The Cake Art Studio

Character Development

2011-12-10T12:11:00.001-08:00

When a customer asks for a “themed” cake like the “Call of Duty” cake I did this week, I usually offer them a few different ways we can interpret the theme. For example, I asked Jennifer if her son would prefer a small tiered-cake with figures and a setting made to look like a scene from the game, or if he’d prefer a 3-d cake in the shape of an element from the game, such as a tank or a helmet. Christian liked the idea of the cake with the figures and asked me to include three things specifically; the logo, Captain Mactavish and the Juggernaut Bomb Suit. When I told Jennifer I could include a figure of her son in the scene to personalize the cake even more, she loved the idea.

The figures I make tend to look more cartoon-y than realistic, so the trick was to not make the cake cute. I looked at loads of photos from the game and “cute” was definitely not what came to mind. A lot of the game seemed to take place in bombed-out cities, so that’s why I used the broken down walls, sandbags and oil drums for the background.

The first character he wanted to include was Captain Mactavish. Here’s the photo he sent and my version made out of fondant:

He also wanted to include the Juggernaut bomb suit:

Jennifer sent me a photo of her son. Here’s the fondant version of Christian ready for battle:

Happy Birthday, Christian!!

Cake Design 101

2011-11-28T09:15:00.001-08:00

There are a number of different ways I approach cake design.

Sometimes the customer comes in with a photo and asks me to re-create that cake exactly. Of course, I would much rather create a unique design for each of my customers since that’s more creatively satisfying, so I will encourage them to tweak the design to reflect their own style. But, if they really want the design exactly as it is in the photo, I won’t refuse to replicate it as long as it comes from a public source, e.g, a bridal magazine or bridal planning website. I’ve made cakes for magazines and understand that when a photo of my cake is published as a design inspiration the cake may be replicated by another baker, and I’m OK with that.

You might think that it’s liberating when a customer says “Do whatever you want”. But it can be quite difficult if they give me no direction. So I'll have them to look through my photos and point out some cakes that they like and ask what specifically attracts them to each. Through this process I often see a pattern of their likes/dislikes and can start from there to create a design for them.

Ideally, a customer comes in with a sense of what they want, but not an exact photo to work from. I’ll use one of my favorite recent cakes to illustrate how the bride and I worked together to create her cake.

When Shan came in for our initial consultation she brought along her wedding invitation, which featured a cherry blossom motif:

There are lots of cherry blossom cakes out there, so the challenge was to come up with a design that was unique for this bride. In looking at my portfolio she zeroed in on two cakes:

As a follow up to our meeting she sent me photos of her centerpiece, a cake she saw on the web (from Pink Cake Box) and the type of topper she planned to use.

So I pulled together elements from all these sources. The fondant would be ivory, since I love the red/ivory combination. I used both red and pink cherry blossoms, as she’d asked me to do, but kept the number of branches to a minimum to work within her budget. I made the branches in the same style as those on the cherry blossom cake from my portfolio, but had the branch reaching downward, as it was in the photo from Pink Cake Box. I then scattered the loose blossoms similarly to the purple blossoms from my portfolio cake. I added the bits of red glitter to the design because I liked the way they looked in her centerpiece.

Here’s the rough sketch and the final cake:

The topper featured two solar-powered bobble heads. How cute it that?

From My Kitchen–Fall Goodies

2011-11-06T14:03:00.001-08:00

Though this blog is mainly a place to talk about and showcase cakes produced for Cake Art Studio, I thought it might be fun to occasionally show some of the goodies that come out of my home kitchen.

I’ve been a baker for as long as I can remember, literally. One of my earliest and fondest memories is playing with my easy bake oven--staring into the little window, waiting an eternity for those tiny cakes to be baked by a 100 watt light bulb.

Since my family is a little tired of cake (yes, it’s possible) I almost never make cakes for us. We have birthday pie or tart instead of birthday cake.

A few weeks ago my daughter was home from college for fall break. I always try to make some of her favorite goodies when she’s home. I figure if I always have their favorite foods, they’ll always want to come home (hopefully). Fall break called for some fall favorites.

