1st Birthday Cake: Green & Pink

I'd like to thank whoever designs kids' party invitations.  Aside from being utterly cute, they provide the perfect inspiration for cake designs.

Here's a strawberry vanilla 1st birthday cake for a little girl named Sophie.  The inspiration came from the invitation and sticker shown below.

 

And some additional orange dream cupcakes made it the cutest cupcake tower.

Halloween Cupcake Tower

Happy Halloween Everyone!  I wanted to share this fun cupcake tower with a Mummy cake topper and halloween cupcakes.

If you'd like to see how I made these cupcake toppers and cake, click on over to visit Kathia at Pink Little Cake for a how-to and mini-tutorial.  Aside from being a fabulous cake designer, Kathia has a great blog that I follow.  Over the past month, she has been putting together a collection of fabulous blog posts called 28 Days of Sweet Halloween Ideas.  Lots of great ideas and I am happy to participate with my fellow bloggers.

Wishing everyone a safe and happy halloween weekend.

Green and White Wedding

As many of you know, I got married last month.  And yes, I did make my own wedding cake(s) and sweet table.

The wedding inspiration was different shades of green, white and paper lanterns.  Decor, signs and invitations were designed by my talented sister Yvonne.

It was a beautiful, warm September day for our afternoon outdoor ceremony.  It was held at Cedar Ridge Creative Center and Botanical Gardens in Scarborough.

We had a cocktail reception in the historic house catered by Daniel et Daniel.  Following a champagne toast, our guests enjoyed the sweet table which I absolutely loved putting together.

The sweet table treats included: S'mores, chocolate covered strawberries, gluten-free chocolate cake, mini strawberry vanilla cupcakes, sugar cookies, zesty lemon sphere cakes, chocolate dipped pretzels, white chocolate truffles, chocolate covered almonds and orange cake bites.  The croquembouche were made by the caterers. 

It was such a perfect day for Steve and I.  We had so much fun and would like to thank our family and friends who were able to join us.

Photography by You+Me Weddings
Make-up by Janine Falcon and Hair by Alexis Jardin
Wedding Officiant Daniel Brereton
Green Wedding Shoes by John Fluevog
Sweet Table by me, SweetThings Toronto

Wedding Cakes Inspired by the Wedding Dress

When designing a cake, sometimes the elements can be inspired by the bride's wedding dress.  It can be a single element, it can be exactly the dress or it can be the main elements of dress.  Here are two wedding cakes that I made which were completely inspired by the wedding dress.

This cake was inspired by Vera Wang's Dinah dress in a light ivory.  The top and middle tier were Strawberry Vanilla cake with strawberry buttercream and the bottom tier was Chocolate Sour Cream Cake with chocolate buttercream.

 

The couple also had 2 cherries as part of the design of their invitations, so I was able to encorporate it into the piping and also to the cake stand.  I love this angle for this photo.

This 2-tier cake was for a couple who were married overseas.  The design was based off of a photo just after they said their "I Do's" at their beach wedding.

Baptism Cake

This was a re-creation of one of my past Christening Cakes - similar, but a little bit different.  The top tier was strawberry vanilla cake and the bottom was chocolate sour cream cake.

Here is a picture of the front of the cake and I also decorated the back as this was for a special family dinner celebration with people sitting around the table.

 

I should also mention that Sienna's birth was also celebrated with a SweetThings baby shower cake earlier this year.  And Sienna's dad celebrated a birthday a few months back with SweetThings custom cake.  I look forward to continuing to make wonderful and creative cakes for this lovely family.

1st Birthday Cake and Cupcakes

This was one of those cakes that I couldn't saying "It's so cute!".  A clean and simple design, but oh-so cute!

 

I was given this wonderful inspiration photo of the little girls room.  I loved the lettering of the name Logan, so I re-created it in a 3D way with gumpaste.

 

The 2-tier cake was vanilla butter cake and there were also chocolate sour cream and orange dream cupcakes.

Here is the beautiful birthday girl, Logan, with her cupcake before.... and after.  Happy 1st birthday to Logan!

Wedding Cake Inspired by a Painting

I absolutely loved making this cake wedding cake, although there is a lot of extra pressure when the design is based off of a famous painting.  The couple wanted a cake which complemented the venue, had a fall-ish theme and was a little bit different, but not too crazy.

The couple were married at the McMichael Art Gallery in Kleinburg which exhibits wonderful Canadian Art.  My design was based off of this famous Tom Thomson painting called Pine Trees at Sunset which sold for $2 million in 2008.  I love how the cake turned out - I used fondant, a 3D tree effect on the top and used edible paint - I hope I did justice to the art piece.

The couple is very active, loves the outdoors and biking, so they wanted me to add this in.  I made sugarpaste characters of them and their bikes.

70th Birthday Cake: Stacked Books Cake

I get so many requests to customize a cake for someone special, but they don't have an idea what they'd like.  I always ask them to describe the person, their hobbies, profession and whatever you can think of.

Sometimes we end up deciding on one theme and sometimes we can decide on more than one.  An easy way to blend different hobbies is a stack of books.

For this client, the birthday boy was turning 70, he was an Actuary, loved hockey and also wines of France.  He also loved Tom Petty, so I made a sugar version of the Greatest Hits CD which is not in the picture because it was still drying when I took the photo.

 

Animal Cupcakes

How cute are these cupcakes?  Perfect for a baby shower, christening or kids birthday celebration.

All cupcake toppers are handmade out of sugarpaste.  Which one is your favorite?

  

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.