Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Simple and Elegant Wedding Cake with Calla Lilies

Calla Lilies are such beautiful flowers and they come in so many different colors like white, pink and all shades of purple.

I just love making cupcakes or cakes with this elegant flower in sugarpaste.

Here's the wedding cake I made the other week with sugarpaste calla lilies.  The wedding took place at a wonderful restaurant in downtown Toronto called La Maquette.

The top two tiers were vanilla cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream and the bottom tier was Chocolate Sour Cream with chocolate buttercream.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Cutest 1st Birthday Cake

Some of the stuffed animals these days are so cute! I made this cake as a replica of the little boys favorite stuffed animal, Buster. The character is actually named "Winnie the Horse". I think this is one of my most favorite cakes!

It was a lot more difficult to carve out this cake, but the mother sent me picture of the stuffed animal from all different angles so that really helped (see below). The main body was 4 layers of vanilla butter cake and each of the feet were 2 layers of vanilla butter cake.
I wonder if I could re-create my favorite childhood stuffed toy. Mine was a baby boy with a plastic head and pink stuffed body with small white polka dots. I carried it around all the time and I named it "Oh Boy" for some strange reason... What was your favorite childhood stuffed toy?

Friday, June 12, 2009

Personalized Cupcakes - What would your 4 designs be?

Just a quick post this morning, as it's going to be a busy day of cakes and cupcakes. I wanted to share a fun personalized set of cupcakes. The birthday boy loves photography, painting, rockclimbing and skiing.

They were 1 dozen chocolate fudge and 1 dozen vanilla butter cupcakes. I think my favorite is the paint palette. What's your favorite? What 4 designs show off your personality and hobbies?



Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Super Mario Cake with Shy Guy Red

A client of mine wanted a surprise Super Mario cake for her boyfriend's birthday. She said that she "googled" his favourite character, Shy Guy Red, but no cake pictures had come up.

I did the same and she was right - no Shy Guy Red. However, I found some very cool websites and some awesome Super Mario cakes posted all over the internet. Here's a link to a site called Geekologie with lots of amazing "geek" cakes including Super Mario ones.

And of course, here is the Shy Guy Red vanilla cake with swiss meringue buttercream covered in fondant. Characters are handmade out of sugarpaste.

Friday, June 5, 2009

First Communion Cakes

One of the best parts of designing and making cakes is that you are part of the planning process for such special occasions. I love talking to my clients and seeing the excitement they have to create the most special, personlized and perfect event. Today I wanted to share a selection of cakes and cupcakes that I have done for First Communion celebrations.

The above cake is a 3-tier cake with sugarpaste rosary, cross and the little boy celebrating his first communion - the cakes were chocolate and vanilla. Below we have a bible shaped chocolate sour cream cake. And also chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with fondant doves.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

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.

Friday, May 29, 2009

Sweet 16 Cake - Lacus Clyne

Last week in Toronto, there was an Anime convention which is so popular among teenagers. It is a 3 day event where attendees dress up as their favourite Japanese Animated character.


This cake (yes, its a cake) was for a girl who came to Toronto with her friends to attend the convention and also to celebrate her Sweet 16.

The character that the cake is based on is her favourite, it is Lacus Clyne. Quite a voluptuous character so it was pretty funny when I was moulding the character. :-)

I love making this type of cake, I made one similar for a bridal shower.

The upper body is moulded out of sugarpaste and the lower body is 2 small tiers of chocolate fudge cake with swiss merginue buttercream.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Not Your Typical Wedding Cakes - Movie Theme and Scrabble Cakes


Last week I had the pleasure of making 2 fun wedding cakes for a wonderful couple. They had a movie-themed wedding whereby they had wonderfully designed posters and invitations, caramel popcorn favours and of course, a movie-themed cake.

Here is the original design that I sketched out for them and the final cake. My favourite parts were making the sugarpaste popcorn and the movie reels.


And here is there movie poster - they called it "A Walk in the Park" because that is where the groom proposed to the bride.

For their second cake, the couple loves playing Scrabble. They asked me to recreate a previous Scrabble Cake and add sugar characters of them and their 2 dogs.

And I was also inspired and made some additional Scrabble cupcakes. Aren't they cute and also worth 8 points!

Friday, May 22, 2009

Wedding Cupcakes: Teal and White Roses


What a beautiful Sunday we had this past weekend in Toronto.  It was a great day for a wedding and a perfect day for a cupcake tower with lots of roses. The color theme was gold and bright teal blue. I made about 200 sugarpaste roses and it was all worth it!


The cupcakes were a Vanilla and Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes topped with Swiss Meringue Buttercream in gold foil wrappers. And there were very nice beading hanging from each level of the cupcakes stand. Here are the 3 cupcake designs: Teal blue roses with a leaf, A sugarpaste leaf with gold dragees and 3 small white roses dusted with pearl lustre.


Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Cupcakes for the Ladies


There were lots of Girly Cupcake requests this past week.  I don't know how many little chocolate fondant purses I made - I always love how they turn out. 

The TV show Gossip Girls is so popular right now.  I don't watch the show, but I did notice on twitter last night that it was quite a shocking season finale.  I made cupcakes for a Bachelorette Party with the Gossip Girls theme.  Since I don't watch it, I'm thankful that I got some pointers from a friend.  

These mini cupcakes were chocolate sour cream with dark chocolate swiss meringue buttercream. The bride-to-be got her own special regular sized cupcake.
Then there was a girls weekend away.  The clients asked what else I was making that week and then said that she'd go with a similar theme of "girly stuff".  They had 3 yummy cupcake flavours including: sour cream chocolate, lemon and vanilla butter.