Seaside Beach Cake

Seaside Beach Cake

March 2009

The sound of the waves crashing, the feel of sand between your toes, and the smell of salt in the air... what's better than a day at the beach? This cake celebrates the crashing of the waves and the search for the perfect seashell.



Cake Details:

Cake: Chocolate
Filling: Chocolate ganache
Icing: Vanilla buttercream
Decorations: Molded marshmallow fondant shells painted with luster dusts, piped buttercream and fondant pearls

Engagement Party Cake

Engagement Party Cake

February 2008

This cake was designed for an engagement party. I love the raspberry color of the buttercream with the white decoration. I added a light raspberry essence to the buttercream which gave it a great flavor.

I'm always leery about adding fruit flavorings because I have this nightmare of serving a cake that tastes like Robitussin. No fear here because the flavor was great! I might even add it to the standard line up. One of the fun parts of having a customer-driven business is that people's request sometimes push me to try new things. Often it is a great thing that benefits other customers in the future. I love the give-and-take of the creative process.

Cake Details:
Cake: Chocolate

Filling: Chocolate ganache and pink buttercream

Icing: Vanilla buttercream with a light raspberry flavor

Decorations: Piped buttercream and fondant decorations with piped chocolate

Cupcake Art- Obama Cupcake Mosaic

Cupcake Art- Obama Cupcake Mosaic

February 2009

The post has announced that Zilly Rosen will be recreating her Obama cupcake mosaic this weekend for Family Fun Day at the Smithsonian. Read the article here if you would like to attend the Smithsonian event.

You can also watch the mosaic of 5,000 cupcakes take shape on the videocam here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/smithsonian-on-ustream.tv. It started at 2pm, but might take a while.

(Thanks to Amy for sending me this article!)

Princess Tiara Cake

Princess Tiara Cake

February 2008

I love how this cake came out. Fine, I am partial to girly cakes and princesses, what can I say?! It was for a fabulous princess-themed 1st birthday party and I was really excited that the birthday girl was already decked out in her princess dress when I arrived to set up the cake. Adorable.

I've seen a few tutorials on making a tiara/crown out of royal icing and I thought this would be an excellent chance to give it a try. It was a giant disaster. They looked lovely on the mold, but always ended up as shards of sugar during the drying process.

Royal icing tiara before it was reduced to powder. You can almost see it slipping out of my hand here.

So I tried a new tactic. I used a more simplified version of my template and rolled gumpaste into thin lines. This gave it much more structural stability and more flexibility for attaching embellishments like beads and glitter. And every princess knows it is all about the accessories.

Here are the two final gumpaste tiaras getting packed up for the car. The bottom one ultimately earned a place on top of the cake.


Cake Details:
Cake: One tier chocolate and one tier vanilla bean
Filling: Raspberry and buttercream for the chocolate cake layer, and chocolate ganache for the vanilla tier
Icing: Vanilla buttercream
Decorations: Fondant circles and beaded border and a handmade sugarpaste tiara with edible glitter (though no one actually ate the tiara I hope)

Sparkly Cupcake Cake

Sparkly Cupcake Cake

February 2008

I had a hard time titling this post because of the recent wave of "cupcake cakes" which are trays of cupcakes spackled together with icing. I am morally opposed to this plan because I appreciate both the stand alone cupcake and the traditional birthday cake model. I have never found cutting up the cake to be THAT difficult, and I think most people can handle the anticipation for the full 90 seconds it takes to circulate plates and forks. Don't worry, I just stumbled off that soapbox and will now continue with today's cake.

So, back to our story. This cake has a picture of a cupcake on it (which is very sparkly) and was served with a tray of cupcakes that had coordinated frosting. This way people choose between vanilla bean cake and chocolate cupcakes. A little something for everyone! I like this plan because I really like birthday candles to be in a real cake, but I would never deny anyone the fun of a cupcake. Especially not on their birthday.

Cake Details:
Cake: Vanilla Bean Birthday Cake

Filling: Chocolate ganache and mini chocolate chips

Icing: Vanilla buttercream

Decorations: Piped buttercream and fondant decorations with edible glitter

* not appearing: Chocolate cake and buttercream cupcakes in yellow and pink with rainbow sprinkles.

Country's Best Cupcakes from MSN Cityguide

The Country's Best Cupcakes from MSN Cityguide

MSN published thier list of the top 11 cupcakes in the US. Eleven is a round number for a list, don't you think? But I guess you can't ever have too many cupcakes.

Here is a link to the full article, and a short list of thier picks.

1* Saint Cupcake - Portland, Oregon
(The Fat Elvis) Sweet banana and chocolate chip cake, smeared with peanut butter fudge frosting and topped with a fried banana chip

2* Baked - Brooklyn, New York
(Sweet and Salty) Dark chocolate cake infused with salty caramel, topped with caramel chocolate ganache and fleur de sel

3* Main Street Cupcakes - Hudson, Ohio
(Half-Baked) Dark chocolate cake stuffed with chocolate chips and chocolate chip cookie dough, then finished with chocolate buttercream

4* Cupcakes - Chicago, Illinois (Peanut Butter & Jelly)
5* Cupcake Royale - Seattle, Washington (Lavender)
6* Dozen Cupcakes - Pittsburgh (East End Chocolate Stout)
7* Love at First Bite - Berkeley, California (Ginger Babycake)
8* Sugar Sweet Sunshine - New York, New York (Pistachio Cupcake) -- one of my personal favorites!!!
9* Cake Fetish - Albuquerque, New Mexico (Fluffer Nutter)
10* Lilly Jane's Cupcakes - Eagle, Idaho (Orange Ginger)
11* Back in the Day Bakery - Savannah, GA (Lemon Coconut)

It's a solid list, though the DC area is noticeably absent! I'd have to add the following three to make it complete. :)

* Honeybee Bakeshop - Arlington, Virginia (Wine & Cheese)
* Hello Cupcake - Seattle, Washington (Chocolate Mocha)
* Lavender Moon - Alexandria, VA (Smores)

National Capital Area Cake Show- Class Schedule

National Capital Area Cake Show- Class Schedule on line now!
January 2009

Now that it is officially 2009, let’s talk about how excited I am about the National Capital Area Cake Show (http://www.cakeshow.org/) which is coming up in March. Cake displays and demonstrations, a food network style challenge between decorating all-stars and lots of cake related mayhem. Really there is something for everyone who likes to look at, decorate, or eat cake! Plus all the profits are donated to local charities.

If you are interested in taking a class, I’d recommend signing up soon to ensure your place. There are lots of great teachers and topic available!

Here is the OFFICIAL announcement:

Hey All!
I wanted you to be the first to hear that class registration for the National Capital Area Cake Show, March 21 & 22, 2009 is NOW OPEN ONLINE!

Just go to www.cakeshow.org, under upcoming shows, and then under classes and demos, you will see the list of classes and most have a picture of the project. The classrooms this year are actually classrooms, some that require it are fully equipped kitchen classrooms. All will have audio visual support that will ensure that everyone can hear, see and learn! Its going to be great fun!

There are some really fabulous teachers this year so don't miss out - look today and register!

Also just to clarify, your tickets to the Main Live Challenge on Sat. ($25) are come and go tickets! So yes, you can register for a class, leave the challenge for it and then come back and see the finale! no problem.

And I know you cake people know lots of people! So please help us spread the word about the show and the classes! Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions!

Thanks so much for all of your support!
Amie W.
National Capital Area Cake Show - Publicity
www.cakeshow.org