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?

Everything’s Coming Up Roses

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

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.

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.

How Many Servings??

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.

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!!

Buttercream Beauties

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:

View Full Album

Let Them Eat Cake

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.

View Full Album

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:

View Full Album