I made a huge batch of oatmeal-maple cookies, thinking that she could take the left-overs back to school with her…there were no left-overs:

I will now give you my secret recipe: Buy one box of Quaker Old-Fashioned Oats, open the box and look under the lid. That’s where you’ll find the recipe I use, mostly. I do tweak it just a bit, but the recipe on the box is great. The glaze is what makes these cookies so good. It’s made with confectioners sugar and maple syrup. Just stir enough maple syrup (and, yes, it has to be real maple syrup!!) into 1# of sugar until it’s the consistency of pancake batter. I put the glaze on while the cookies are still warm so it dries into a nice shiny crust. Sooo yummy!!

Pie of any type is a favorite in our house and apple pie is a staple for fall:

A piece of this actually did make it back to school with my daughter. You don’t need a “recipe” to make a good pie crust. I use a 2:1, flour to fat, ratio. So, basically, 1# of flour and 8oz of fat with a little salt, and maybe sugar, and some ice water, is all you need. Of course you can play around with the type of flour and fat. Next time I make pie dough I’ll take pictures and walk through the steps to a great crust. Pie crust is a topic that deserves its own post. And the apples? Well, next week I’m picking up 30# of “Gold Rush” apples I special ordered from North Star Orchards. Gold Rush apples make, by far, the best apple pie ever!

Happy Fall!!!

Everything’s Coming Up Roses

2011-09-26T09:09:00.001-07:00

Lisa wanted a cascade of pink roses on her wedding cake. For a 5 tier, 200 portion cake I would need A LOT of flowers-10 dozen to be exact. Lisa wanted a cascade, not a trickle.

I always make more flowers than I think I’ll need to allow for some breakage and just to be sure I have plenty of flowers to complete the look. I like to use roses at every stage of bloom, from just opening buds to fully blossomed flowers.

What does it take to produce a look like this? Well, first of all, lots of time. It took a total of about 18 hours over several weeks to complete all the flowers and leaves. To make 120 roses I had to cut and shape about 1000 individual rose petals and several hundred leaves. Each petal and leaf was then shaded to give it some depth. Here’s a step-by-step illustration of the process:

First I make a cone base for each flower. I like to use a toothpick, rather than wire, to hold the cone because toothpicks are food-safe and can be stuck directly into the cake. Once all the cones are made they must dry completely before I begin adding the petals. I set them aside for a day before going on to the next step.

Once the cones are dry I gather my supplies and set up an assembly line.

The first step is to cut 120 petals to wrap the center cones. The petals here are much brighter pink than I want for the final roses for two reasons; 1-I like to make the center of the flower a deeper color than the outer petals and 2-pink always fades when it dries so I make the pink a shade or two darker than I want it to be in the end.

While I’m working with the petals I cover them with plastic wrap and a damp towel to keep them from drying out.

Each petal is frilled to give it a more natural shape, then it’s attached to the cone with a little water.

Only 118 more to go…. Once again they are set aside to dry before the next step.

I decided to leave about 30 roses at the “bud” stage. The “buds” have one center petal and one more layer of two petals

The next stage is to add a layer of three petals for a partially opened rose. For fully opened roses I add another layer with 5 petals. I made one very large rose by adding a final layer of 7 petals. The largest rose would sit on the top of the cake.

Once all the roses are dry they’re ready for a touch of color.

I use a bit of pink petal dust in the center of the rose and along the edges of the petals. It’s an extra step that gives a little more life to the flowers.

Of course the final step is to arrange the flowers on the cake. This has to be done on-site--hence the less-than-ideal lighting in the photos. It’s definitely gratifying when the florist tells me that it looks like I plucked the flowers out of the centerpieces and put them on the cake!!

Brides Magazine

2011-08-19T10:35:00.001-07:00

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.

