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.

Cake Story

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

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

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.

Jessica’s Doppleganger

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

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!!