Pink and Brown Cupcake Tower

Pale pink and chocolate brown is such a wonderful combination for a wedding. I made this cupcake tower of 50 cupcakes this past weekend. Here is the original sketch of the cupcake tower.
The cake topper was chocolate and vanilla layers with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream. The orchid is handmade out of gumpaste.
The cupcakes were Chocolate Sour Cream with sweet Chocolate Buttercream and Lemon cupcakes with Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

Baby Block Cakes

Isn't this such a lovely vision of cake layers? It's the "before" picture of my latest baby block cake.This cake was Neopolitan: Chocolate, Vanilla and Strawberry Cake Layers with some Raspberry filling between the Vanilla and Strawberry. And the rest is Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream - yum! This flavor combination idea came from Martha Stewart's Wedding Cakes book.

The ball was 4 layers of lemon butter cake. And all other decorations were made out of sugarpaste.

I also pulled up some of my old baby block cakes. This one is from a couple years ago - it was for my sister's baby shower. It was also a Neopolitan Cake.
Ah Memories... this is one of my very early cakes from a few years ago - I must've spent about 10 hours on it and I think I only charged $40 for it. I think it was vanilla cake and marshmallow fondant.

ha ha - for some reason I used buttercream for some of the decorations over the fondant and I really should have ironed my tablecloth. Well, you gotta start somewhere! :-)

Dinosaur Cake

I made this cake this past weekend for a little boy turning 2 who loves dinosaurs of all kinds. I love this color for the dino. I planned to add more decorations to it like dots or scales.... but I didn't want it to look too much like a dragon. Then I just fell in love with the plain red dino with the happy dino face.

Here's what his mom wrote me that evening "Big success...rhys loved it...once we cut the tail (boo hoo)...he hugged him and kissed him. We have pics!!!! Thanks a ton!"

I am excited to see their pictures. And here is a picture of the cake pre-fondant. The cake is Chocolate Sour Cream with Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

Tour de France Cupcakes

Whether you are a cycling fan (like me) or not, I'm sure you have caught a glimpse of the Tour de France this year. It's quite an exciting one!

All that cycling requires lots of refueling - how about some chocolate sour cream cupcakes with lemon buttercream. The toppers are made with sugarpaste and logo is painted with edible food coloring.
Also fitting in this post - a Triathlon Cupcake. This past weekend, I did a few wedding cake tastings. One of the clients was celebrating his birthday and is an Ironman athlete. So, I made him a special cupcake for his birthday - chocolate fudge with chocolate buttercream.

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! :-)