Cake Story

2011-05-31T12:26:00.001-07:00

Last week wasn’t super busy as far as the number of cakes, but I did have to make lots of little figures and details for the cakes, especially for Nick’s groom’s cake. Liza wanted to surprise Nick with a golf-themed groom’s cake at their wedding. Most groom’s cakes are a replica of an item that represents one of the groom’s interests, such as a jersey from a favorite sports team or a game system. But Liza wanted this cake to tell a story-Nick winning a Masters tournament.

Liza wanted a Leader board that showed Nick in first place, beating Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and a few of Nick’s family and friends.

She wanted to include lots of little details; the Masters flag, golf cart, sand trap, the spectators in the stands and even Nick’s blond hair and plaid pants. When I came in for dinner on Saturday night I told my husband, “I sometimes have a very strange job. I just finished painting pink and green plaid onto tiny sugar pants on a tiny sugar golfer.”

Here’s Nick in his polo shirt and plaid pants:

Tiger Woods is not too happy that he lost to Nick…

and Phil Mickelson is pretty angry:

Congratulations Nick & Liza!!

Just Peachy

2011-05-16T12:23:00.001-07:00

When Peter arrived alone for his wedding cake consultation I was a little surprised. Usually the bride and groom come in together, often with a few parents and/or bride’s maids along for the ride. After all, it’s free cake!

This was a second marriage for Peter & Angie so they were pretty low-key about the details. Peter wanted to surprise Angie with a cake that celebrated her Georgia roots. He came in with the idea to have a cake shaped like a peach. I suggested that we use the peach as the top of a tiered cake so it would still look wedding-cakeish. The plan was to have the tiers covered with peach-tinted fondant with air brushing to match the blush of the peach. We left the final details open to interpretation as the cake was being decorated (my favorite way to work).

I decided to make some peach blossom branches for the lower tiers. I thought this would tie the lower tiers in with the peach theme, and add a lovely and traditional detail to the cake.

I was worried after I put the peach fondant on the tiers. It seemed a bit garish and just too much of one color, but the airbrushing came out pretty and toned down the overall effect. I think the blossoms added just the right touch by breaking up all the peach color and highlighting the pink blush.

I was quite happy with final product but was still a little nervous because it was definitely not your typical wedding cake. I was so pleased when I got to the Hilltop House in Devon for the delivery. The room was beautifully outfitted with crisp white and peach linens, and the color of the cake fit perfectly in the décor.

Surprisingly, the cake inside was vanilla with vanilla buttercream. You might expect a peach filling, but Peter wanted to keep the flavor simple.

Building Business

2011-05-09T19:06:00.001-07:00

Last Tuesday I delivered a cake for the opening of the Translational Research Building at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center. This is the third "building" cake I’ve made for U Penn.

The first cake was for the school of Engineering. The cake wasn’t actually a replica of an entire building, but was a representation of a courtyard which was being named for a major donor to the Engineering School. The cake on the left was the real cake, which was served to the guests at the event, and the small cake on the right was a fake-cake, which was given to the donor as a memento.

The second building I made for U Penn was a replica of the Pereleman Center for Advanced Medicine for the opening event in 2008. This cake was so big we had to take the frame off the door of my kitchen to get the cake out for delivery. Lesson learned: A 36” cake board won’t fit through a 36” doorway without taking off the frame…

The Translational Research Building is located right next door to the Pereleman Center. As I did for the Pereleman cake, I went to the building site to see the structure and it’s surroundings, and to take photos to work from. The client just wanted the top portion of the building represented, so this was going to be a very tall and narrow structure. I knew delivery was going to be a bit dicey. (Well, delivery is always dicey when I have to drive the Schuylkill Expressway.)

Here’s the finished product. I needed to decorate the board, but since I was only representing the top portion of the building I decorated the board with just a general “street level” design. The flavor of the cake was vanilla with vanilla buttercream.

Let Them Eat Cake 2011

2011-04-12T17:20:00.001-07:00

The theme for this year’s competition was “Historical Romances, Love in any Age”. I liked the theme and set out researching great romantic couples in history. I decided to illustrate the love story of Scheherazade and King Shahryar from the ancient stories of “1001 Arabian Nights”.

