Tulip Cupcake Tower

Tulip Cupcake Tower
June 2009

Congratulations Danny and Elissa! This lovely couple enjoyed their wedding and reception so much that they decided to do it again so that their friends in the DC area could join in the celebration.

During this delicious dessert reception guests enjoyed chocolate fountains, cream filled strawberries, champagne and cupcakes! This cupcake tower is designed around the wedding colors of teal and hot pink with lovely summer tulips.

Each cupcake is topped with vanilla butter cream, chocolate curls and fondant flowers. The chocolate cupcakes are paired with pink ribbon tulips while the vanilla bean treats are topped with aqua forget-me-nots.



The plan was to place this top tier of cake at the crown of tower, but the stand was a little more wobbly than we wanted, so the tulip-topped cake added to the tablescape instead.

The cake is alternating layers of chocolate and vanilla cake with strawberry filling and iced in vanilla buttercream. A thin layer of white fondant on the top protects the gumpaste tulips painted hot pink.

Cake Details
Cake: Half chocolate, half vanilla bean
Icing: Vanilla buttercream
Decoration: Tinted chocolate curls, fondant ribbon flowers, handmade gumpaste tulips

Dad's Birthday

Dad's Birthday
June 2009

Our family and friends descended on Washington, DC to celebrate my Dad's birthday in June. After a day sailing the Chesapeake Bay on the Schooner Woodwind (a must do if you visit Annapolis) we gathered together to watch a photo show celebrating his life.

My sister Karen discovered a new trick from M&Ms. You can order personalized chocolates with words AND photos. Crazy fun! Our colors were green and yellow, a nod to my father's distinguished career designing tennis facilities, along with blue for the ocean and platinum to honor to occasion. The first photo is from his actual childhood album, and the second was taken last month in Disney and shows that he is still a kid at heart!

Boxed M&M Party Favors

Close-up of the M&M Photos

To continue the dot theme I surrounded the cake with green and blue chocolate wafers tinted to match the candies. The cake was a light vanilla with lemon curd filling.

Happy Birthday Dad!


The Cake

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PARTY: PART TWO

To ensure that everyone coould party, there was a separate gathering in Florida. Since it had a beachy-Floridian theme I sent down cookies packaged as party favors for the guests. Lesson of the day-- just because the USPS marks it fragile, does not mean that they will stop the herd of elephants from trampling it during the overnight mailing process. Apparently no amount of foam or bubble wrap could protect them from whatever crushed the box. Oh well!

Before

After

Red Martini Cake

Red Martini Cake

June 2009

This cake was for a happy hour party, so it needed to be hip enough to stand on its own in a swanky bar AND be worthy of the chic birthday girl.

The triple layer chocolate cake is filled with red raspberry filling and covered in vanilla buttercream with a touch of lime. On top of the buttercream is a crazy drizzle of red chocolate. Not only does the chocolate create a great design, but when it hardens it actually creates a "chocolate cage" to support the weight of the real martini glass.


To give the cake a sophisticated feminine touch I added red flowers cut from red modelling chocolate. The same flowers were applied to the inner rim of the glass so that you would get the chocolate when you drink rolls over it. Yumm.



Two contrasting birthday candles on each side of the glass and the party was ready to roll.

Happy Birthday Amy!

Cake Details:

Cake: Chocolate birthday cake

Filling: Red raspberry filling and vanilla buttercream

Icing: Vanilla buttercream with a touch of lime

Decoration: Melted chocolate "cage" and flowers made from modelling chocolate

Coffee Bean Wedding Cake

Coffee Bean Wedding Cake
May 2009


Ebenezer's Coffeehouse is one of my favorite places to hang out in DC, so I always jump at the chance to do wedding confections there. This cake was especially fun because the reception carried the coffee theme through to the cake. Lindsey and Michael know how to party!

The top two layers feature a coffee-cream cheese custard surrounded by Scharffen Berger chocolate cake. The largest layer is vanilla bean wedding cake with coffee-spiked chocolate ganache (think mocha latte). The outside is entirely buttercream, with double rows of dark roast coffee beans.

Here is a detail of the top layer and the gorgeous hydrangea.

Cake Details:

Cake: Scharffen Berger Chocolate Cake
Filling: Coffee-Cream Cheese Custard
Icing: Vanilla Buttercream
Decorations: Dark roast coffee beans and a large hydrangea blossom

* Special thanks to Deb, my flower consultant for tips on caring for a hydrangea stem.

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UPDATE:

The wedding photographer, Stephen Elliott from Mud Productions sent me some fabulous pics of the cake cutting.

Stephen has amazing energy and all of that fun and creativity shows in his photography. Check out more of his great photography at his website.

Just for Fun - Pink Cake

Just for Fun - Pink Cake

May 2009

This cake was inspired by a tattoo I recently saw on someone's arm. So when I had a "for fun" cake, I wanted to give it a try. Tattoo guy would probably not be thrilled that I reinterpreted it in pink. But luckily he didn't stop by for dinner, or dessert.

