Cake Design 101

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?

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.

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!!