I chose this theme because A--I thought it would be fun to create a cake with an “Arabian” design and, B-because it was an excuse to reread the tales from “1001 Arabian Nights” (in addition to being a “cake-nerd” I’m also a “book-nerd” Lit major). It’s always fun when I get to combine two of my favorite activities; baking and reading.

Well, despite all my great intentions I wound up getting side-tracked by many other projects (and re-reading those stories) and didn’t put quite the time into the cake that I should have.

I was happy with the end result and thought the design was pretty, but I felt going in that it probably wasn’t a winning cake. I knew from previous years that there are always some truly spectacular cakes at the event, and this year was no exception.

Here’s a close-up shot of Scheherazade and the King—she’s telling him her mesmerizing stories and he’s falling in love…

I’ll admit I held out great hope for a “best tasting” win because I was serving the killer “Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake”. The guests at the event loved the cake and were gobbling it up faster than we could serve it. We ended up cutting the samples in half so we wouldn’t run out half-way through the show. Unfortunately, we didn’t get “best tasting” either. Oh well, better luck next year.

I always enjoy this event because it’s a chance to meet-up with my fellow cake designers and mingle with other “wedding pros”. Many, many thanks to my friend Maryanne and my intern Amy for making the day even more fun…

How Many Servings??

2011-01-21T10:50:00.001-08:00

Until now I’ve mostly used this blog to showcase the design and decorating process behind some of my favorite, most interesting cakes.

But there is another side to my job that I really enjoy; meeting with customers and discussing not just the flavor and design of their cake, but also how the cake will be displayed, cut, served, etc. I find that many of the same questions are asked over and over again. So I thought it might be helpful to write a series of blog posts that address some issues that are consistently raised by my customers.

Today’s blog post will address a question that comes up at virtually every wedding cake consultation: “How many servings of wedding cake do we really need?”

The reason I address this question first is that I often read or hear misleading information about how to save money when ordering a wedding cake.

I realize that some of this advice may seem self-serving, since I am in the business of selling wedding cakes by the portion, but I can tell you that most of my business has been built on referrals and I (and I believe most other cake designers) am not willing to compromise my reputation by pushing a customer to over-spend. There are ways to save money on the cake, and most cake designers are willing to work within a reasonable budget. But you should be aware of the realities before deciding “How much cake?”.

Q: “A lot of people don’t eat wedding cake, so do I really need enough cake to serve everyone?”

A: Much as I am loathe it admit it, there are wedding guests who don’t eat the cake. Some people simply don’t like dessert (gasp!), or maybe the dry, awful wedding cake that used to be the norm has convinced them that they don’t like wedding cake or, as is often the case, by the time the cake is cut everyone has been drinking and dancing and either don’t know the cake is being served or are too busy having fun to stop, sit down, and eat cake.

Most weddings in our area feature a sit-down dinner where each guest is served at their seat, and the wedding cake is served the same way. So, if you order a cake that is 50 portions short, how do you decide who will get a piece of cake and who won’t? You can’t know ahead of time who will want cake.

I’m sure it’s frustrating for the bride and groom (and/or their parents) to pay hundreds, or even thousands of dollars for a cake that is not completely eaten. But there are ways to mitigate this.

One option is to not order extra desserts in your catering package. Since the cake is so traditional, most people are not willing to totally forgo the wedding cake in favor of other desserts and end up paying for both, only to see the cake go uneaten because it’s served as an afterthought. You can use the cake as the main dessert and maybe save a little money on the dinner package.

When a slice of cake is set down in front of your guests, it should look tempting enough to make even those who think they hate wedding cake want to take a bite. Order a cake with interesting flavors, fillings and textures to make it as appealing to the taste buds as it is to the eyes. I’ve had brides tell me after their wedding that the venue staff couldn’t believe that all the cake was eaten. Work with a cake designer who is as focused on the taste of the cake as they are on the look and I bet you’ll find you have less uneaten cake.

Of course, even if the cake is meant to be dessert, it is often not treated as such. Dessert is eaten right after dinner, not 3 hours later. I always recommend to my customers that they schedule the cake service for right after dinner (when their guests are still eating) not after hours and hours of drinking and dancing.