This cake almost didn't get baked because the batter was just too yummy. Wanna see?

Cake Details:

Cake: (My favorite!) Vanilla bean party cake with Vietnamese cinnamon

Filling: Chocolate ganache

Icing: Buttercream

Decoration: Piped melted chocolate

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

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.

Let it Snow

December 2008
Let it Snow

I love snow. Wait, that isn’t accurate. I love the idea of perfect fluffy white snow, snowmen, icicles and sledding. The actual cold, wet, and slippery nature of the stuff can be a buzzkill. Luckily, I have a weak bond with reality.

This cake celebrates the pure white “luster of new fallen snow”. Trevor turned me on to these great snowflake presses that turn out perfect blizzards. A layer of iridescent luster dust and some coarse sugar and this baby sparkles. The picture doesn’t give the full effect, but I love it.

For version two of this cake I tinted the icing with a bit of blue so that the snowflakes would stand out more. But I think that it lost that snowdrift quality.

I also created these little white chocolate snowman lollipops to take on the Christmas party circuit. A great way to finish off a plate of homemade cookies. The back of the pops have a sprinkle of crushed candycane for a winter kick. (Mmmm, chocolate and peppermint.)

The details of the eyes, scarf and buttons were somewhat lost, so I highlighted them with red and green petal dust and then gave everything a coat of pearl luster to shine them back up.

And don’t forget to button up that overcoat. Merry Christmas to all!

Cake Details:

Cake: Chocolate with Vietnamese Cinnamon
Filling: Mint Chocolate
Icing: Double Whipped Vanilla
Decorations: Fonadant snowflakes, coarse sugar, pear and luster dusts

December 2008
Rock the Cradle

Cheryl is not a pastel ribbon and booties kind of mom and her baby shower reflected that. Boas, blow up guitars, a great soundtrack, guests wearing fishnets stocking, and nary a stork in sight! Her shower theme was Rock the Cradle to reflect her love of music, but I also wanted to bring in elements of the monkey/jungle theme in the nursery. And that my friends is how this little guy learned to play the guitar.



Cake Details:

Cake: Chocolate Star (Chocolate with chocolate pudding mix added)
Filling: Chocolate ganache
Icing: Vanilla
Decorations: Piped Buttercream and Chocolate Icing

Orchid Cake

Orchid Cake

August 2008

This weekend I was at home watching the Olympics (Go USA!) and decided to use my couch time to work on sugar flowers. I tested out a new orchid and this cake sprung up around that.

The first step in “growing” flowers is to roll and cut the petal and leaf shapes which are individually attached to thin wires. After the pieces are dried (overnight/several days) they are arranged in the shape of the flower and bound with floral tape (the green stretchy-sticky stuff). The porcelain-like flower is still pure white at this point.

One the flower is assembled and fully dried, the color is applied using pigmented dusts. First the base colors are added to the center stamen of the flower (yellow for pollen).



Next I used a pale green on the throat and placed the darker dotted pattern on with a fine tipped food color marker. The main petals also got a pale pink all-over.


A warmer pink lines the edges because when you look closely at photos of orchids there is a LOT going on in terms of color variety and shading patterns. The two onthe right have been shaded while the right hand flower is still pale.
The final step was to shade with a dark hunter green that was also applied to the leaves and then coat the whole flower with a shiny petal dust that gives it a slightly moist look.

Since the flowers have a pink and green influence I baked a pistachio pound cake recipe that I have been dying to try and covered the top with the pale pink rolled buttercream that I had left from the baby onesie cookies.

This vanilla frosting was a new experiment, but it wasn’t as thick as I like when decorating. Luckily, the focus here is really the flowers, so the borders can be simple. Win some, lose some! All in all, I am happy with this tasty experiment. The finished product:



Cake Details:

• Cake: Pistachio pound cake
• Filling: Chocolate ganache
• Icing: Vanilla icing with pink raspberry rolled buttercream on the top
• Decorations: Hand-made gumpaste flowers

Baby Shower (Giant) Cupcake

Baby Shower Cake

June 2008

To celebrate the arrival of the Steele twins we had a farm-themed baby shower with lots of cows, sheep, and bunnies. I was excited to use my new GIANT cupcake pan which was a very thoughtful birthday present. It seemed like a big cake and lots of "baby" cupcakes was an appropriate route for this one.

We selected pink, cream and brown for the color scheme which paved an express path to strawberries and chocolate!

Cake Details:

• Cake: Strawberry (Modified Cake Mix)
• Icing: Vanilla Buttercream
• Decorations: Bottom- Fondant covered to replicate the cupcake paper and create the pink flowers.
• Decorations: Top- Tinted Vanilla Buttercream, Hand-piped Chocolate Animals, Fondant Daisies on floral wire (sticking out of the top)

Cupcake Details:

• Cake: White vanilla cake mix
• Icing: Vanilla Buttercream (in white and soft pink)
• Decorations: Hand-piped chocolate animals, fondant flowers
• Cupcake Papers: Various Pink(s) and Brown Polka-dots (source: Martha Stewart Collection)

Photo source: Andrea (Thanks!)

