One of my facebook friends told me my cakes are starring in a wedding

article in one of the leading Israeli lifestyle magazines! (she didn't know but I was waiting for it to be published ;-)  )
The article is great and my wedding cakes got the best spot in the article and headline as well!

The reporter wrote about a very specific type of wedding cake, a wedding cake that is very common in south America, and you can also see it sometimes in north America: A charms wedding cake.

In Israel this type of cake has a nickname- Argentinian Wedding Cake, because mostly Argentinian originated Brides and Grooms tend to order this type of cake. In Argentina and other south American countries, this is a customary cake, and it holds a very special concept.

Here is the 1st page of the article in the magazine, the other two pages of this article dealt with wedding blogs etc':

The title of the article says "I DO"

I wanna tell you a bit more about this charms wedding cake:
In Argentina the custom is to bake the cake with the charms inside.
The charms are small symbols of love, luck, health, wealth, affection, and more. They come in many different shapes: hearts, cupids, flowers, horse shoes, air crafts, 4 leaves clovers, bells, baby shoes, one single wedding band (ring not music players) and more...
They're also made of different materials, plastic, silver or silver coated metals.

Original Argentinian charms

(The charms in the above photo, came all the way from Argentina to be place in the cats wedding cake design. )

The charms for this cake were cell phone decorations - they were very cute!

Once the bride chooses her preferred charms, they are tied to long satin ribbons and placed in the cake. The ribbon is left outside to mark the place of each charm.
According to the custom, all the bachelorettes are invited to take part in the charms ceremony and they gather around the cake, each one holds onto one of the ribbons and when given the sign, they all pull the ribbons together to expose the charms they got.
The lucky one being----- of course! the one that pulled out the ring! Legend has it that she'll be the next to marry.

Charms Wedding Cake

When I created my first charms cake, I looked it up on the web, and found out lots of interesting stuff- this custom began while Queen Victoria was ruling Britain, the brides used to hide the charms in the cream coating their wedding cake...
The ceremony called "the ceremony of ribbon pulling", usually took place during a special luncheon held for the bridesmaids, or just after the cake cutting ceremony.
Actually, the number of charms was equal to the number of bridesmaids.
Each charm holds a special meaning, an aircraft means trip or adventure, the clover means good luck and the ring means you will be the next to get engaged and married

Now days, this special cake can be seen at weddings both in south and north America, but mainly in the southern states such as Louisiana.
 

There are different approaches as to combining the charms in the cake: some bake the cake with the charms, some place the charms between two levels/ tiers of the cake- top and middle, some just push the charms into the cake after baking. We place the charms on the fondant after the cake has been covered (for extra safety measures).

 

classic wedding cake with silver charms bought at the Armenian quarter in Jerusalem

These charms are the star of David and Hamsa hands, some with an eye. The eye is a symbol of protection against evil,  it is a common symbol for east mediteranean cultures, mainly originated from Arab countries

Until next time,

Cake away!

Sharon

2nd part from Ron Ben Israel's master class Sugar flowers!

(Sorry it took me so long- s many unplanned things interrupted... ) So without further ado-
I really have to start with a SCOOP! Ron Ben Israel is practicing his dance moves once again and has been seen dancing with a partner, Decmber 2010, in Israel! 

I obviously can't leave you with just that so here are the photos to prove my scoop:

 

Returning to the dance floor?

I actually have a few more,  but I think these will do...

If you're wondering what Ron was doing, he was actually explaining the form of his sugar rose, and how the leaves entwine together. 

Ron dusting the roses- 1st the cornflour and then the colors, this prevents color stains, a great solution for a big dusting problem.

In this photo you can see Ron's hands working on a sweet pea sugar bud. 

The great thing about the sweet pea he taught us, was theamazing all-in-1 cutter. 

   

I created many sweet pea sugar flowers for cakes, such as you can see in this sweet pea fairy cake, but they take soooo long to do, especially considering that it's a rather simple flower, that's suppose to be a filler flower in bouquets. 

you can probably imagine how happy I was to learn that each flower will only take me about 5 minutes, from now on!

Ron also showed us how to finalize the poppy sugar flower, I never considered it to be used for cakes, because the poppies we have here are cultivated and therefore much smaller and less interesting (to me, anyway) - here you can what I would usually see in nature:

poppy flowers

In the following photos, you can the poppies Ron Ben Israel taught us- which are based on the cultivated poppy flower, they are truly impressive and stunning!

(in the photos you can Ron's flowers of course...)

And last, but not least, Ron taught us how to create a sugar flower called Lisianthus. I have a special place in my heart for that flower because at my wedding, the center pieces on the tables included roses and lisianthus flowers. They are actually very easy to create, which is great because they can totally be the main flower in a bouquet or just laid down on a cake. they come in many colors and have a great look. unfortunately I didn't get any good photos from this one so you'll just have to wait to see my finalized demo cake.

Time was very short so we didn't get to do much regarding decorating the cake, during the class; But I took it back to my studio and finished the cake. But that's for another post.

Cake Away !

Sharon