Summer Times...

Hey there, I really really wanted to publish a post on a celebrity wedding cake I did last week, but summer flu had me and I was spending my time not thinking about any type of food...

So I will tell you all about it in the next few days, but right now here is my latest creation- a cute bucket and rake cake, made yesterday for his kindergarten end of the year party.

I haven't really told the teacher what I do for a living, thus elegently avoiding special requests all throught the year...even his birthday cake was very simple, I only used edible paper -pooh drawing, because the next day he had a cute birthday cake for his party at home.

Well, the teacher, oblivient to my primary love (yaha, after my hubby and kids of course..) asked us to bring to the party a vegtable platter and 3 soft drink bottles
I love vegetables and was quite content with the request, but I didn't count on my baby boy (3.5 yrs) expectations-
"mommy, I want you to make a cake for the party!".
"Honey, I can't your teacher asked for vegetables and drinks!"
"I want a cake!!!!" ( he wasn't screaming, he's a very sweet kid he hardly raises his voice)
"well, let me see if that's possible"
"If I can make a cake, what shall it be?"
"I want a sand bucket and a spoon, with lots of sand and seashells!"

Well, he knows what he wants, you have to give him that..
I arranged a switch with one of the moms and peace returned to our home.

So, how was this cake created?
Since I started working on the cake around noon, I didn't have the time to create a tutorial, but I will walk you through the steps:

The sand is actually edible sand and very easy to make.
The cake is created from 4 layers of cake about 7" / 18 cm diameter.

I added ganache between the layers and on the top.

Then I placed on top of the cake a circle I cut from paper, it was 5" / 13cm diameter. It was my guide to cut the top 2 levels diagonally, all around, to create a sand bucket look.
once it looked like an upside down bucket I ganached the sides of all 4 layers.

I then rolled out pink sugarpaste and coverd the cake.
When covering a cake as tall as this, and especially when the cake is wider at the bottom, you will encounter some difficulty with access sugarpaste.
There are a few ways to manage this-
1. cut a slit in the paste once it is placed on the cake and set aside the access sugarpaste.
2. keep on opening the paste when it wrinkles and smooth it out as much as possible.
The second option was what I did. (it leaves less of an impression on the final cake.

I let the cake set for about 20 minutes and then flipped it over with a wide pizza spatula, directly on to the board, on a dab of royal icing. The cake was placed at its final location.
I then added cmc to some of the pink sugarpaste and let it stand for 15minutes. Then I rolled it out and cut a long strip , which I attached to the side of the bucket, at the top.
I paced the strip about 1/4" / 1cm higher from the cake sides, thus creating a border, where I could later add the edible sand and avoid any spillage.

Then I created the sand bucket handle from a white strip of gumpaste I attached with royal icing to the cake and added two toothpicks, one on each side. on top of each toothpick I placed a piece of pink sugarpaste.

While waiting for the cakes to bake, I created the spoon and the rake:
the spoon was really easy because it is just a handle with a hole at the end. I rolled out green sugarpaste with cmc and created a long skinny sausage. I then inserted a skewer almost all the way to top. For my step before last I flattened the sugarpaste using a cake smoother.
I used a small cutter to cut out a hole at the end of the handle and placed it on baking paper to dry.

For the rake I created the handle just like I did for the spoon. The more difficult part was the teeth. So I took a photo from the web of a real plastic rake that seemed as a good model and followed the look, first I cut it out flat, to create a similar look, and then I used a tool created for clay work. I find that you can never have too many types of tools while decorating cakes. When I see a tool that seems it will come in handy one day, I will usually buy it.  Sure, I have my share of unused tools, but once in a while I'm grateful, I have the unique tools that will help me out in that tight spot.

Keeping my  sugarpaste flat, I used the clay tool to create the teeth.
Then I bended them, stuck in each tooth a short flower wire, used a skewer to create a canal for the skewer to be added later, and let it dry against a flat surface, just to make sure the teeth are all aligned.
Final step using some royal icing as glue, I attached the rake body to the handle and let dry for a few hours.

The rake actually worked!

I created the seashells using 2 different chocolate molds. Although the shells were also sugarpaste with cmc.

Assembling the cake:
I spread edible sand on the board and in the sand bucket. Then I placed the spoon handle and the rake, actually using it to create markings in the sand!
Finally I added the seashells and was rather happy of the outcome. (my son was thrilled!|)
But it felt like something was missing...

