did last year.  It was a 5 tier cake with a round cake topper.  I remember it was alternating tiers of Lemon Sour Cream Cake with Swiss Meringue Buttercream and Chocolate Velvet Cake filled with Dark Chocolate Ganache.   And the cake topper was Lemon Pound Cake with Swiss Meringue Buttercream.


And for their 1st year anniversary the other week, I created this perfectly round ornament.  This was a lemon cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream. So fun to make - the design possibilities are endless!

This cake was a re-creation of a company's logo in a 3D sphere cake.  It was lemon cake with swiss meringue buttercream.

Cake Decorator's Tip: These cake was made using the Wilton Sports Ball cake pan. I also have the Wilton mini-ball pan set and other sphere cake pans.   I also use a tougher cake like pound cake or a nice butter cake. You will have to test your batter to the pan to make sure it rises to meet the top. If it doesn't rise right to the top, then it will not make a nice sphere when you put the halves together.

The Perfect Bridal Shower Cake

This is truly a sweet and thoughtful cake for a bride-to-be.  This cake was a replica of the bride's gorgeous wedding dress, part of the Jasmine Bridal line.

I had so much fun making this cake, although I worried about the proportions.  There had to be enough cake to feed 20, but I also didn't want to make the bride too.... hippy....

I had to make the bust out of sugarpaste a week before, so that it would dry properly.  I'm so happy that it was the perfect size and shape since I didn't make a back-up in a different size.

Isn't this such a Sweet Thing?

Cake Decorator's Tip:  This is not an easy cake to make, depending on the design of the dress because you don't want any unnecessary lines.  I had to put the fondant on 3 times to get it right.  And I would definitely suggest making a back-up bust in a different size, just in case.