Brides Magazine

In early January I received an email from Brides magazine inviting me to participate in their search for “America’s Most Beautiful Cakes”. I’d done cakes for Philadelphia magazines before, now I was very excited about possibly of having a cake in a national magazine. I immediately responded that I’d love to participate…and immediately starting worrying about the design.

They said that they were “looking for inspirational designs that have never been published with techniques that are beautifully executed”. I had to submit sketches within a couple of weeks. Personally, I tend to fine-tune the details of a cake design while actually doing the decorating. My sketches are often more a general idea of what I want. But, I knew I had to have a very solid sketch.

I started mulling over ideas. I’m willing to bet that most cake designers are like me, seeing ideas for cake designs in the most unlikely places. I have this pink sweater that my sister once commented looks like “pink champagne”.

I’ve always thought it would make a beautiful cake design. So I started playing with design techniques. I decorated several dummy cakes, and then photographed the decorated dummies to see how the “glitter” would look in a photo, since what looks good in person doesn’t always show as well in a photograph. I really wanted to get my design nailed down before sending the sketch off for consideration.

Three agonizing weeks later I was notified that I was a semi-finalist. Semi-finalists were to send a sugar-tile showing the colors and design techniques.

I really liked the design in pink, but figured they might get lots of pink cakes. I sent a pink sample, but noted that I thought the design would also look pretty in a “champagne” color.

So, another two weeks passed before I was informed that my design was chosen as a finalist. Now I had to send a fully decorated dummy cake to NYC to be photographed, but first they wanted to see a sample in “champagne”. They ultimately chose “champagne”.

I decided I would drive to NYC with the cake, rather then packing it up and shipping it…and I’m so glad I did. Not only was it fun to see behind-the-scenes of the photo shoot, but I was not in the studio two minutes and who walks in the door but Elisa Strauss and Marina Sousa. Then Kim Payne and Jennifer Jones arrived with their cakes and, just as I was leaving (because I was parked in a construction zone) in walks Kerri Vincent. If you are a cake decorator, or watch the cake challenges on Food Network, you know that these women are some of the best cake decorators in the country…and little ole me and my cake there with them.

I delivered the cake in early May and had to wait a very long month before finding out it was going to be in the September issue. Finally, 9 months later, there it is in the magazine.