A MESSAGE IN THE SAND!!!

It says in hebrew, have a nice vacation!

Have a great summer everyone!

Til next time,
Cake away
Sharon

Didn't hold up to my promise...

I really don't like admitting to this one (bad, bad wife..)
But with the wedding season and all, I really really couldn't stand up to my promise.
A few posts ago I told you my husband has a birthday and I was planning on creating a special Bday cake for him. He really loves the sea, diving etc' so I planned a very special coral reef cake.

However, as I already said I didn't have a minute to spare.
So sadly I had to skip on my big plans and go minimal.

That weekend we had friends that came over to celebrate the beginning of summer.
I ain't a big summer fan myself, other than the wedding cakes, that I totaly love! I can't stand the heat, humidity, mosquitos, jelly fish, etc'.
Well, we live in a complex with a pool and every year there's a big party with inflatables and music, the kids have lots and lots of fun, so I thought that that was the best time to have a mini celebration of our own.

I did what I could, for me it meant baking Banana cupcakes, they had to be spaeical, so I used 3 types of sillicon pans, turning these banana cupcakes into unique tiny-pop in your mouth cupcakes.

The recipe was new to me, I found it on the back package of cupcake baking cups.
It was so good It will definiatly star in our kitchan and will also be offered to my brides for wedding cupcake towers.
Here it is:
Banana Cupcakes:
ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup unsweetend cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup muashed ripe banana
1/4 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 large egg whites.

preheat oven to 350 F / 180 C
in a large bowl, mix flour, 1/4 cup sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
in a medium bowl beat egg whites until foamy, gradually add remaining 1/2 cup of sugar, beat well untill stiff peaks form.
Stir sour cream mixture into flour mixture until moistend.
fold in 1/3 egg white mixture, fold gently remaining egg white mixture.
fill cupcake pan 3/4 full with batter.
bake 20-25 minutes, the cupcakes are ready when a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.

let cool and watch out, you won't be able to resist them...

Til' next time,
Cake away
sharon

A puzzling cake

I did debat with my self (again?!) if the topic name had lost it's charm..
But nah, I decided to go with it anyway, (I like it).


On my last post I covered the proccess of creating the puzzle pieces for the puzzle cake.


Here's the cake, finallized, at the wedding hall as promised.
What do you think? does it feel like the pieces are falling out of the puzzle box?

Puzzle wedding cake

Do you like my cake design?

View of the open box with the falling puzzle pieces

Til' next time!

Cake away

Sharon

I'm Puzzled...

If you were wondering what I've been up to this week, well I was really busy with... wedding cakes and a few birthday cakes. (no surprise there)

I wanted to let you have a sneak peak at a rather special cake I'm working on for Friday

The bride and groom love solving puzzles, so their brother (everyone needs such a brother!) ordered an unusuall wedding cake for them, as a wedding gift.

The top tier will look like a starry night- puzzle box opened and the pieces spilling out.

so far I made the puzzle pieces and hand painted them.

The brides brother said that they actually have a starry night puzzle they are currently working on. (it's one of Van Gouch's paintings)

Starry night

The cakes are in the oven, and the edibale page with the starry night drawing is printed to the exact size to fit the cake.

To achieve the effect of the pieces falling out, the top layer will be set on pillars, and some pieces will be attached to one of the pillars, to the cake sides and the cake base.

I really wanted the puzzle pieces to look real, so I took a couple of real puzzle pieces and traced them on paper, I copied them 3D to create my own set of puzzle cutters and the result is great. They really look like puzzle pieces.

Puzzle cutters I custom made for this cake from a tin box of coco powder

Another thing I was worried about (but really happy about now), is the pieces color. 

I don't mean the front; i'm talking about the sides and back. I know the back will only be seen if someone looks at the cake from the back and that won't be possible since the cake will be set in front of a wall... But I had to take care of the sides, if I wanted it to look real.

I debated (with myself, I do that sometimes) whether I should color the gumpaste on the sides only, or the whole piece before I roll it out and cut it.

Eventually I realized coloring it before the roll and cut will be less time consuming and will give the best results.

So I did. But the color itself was a big question mark.

You know how puzzles have that cardboard special color to their back side? well I tried several food color mixes and ended up with a combination of Extra black, enough to have a midum gray bulk of gumpaste and then I added a dab of party green (I think leaf green should work as well)

and Voilla! I got that cardboard color.