Q: “I read in a bridal magazine (or on-line) that I can save money by having a very small cake for display and the rest of the cake served from sheet cakes in the back.”

A: First of all, I caution that you understand what is meant by “sheet cakes”. When I offer “service cakes”, a service cake portion is exactly the same as a decorated cake portion; all the same layers, fillings, etc. Be sure that “sheet cake” doesn’t mean just a slab cake with icing. You’ll want all the servings to look the same on the plate.

So, of course this means that “service cakes” are not labor-savings as far as the baking and filling of the cake. But, they can be labor-saving if your decorated cake has a very intricate design. E.g,, if you want a fondant finish with detailed brushwork as a part of the design. By eliminating one tier from the display cake you are reducing the decorating time. In this instance you may save some money by using a service cake.

But keep in mind that the cake is also a part of the decor for your wedding and should be in proportion to the reception venue. If you have 200 guests at your wedding you’re going to be in a large, open room with tall ceilings. You can get away with a decorated cake for 150p and a service cake for 50p, but if you have a decorated cake to serve 50p and service cakes to serve the bulk of the guests, that small two-tier display cake will look out-of-proportion in the setting.

Q: “I read in a bridal magazine (or on-line) that I can save money by having fewer servings and using ‘fake’ tiers to make the cake look bigger.”

A: Just as a wedding dress is not simply fabric and thread, and a photograph is not simply a piece of paper, a wedding cake is not simply butter, sugar, eggs and flour. If that were the case then, yes, eliminating the butter, sugar, eggs and flour would save you money. But the fact is that a great deal of the cost is in the business overhead (insurance, utilities, etc) and the labor (and years of experience) involved in stacking, decorating and transporting the cake.

Actually, by the time you pay for shipping, the styrofoam dummies that are used for fake cakes cost about the same as the cake ingredients, and the same effort is expended in decorating a dummy as a real cake. In fact, the dummies can actually be more difficult to decorate because they’re so lightweight they move all over as you work on them.

Servings are servings, whether they’re made of cake or styrofoam.

Q: “My catering package includes dessert, so we don’t need cake for everyone.”

A: As I mentioned above, one option is to not have the dessert included in the package. But if you do have additional desserts and your cake will be served as a part of a dessert buffet (and not at each seat) then you could order fewer servings since not everyone will take a piece of cake from the buffet. But again, remember to keep the proportions of the room and the number guests in mind when deciding on the size for the display cake.

Q: “We can cut smaller pieces to get more servings than we ordered.”

A: If the standard cake portion was as big as a “diner wedge” of cake this might be true, but the standard cake portion is 1”x2”x4”h. Trying to get extra servings by cutting smaller is unrealistic.

Jessica’s Doppleganger

2010-11-14T12:18:00.001-08:00

Halloween came a little late at the Cake Art Studio, because this week I made my all-time creepiest cake.

A little background is probably in order. My dear niece Eileen (she has a lovely name, doesn’t she?) and “Jessica” go way back. “Jessica” is a favorite relic from Eileen’s childhood. I won’t go into the entire history here, but I will say that I’ve always found Jessica to be slightly more than a little scary.

When my sister decided to throw a surprise birthday party for Eileen’s 30th birthday, someone, I’m not really sure who started it, thought we should have a cake replica of Jessica for the celebration.

I'll admit that I had way more fun than is probably healthy making this cake. I stacked up 8 layers of pumpkin cake (yes, Jessica is a punkin-head) with cream cheese frosting and carved the shape of the head. The features were too fine to carve out of cake, so I added a base for the features with fondant---Oh, sorry, did I scare you? Obviously, the original Jessica is on the right and the half-finished cake is on the left. Next, I added the eyeballs and covered the cake with buttercream. Just keeps getting creepier, doesn’t it? Finally, I covered the entire head in a layer of fondant, shaped the features, worked in the creases and details, and put on her lipstick. Jessica was ready for the party…But wait, first she had to spend a night in the refrigerator. So this is when things got really bizarre. My husband quipped, “this is like Tony Soprano’s refrigerator…open it up and find a head on a plate wrapped in plastic.” I told you I had more fun than is probably healthy. I’ll spare you the photos of the cake cutting….

