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

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