Puzzle pieces made of colored gumpaste



Just to make sure, I placed a gumpaste puzzle piece next to the real puzzle piece. My eldest daughter asked if she could have a bite and pick up the real puzzle piece... 

The hand painted puzzle pieces. 

Luckily I saw what she was doing and stoped her in time!
Stay tuned for the next post. where you will see the finallized cake at the wedding hall!


Cake away!
Sharon

White and lilach dreams

In many weddings, I take photos of the garden, the tables, even the brides maids flower bouqet.
I've never posted them before, because I'm no expert photographer. (I've been planning on going to a photography course, forever! )

But at this wedding (sunday), the light was just right, the setting was beautiful, and even I with my poor photography skills got it right...

Some tables had these magnificent flower bouqets

The bridesmaids bouqets and wreaths await

Closeup on one bridesmaid bouqet

Of course it all started with a wedding cake, that is why you're hearing about it in the first place...

The bride, iris, is training to be a doctor. She was so busy, she sent her mom to choose the cake.
We really had to work out some way to compromise between what the bride wanted and what her mom wanted. It wasn't easy and took some negotiating skills... But we did find a cake design that worked for everyone.

The chosen wedding cake was white, elegent, classy, topped with a bouqet of white and lilach gumpaste Lisianthus flowers.

Lisianthus sugar flowers topping the wedding cake

The Lisianthus flowers have a special place in my heart, because they were used in the flower arrangments at my wedding!

They are great flowers, they are not too difficult to recreat, and they work well in a bouqet consisting only Lisianthus or several very different flowers.

I'm actually working on a tutorial on how to create them.

One other thing, if you haven't joined my mailing list yet, I urge you to so. I almost finished writing a series of CakeTips with a lot of real important information and knowledge for cake decorators.

I'm also working on a few surprises, one of them at least is a real revolution in cake decorating.
So stay tuned...

Cake away, until next time!
Sharon

Floral dreams

We created a new Wedding cake- I called it white floral dreams

This wedding cake was truly a challenge!

A really cute couple met with me a couple of months ago for a consulting, they wanted to choose the perfect wedding cake. The problem was they had no clue as to what they want…

Sometimes when a couple doesn’t know exactly what cake design they want I discuss with them things they already decided about such as the wedding theme or theme colors, the brides wedding gown or fabric, the invitation design, the location etc’  

Usually that helps finding a direction or at least a better idea of their preferences, thus enabling me to get closer to designing the perfect cake for them.

I have to say that once I saw their wedding invitation I had an exact image of their cake (luckily that happens some times).

It was a real lifesaver. Once I explained the idea they loved it. (Thank god!)

Looking at the flowers on their invitation, at first glance I thought they are Lotuses, after taking a longer look I realized they are actually Peonies that are one of my favorite flowers. I was really thrilled about this chance to create the flowers because up to this point I only practiced creating them but haven’t actually used them on any cake.

Another challenge was creating the 2d flowers on the cake sides. I had to create special one-time cutters to achieve perfect and identical cuts each and every time. So I created 3 detailed cutters: a flower, a leaf and a spiral shape. The flower was the one that had the most details and was the hardest to create.

At times you need to do something that seems time consuming at that moment but saves you a lot of time in the future. This was the reason for the cutters. If I would have attempted to create each piece by hand (cutting it with a knife individually) it would take me forever and I would never achieve the clean accurate look I was aiming for.

So with no further ado, this is their wedding cake!

 

Congratulations Mira and Noam!

Cake away!

Sharon

Do you want access to free cake decorating tutorials?

If you haven't had a chance to gain access to my free cake decorating tutorials, yet, go to Cakeopedia.com and let the fun begin! 

www.CakeOpedia.com

I have a great Caketip for you today:

when kneading your sugar paste/ rolled fondant, some will say use cornflour, some will say use confectioners sugar. I recommend combining that advice. 

mix your confectioners sugar with about 1/3 cornflour. 

The powdered sugar softens the paste and the cornflour dries and hardens it. mixing them will give you a better resault, than using just one. I know confectioners sugar contains 1/10 cornflour, but that still won't be enough.

so mix 2 cups of confectioners sugar with one cup of cornflour. keep in a closed box until you need it.

Enjoy my free tutorials,

Til' next time

Cake away

Sharon