Electric Lollipops

2010-10-18T20:09:00.001-07:00

Shortly after I booked Corinne and Dave’s wedding cake, Corinne contacted me because she wanted to surprise Dave with a special groom’s cake at their wedding. She sent me a photo and asked if I could possibly create a cake to look like a Tesla Coil. As soon as I read her email I was excited about the possibility of making the cake. I responded to her immediately and told her that, through an amazing coincidence, she found probably the only baker in the area who actually has a Tesla Coil in her basement, and that I could definitely make one out of cake.

My son, the science-guy, built a Tesla Coil for fun when he was in middle school. You can click on the link above if you want to know how it works but, basically, it’s a big contraption built to produce electricity. When you turn on a Tesla Coil giant bolts of lightening shoot out of the flying-saucer-looking-thing on the top (you can tell my son didn’t get his scientific aptitude from me). All I can tell you is that it scared the heck out of me every time he turned the thing on.

Not only did I want to produce a 3-d version of the Tesla Coil, but I knew that the cake had to have the bolts shooting out of the top.

The plan for the cake was pretty obvious from the start, the black box at the base would be all cake (chocolate cake, chocolate buttercream), the column would be PVC pipe covered in fondant, and the flying-saucer-thingy would be made from Rice Krispie treats, so it would be lighter and firmer than cake. How to make lightening bolts? Hmmmm. Of course, LOLLIPOPS!!!

I made silicone molds in a squiggly line shape, poured in blue melted sugar and then set a wooden skewer into the base of each piece…lollipops. The skewers were shoved into the flying-saucer-thingy and there you have it:

Here’s the finished cake on site at the gorgeous Brandywine Manor House

I hope Dave enjoyed his groom’s cake, I sure enjoyed making it!!

Buttercream Beauties

2010-10-05T09:41:00.001-07:00

If you watch all those cake shows on TV (and if you’re reading this there’s a chance that you do) you would think that no one does buttercream cakes anymore, or that buttercream cakes are so boring and old-fashioned that they’re not worth a second look. I’m even guilty of this myself. I mostly post photos of fondant cakes on my Facebook page, figuring they’re more fun to look at.

So…I think it’s time to showcase some beautiful buttercream cakes.

When I met with Kim regarding her wedding cake she showed me a bunch of photos of cakes she liked. The cakes didn’t have a lot in common other than the fact that they all had clean lines, were not overly ornamented and were covered in rolled fondant. But Kim absolutely wanted buttercream icing.

Now, there are definitely certain design techniques that can not be successfully replicated in buttercream (see one of my favorite blogs, cakewrecks.com, for many hilarious examples of buttercream cakes gone wrong), but having a buttercream finish still allows for a wide variety of design details and styling.

I love the way Kim’s cake turned out and I think it’s a great example of a modern and sophisticated buttercream wedding cake--with nary a column, swag or rosette in sight:

Here are a few other buttercream beauties:

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Adventures in Baking

2010-06-27T17:25:00.001-07:00

So, a few months ago a local production company contacted me about possibly being featured in a new cake show for TLC. While I wasn’t particularly interested in being on a reality show, the exposure would be great for business. They came out to see my kitchen and shot some audition footage. Although they liked me and really liked my work, they decided to use a bakery with lots of employees. Since I work mostly alone they figured that a big bakery would be more interesting for TV because of the interaction among the employees (i.e., drama).

Well, if the cameras were with me this week they certainly would have captured plenty of drama. It was a week that would be a reality-show producer’s dream.

As you can imagine, June is one of the busiest months for me (brides and graduates) and this weekend was the busiest of the month, so of course this is the week mother nature decides to send a freaky thunder storm my way.

I don’t make each cake from start to finish, one by one. I work assembly line style. I bake all of my cakes for the week on one day (usually Wednesday or Thursday), make all the fillings and assemble the cakes on the second day, and ice and decorate the third day.

