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.



Friday, May 15, 2009

A Simple and Elegant Wedding Cake

Some couples like a cake that is a little "different" - like the Waterfall Cake I did last week or the Central Park Cake from last year. And some couples prefer a simple and elegant wedding cake. Last week was so fun (and very busy), as I did one of each.

This was a 4-tier cake based off a Martha Stewart vintage daisy design. Except the cake was much bigger than Martha's, purple sugarpaste ribbons and handmade sugarpaste calla lillies. The top two tiers were were vanilla butter cake and the bottom two tiers were chocolate velvet cake with swiss meringue buttercream.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

A Waterfall Wedding Cake

It's definitely not your typical wedding cake - but so fun and meaningful for the couple. The Canadian bride pretended that they were cutting out the wedding cake to save money - then surprised the Brazilian groom with this waterfall cake.

There were lots of little birds and the mico monkey which is found in Brazil. The bride told me that he loved the entire 3-tier lemon butter cake. He even ate that little monkey and they also ate each other's flags... I'm not going to touch that one... :-)

Friday, May 8, 2009

Flowers for Mother's Day


Mother's Day is just around the corner. So, who is getting mom some flowers? Or if you are a mom, what kind of flowers do you think you will get?

Roses? ..... on vanilla bean cupcakes with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream

Gerbera Daisies? .... on chocolate fudge cupcakes with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream
Or Calla Lilies? .... on vanilla cupcakes with rich chocolate buttercream. Enjoy your weekend and the flowers!

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

80th Birthday Cake

One of my favourite things about being a cake designer is being able to personalize that cake for a special person. I was asked to design an 80th birthday cake for a man who golfed, used to be a photographer for the London Free Press and also sailed a Lark.

We discussed some cake ideas like a golf bag, a boat and even the Rolleiflex camera he used to use - but then it came to me - what about what his desk would look like.

So, here's the final design with all handmade items - A desktop with The London Free Press Newspaper with an article about the Rolleiflex camera as the top news story, his current Canon Powershot A430 Camera, a golf ball and tees, a pen with his name on it and also a photo in a frame of his Lark. I loved doing this cake - its such a thoughtful, unique and special centerpiece for their event.

I just got an email from my client "The cake was a big hit! He was so funny – from a distance he thought we had bought him a camera and had it displayed – he couldn’t figure out why we would do that when he had a camera just like the one displayed – It was only when he got closer that he realized it was a cake with all kinds of stuff on it"

The cake was Sour Cream Chocolate Cake with Swiss Meringue Buttercream. The camera was also cake and the rest of the items were handmade of sugarpaste and the details were painted on with edible color.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Strawberry Anyone?



A short but very sweet post today. Last week I was doing some more recipe testing and finally happy with the newest addition to my cake menu.

These are Strawberry Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry Buttercream and topped with a fondant strawberry. Very yummy!