Celtic Bridal Shower Cake

Celtic Bridal Shower Cake

May 2008

The theme for Mary and Ryan's wedding is the symbol for the celtic trinity, a simple and elegant trefoil.



This cake was for a wedding shower at an office. I love making cakes like this because it represents a break from the daily routine to celebrate someone's life and spend time in community. So I kicked it up by adding a layer of vanilla cake between the two chocolate ones. It was fun to assemble and hopefully retained its whimsy when cut.

Details:

Cake Details:

• Cake: Two layers of chocolate cake, with a layer of vanilla in the center
• Filling: Choclate bavarian cream
• Icing: Vanilla buttercream
• Decorations: Tinted vanilla buttercream and chocolate frosting

Diva Cake

Diva Cake

May 2008

I'm back from my hiatus and happy to be baking in my new kitchen in Washington, DC. Somehow I managed to move from the 'burbs back into the city and gain both counter AND cabinet space. Yahooo!

The theme of this bridal shower was "Divas" and fits our advocate-morning-loving-mostly-naked-wild-and-wonderful darling Darla perfectly. So the cake fits with the crown theme that each diva attendee wore as a name tag. It is also color matched to the coral and orange rose bouquets that will be the wedding colors.

A toast to all the divas!

Cake Details

• Cake: Triple layer of lemon vanilla
• Filling: Chocolate Bavarian cream
• Icing: Tinted vanilla buttercream
• Decorations: Tinted buttercream, gold luster dust, royal icing daisy on the crown

(photo credit: Kayla and Dawn)

Robot Cake

Robot Cake

March 2008

Creating a cake for (soon-to-be-appearing) baby Gideon was a challenge because his parents, Chris and Rachel, are much cooler than average folk. This was not an occasion for pastel flowers and baby booties! So I based the cake on the nursery theme- Robots. (See, I told you they are cool.)

I am particularly fond of the teddy bear.

The sides were decorated with blue dots and more of the sugar stars in coordinating colors.

Cake Details

• Cake: Double layer chocolate
• Filling: Seedless raspberry
• Icing: Classic white
• Decorations: Rolled fondant, Tinted buttercream, Sugar stars, Silver luster dust

Daisy Engagement Cake

Daisy Engagement Cake

March 2008

Darla and Elfe are getting married!!! Can you believe it? To begin this "Jamerican" party train Shannon and Kayla hosted an engagement party. This simple daisy design combines Darla's love for the flowers with the weaving multi-country love story that God grew through them.

Cake Details

• Cake: Double layer in white vanilla



• Filling: Raspberry jam



• Icing: Chocolate frosting (totally Betty Crocker)



• Decorations: Tinted buttercream, royal icing flowers

Bailey’s Irish Cream Bundt Cake

Bailey's Irish Cream Bundt Cake

March 2008

Pretty cakes are lots of fun, but when it comes to taste, this one is at the top of my list. The drizzles of baileys and sugar are the best part because it melts instantly in your mouth. Yummm!


Bundt cakes are big in my family (I get more from the german side than my stubborness...) and this one is perfect for St. Patty’s day.


Bailey’s Irish Bundt Cake


1 package yellow cake mix
1 (4 oz) package instant chocolate pudding
3/4 cup oil
1/8 cup water
1/4 cup vodka
3/8 cup Baileys or other Irish cream liqueur (Emmett’s can be less expensive and fine for baking)
4 eggs
1 cup chocolate chips
Confectioners sugar

Combine cake mix, pudding mix, oil, water, vodka, liqueur and eggs in bowl. Beat until smooth. Add 3/4 of the chocolate chips. Pour into a greased and floured bundt pan.

Bake at 350 for 40 to 50 minutes or until done. Remove from pan and cool completely.

Mix a glaze of additional Bailey's and confectioners sugar. Chocolate sauce and confectioners sugar can also be used. Drizzle over cake, and decorate with remaining chocolate chips or shavings of dark chocolate.

Basketweave & Daisies

Basketweave and Daisies

March 2008

Happy Birthday Kat!

This birthday cake has a spring basketweave on the sides and is filled in with royal icing flowers and text piped on like vines in in a wandering garden.

Once the royal icing dries in shape and the leaves and details are added, these flowers really are quite cute!

The basketweave design is a classic Wilton skill. I think that my icing was a little bit dry, which gave it a great look similar to fraying straw that suited the theme well.

Cake Details

• Cake: Double layer in butter-vanilla
• Filling: Strawberry jam
• Icing: Vanilla buttercream (sans butter- it started as a class project)
• Decorations: Tinted buttercream, royal icing flowers
• New toys used: Basketweave tip #47

Anybody hear an echo...?