So, I was humming along on Thursday afternoon with only two cakes left to assemble. It was an incredibly hot and humid day, but I was nice and comfortable in my air-conditioned, de-humidified kitchen. About three in the afternoon the sky darkened, the thunder rumbled, the wind whipped through the trees and the rain started pouring down. The lights blinked once, twice and, the third time being the charm, stayed out.

I quickly collected up all the cakes and fillings and put them in the refrigerator. I went into the house to wait out what I hoped would be a brief interruption in my schedule.

About two hours into the black-out I a got a little worried that the refrigerator would get over the food-safe temperature. My husband ran to Home Depot and brought a giant generator to hook up my work refrigerator and freezer (hmmm…so much for this week’s profits). I went back to work for a few hours, but by 8pm it was just too dark to see what I was doing so I called it a night. By now my refrigerator was packed with two wedding cakes (each four tiers), a three-tier graduation cake, a two-tier birthday cake with a smash cake, three additional single-tier cakes and another smash cake. I had a total of 18 cakes in my refrigerator. I definitely could not afford to let the temperature go over the danger zone (40 degrees).

The generator is huge and really loud, so I didn’t really want to run it all night. Since I work from a separate kitchen on my home property, I do have to be sensitive the the fact that I’m in a neighborhood and don’t want to inconvenience my neighbors. So by 11pm we turned off the generator. At midnight, 2am and 5am I had to roll out of bed, collect my flashlight and make my way out to the kitchen to check the temperature in the refrigerator. By 6 am the temperature was inching up so I re-started the generator and got back to work.

By now my normally organized work area was a disaster area. The refrigerator and freezer were pulled out into the middle of the kitchen so they could be plugged into the extension cords (which were criss-crossing the entire length of the kitchen), I had no lights, no hot water and stacks of greasy dishes piled up from Thursday.

Well, there are no excuses for the self-employed so I just had to deal with the situation. First, I had to ice all the cakes in the refrigerator. I plugged in my 20 quart mixer to make a batch of buttercream, flipped the switch and the entire kitchen went dead. Aaaarg!! I called my husband and asked him what to do (thank God for Michel; my webmaster, fix-it guy and general sounding board for all Cake Art Studio emergencies). So now I have to unplug everything in the kitchen, make my way through the maze of extension cords, go outside, restart the generator, come back inside and plug all the equipment back in. I learned that each time I wanted to use the mixer or the burner I had to un-plug the refrigerator. Also, every time I blew the circuit on the generator (which, because I am impatient and do not understand anything about amps or other electrical matters, happened too many times) I had to restart and re-set the air-conditioner in addition to all the the other unplugging and restarting.

By Friday afternoon I was in the weeds and knew it was gonna take a feat of super-human efficiency to get all the cakes done, and done well, and delivered on time. So I recruited my number-one assistant, my son Joseph. My dear son came through for me by making dozens and dozens of tiny lady-bugs and hundreds of blossoms and daisies out of fondant. Thank God for him as well.

About 1pm on Friday, HALLELUJAH, the lights came on.

The rest of Friday (until 11pm) and Saturday (13 hours) are a blur of icing and decorating. I finally sent the last cake out at 5pm on Saturday and the best husband in the world came out to wash my dishes and floor.

I love my job, I really do, but I’m very glad to see June come to an end.

A Peruvian Wedding Cake

2010-05-29T07:47:00.001-07:00

I first met with Paola and Xavier about making their wedding cake almost a year ago. They came in for a tasting and consultation last summer. While they loved all of the samples I gave them, Paola had her heart set on having a traditional Peruvian wedding cake. I usually have a strict policy against using any recipes but my own, but the Pastry Chef in me was curious about this traditional recipe. I agreed to work with them to try and give them their traditional Peruvian wedding cake.

Paola sent me recipes for the “Torta de Nueces” and the “Manjar Blanco” filling. I did a trial run of the recipes and was not happy with the results. The cake was too light and crumbly and the filling was so thick I couldn’t spread it between the layers. I could picture the servers from Sage Catering (the caterers for the wedding) trying to cut and serve this cake. It was not a pretty picture.

