Bursting bloom

I love sugar flowers, not any sugar flowers, but the ones that either simulate real flowers and are done perfectly to reflect real flowers. Or the ones that are sooo very different that they are obviously not real but merely a fantasy in their creators mind...

Loving these flowers obviously affects my cake designs, many of my clients come to me because of my ability to recreate real flowers into sugar flowers.

One of my favorites is obviously creating a wedding cake with a "bursting bloom", I call them bursting because they decorate the top tier of the wedding cake and usually look like the flowers are poping out of the cake.  They seem as if they are bursting..

With all my love to these cakes, they are not the majority we create, due to the amount of flowers. These cakes consist of hundreds and hundreds of flowers (which present hours and hours of work) Not many couples can afford these cakes, therefore when one of these cakes comes around I'm really happy to create it.

This cake was created for a cute couple Lauren and Fred, and there is actually a funny story about our meeting.

Lauren met me at her hotel, and Fred joined us a few minutes later saying he was sorry for the delay, he had to say hi to a friend from Italy who is also getting married just a week after their wedding.
He said that his friend told him she choose an amazing cake decorator and she suggested that they'd meet with her, as well.

Two minutes after he said that, his friend camew over to say hello to Lauren. To my surprise, it was Carol, a bride that chose and ordered her wedding cake just 3 weeks before my meeting with Lauren and Fred.... Such a small world!

You can imagine I had the easiest time presenting to the couple.
And to make things even better! they chose a bursting bloom cake. They had a photo of a cake they saw in a magazine and asked me to create something similar, which I did.
Later I learned that the cake in the photo was created by Ron Ben Israel!

Tada!

Another view of the wedding cake

Front view of the cake

Cake away guys

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

Just a quick word to let you know how excited I am!

Tomorrow I'm going to participate in a 2 day class held by one of the best cake decorators in the US, Ron Ben-Israel.
I'm really looking forward to this class, I've been following his magnificent work, for several years, I love his wedding cakes, and I can't wait to learn !
I'm going to be very busy for the next two days, so for now, check out these photos of his work, his web site and a closeup on this flowers

Ron Ben-Israel web site 
Ron Ben-Israel sugar orchids

Cake away!
Sharon