I re-worked the recipe to make the cake a little denser and the filling a little softer. I also split the cake into four layers instead of the traditional two layers. This way there would be three thinner layers of the filling, which I generally prefer.

Over the holidays Paola and Xavier picked up a small sample cake and they were happy with the result.

I delivered the cake to Appleford Estate in Villanova yesterday. It looked so pretty in the garden setting. I hope Paola, Xavier and their guests enjoyed their traditional Peruvian wedding cake. I sure had fun creating it!

Let Them Eat Cake

2010-04-13T16:25:00.001-07:00

The 2010 Let Them Eat Cake Competition was so much fun. I always enjoy going to this premier Philadelphia Wedding Cake competition. The event is the brainchild of Philadelphia Wedding planner Mark Kingsdorf from Queen Of Hearts Wedding Consultants and all of the proceeds from the day benefit City of Hope cancer research.

This year was extra fun because I won a prize!! From the more than 50 cakes entered the judges voted mine as the “Most Artistic Cake”. This award is especially gratifying because the design was inspired by my mom’s interest in art and drawing.

The theme for this year’s contest was “A wedding through a child’s eyes”. Well, when I heard about this theme my first thought was a big “UGH”. Generally I’m not really into the princess-y/fairy tale type of wedding cakes, I much prefer modern and streamlined designs. I really could not muster up enough excitement to design a cake around a nursery rhyme or Disney story.

I was visiting my mom one day and she was showing me her newest sketches and art supplies. She’d just bought a book about fairies, and in that book I saw this picture:

Well, of course, being immersed in the world of wedding cakes this first thing I see is a wedding cake topper. Et Voila, I have the theme for my cake. There were also drawings in the book showing child fairies riding on hummingbirds---they would also find their way into the final design.

So, based on the pictures in the book I came up with my sketch: I’m not sure how other cake designers operate, but I start with an idea in my mind and a general sketch. As I often tell my customers, the exact details tend to work themselves out as I create the cake.

The first step was to begin making the flowers and fairies. Sugarpaste flowers are extremely time consuming and detailed…and I love making them. I was especially happy with the Morning Glories since I’ve never made them before. I couldn’t find any directions how to make them or any special cutters for them. I had to create a process to make them and I was thrilled with the result.

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Ok…umm, this is a photo of the fairies in the early stages. I know, I know, they look pretty creepy--like some sort of psycho-amputee-mannequins. But the heads and torsos need to dry before adding the face, then the arms, then the clothes, then the legs, then the hair and then the “accessories”…and they must dry between each step.All together I spent about 25 hours making the flowers and probably almost the same amount of time making the fairies. Soooo, if you ever wonder why the sugar flowers and figurines are so expensive you can see why. Overall, this cake took about 75-80 hours to complete.

Oh, and the top tier with the sunflower spun around so the fairy bride and groom looked like the were dancing over the cake. In 20 years as a pastry chef it’s the first time I’ve made a cake with an “extreme” element. I’ll explain how I made that work in another posting.

Here are some photos of the finished cake:

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Happy Birthday Doctor Seuss!!

2010-03-02T16:18:00.001-08:00

My friend Dorothy is the librarian at St. Norbert's School in Paoli. She asked me to create a cake for Dr. Seuss' birthday. Here’s the inspiration photo for the cake. It had to be The Cat in the Hat…

I decided to make a fake cake so she could save it and re-use it every year (well, at least for a few years since they do tend to fade over time). I sent along a couple of sheet cakes for her to serve to the students.

Since the “Hat” is the most important part of the design I worked on that first. It’s pretty hard to get the movement of the hat in styrofoam.

Making a fake cake is actually way more difficult than making a real cake. It's a lot easier to carve cake than it is to carve styrofoam---and a lot less messy! The static is a killer….

Here’s the naked cake. After carving each of the tiers, and before covering them with fondant, I set up the tiers to make sure I like the shape of the cake.

This was so much fun to make. I hope the kids enjoy it!