Chocolate cake with penuche filling, it was a large cake for 210 guests. I loved this cake when it was done, it was a clean design and the best part it was all delicious buttercream.
To do it yourself grab a large star tip, start in the center of the flower and circle outward. Continue with your flowers around the cake.
On a warm perfect day Allison and her love Ryan exchanged vows in the vibrant garden of the Harkness Mansion that resides with all its majestic glory off the eastern waters on the Connecticut coast.
Making this cake was a labor of love, as a friend of the bride’s family. I am die hard fan of this family that has so much love for each other and an unyielding capacity during important family events it seems to always remember this moment together is all we have. They are masters of sharing their love with others and all the while partying like the rock stars that they are.
Allison wanted her cake to have a tier of red velvet with a cream cheese filling and a tier of white cake with a mixed berry and cream filling. The theme of the wedding matched the vibrant hues of the gardens with small accents of peacock feathers. A clean and modern reception design that was simply gorgeous like the bride. Her sense of fun while supporting the arts was mirrored in her choice of cake toppers from Etsy.com. Thank you Allison and Ryan for asking me to make your cake and for a wonderful evening of dancing, food and friends.
This was undeniably the most fun I have had making a cake yet. I baked and decorated this topsy turvy design at the A Thyme to Cook Catering Company of North Stonington. It was for an Alice in Wonderland birthday party. The flowers were an edible sugar paste and the teapot was made of rice krispies. The peacock feather taken from a table arrangement and added to the cake before the photos were taken it is the only non edible decoration. Inside the tiers were a moist, fragrant orange poppy seed cake with Swiss meringue buttercream. The party decorations and food by the catering company looked amazing. I cannot imagine a more fun birthday celebration.
Move over Naomi Cambell, there is a new Naomi in town. Seriously, when they talk about a smile that lights up a room I think this is it.
The reason I love making cakes is just that, making someone smile, thank you birthday girl you made my day.
The cake was Madagascar vanilla filled with as many strawberries as I could fit and made with heavy whipping cream buttercream. The birthday girl is a fan of strawberry shortcake so this cake was just right.
The makeup bag I made from chocolate rice krispy cereal treats using the same recipe and cake topper making technique that I explain with detail in my previous blog. This particular makeup bag however, I covered with two colors of fondant, a strip of black across the top then turning the makeup bag over I applied a single piece of light brown starting at the bottom working my way back up toward the top of the bag. I cut a clean edge where the brown met the black with an x-acto blade. To finish with the fondant I cut seams on both sides of the bag so it looked like sown seams of an actual bag.
The next step was to cover the cake board with the same light brown and let it dry overnight. Then with a paint brush reserved for cake work I thinned down the brown gel food coloring with vodka so the food coloring would dry quickly and painted the first coat of odd circular shapes to cover both the bag and cake base. Then with another smaller brush I painted the black gel food coloring undiluted to make the accent lines around the spots I had just painted. The black line work inevitably looked washed out if it was not used directly from the jar.
I added the lipstick, eye shadow and nail polish in simple shapes made from fondant, flowers from a daisy cutter and her intial and birthday year in pink.
If you have questions about making this cake please let me know, I would love to help.
Again, thank you for the great photo Naomi you look fabulous!
A devils food chocolate cake with dark chocolate ganche and fresh strawberries inside and chocolate with fresh strawberries outside.
Alexa needed two cakes for her two separate birthday celebrations. She turned twelve this weekend and loves chocolate cake with chocolate hazelnut filling. Her party theme was the 80′s, she and her girl buddies had a day at the spa, a night at the movie theater and a sleep over that followed. They had the first of the cakes at her overnight party. More fun and one more cake to come for this lucky birthday girl. Making these cakes brought back some of those wonderful big hair, big shoulder pads and doing the Jane Fonda workout with my friends 80′s memories for this baker. No music like the 80′s either, right? So totally awesome.
Lisa a Chef for the A Thyme to Cook Catering company and a dear friend asked me to make a cake for her son’s Eagle Scout celebration. It could not have been worse timing, in the throws of the wedding cake season. Her offering to buy the cake topper on line was a huge time saver, and she was cool with getting her cake days before the party. Which is not always easy when you are throwing the party yourself and fridge space has suddenly become prime real estate. She did not want fondant to cover the cake, so I had nightmares of the fondant flag, ropes and fleur de lis that I rested on the buttercream in the heat of the summer and with the extra waiting time pulling away and or sliding right down the sides of the cake.
God, luck, Buddah, or the love of this particularly proud mother prevailed and the cake made it to the party, looked fantastic and was a wonderful hit. She said every bit of the vanilla butter and chocolate marble cake with a nutella filling was finished before the party had wrapped up for the evening.
Some helpful hints for attempting this cake or one like it: The fleur de lis on the side of the cake were made with candy molds that Lisa also found online, Amazon.com has a huge selection of these. I pushed the fondant into the molds after a sprinkling of corn starch to keep it from sticking. If you decide to do a flag on a cake apply the stars after the draping is attached to the cake and the draped colors of the flag were easier applied in strips. If you decide on rope for your cake edible copper lustre dust adds just the right amount of sparkle.
I used an eight inch square of chocolate cake and an eight inch of the same size vanilla cake back to back to make just the right amount for a Sabrina Little Witch birthday celebration. The house was a Wilton gingerbread house I decorated and the little witch is a Polly Pocket doll with a fondant witch hat that I added and sparkled with edible disco dust. I felt like she needed a friend so the frog was a donation from a collection of small toys my daughter won at Chuck E. Cheese. The broom was a cinnamon stick with fondant bristols painted with a bronze lustre dust. The grass is piped on with a hair Wilton tip and the pumpkins were made with the help of my daughter. I would have never finished the cake without her help because I under estimated the time I would need to get the house done drastically. Crushed Oreos with a blackberry border for the walkway which were actually jelly candies I bought at Marshalls and they worked out perfectly in the mad rush to finish. Another thing I found helpful was using poppy seeds on the roof of the house which I learned from watching, Buddy, The Cake Boss on The Learning Channel.
It is so much fun using dolls on the cakes I make for little girls, besides saving money for the person buying the cake. Like the five year old in this case she will get a doll to keep, play with and it is also a gift that can hold wonderful memories. If you can get a doll that looks like the birthday girl, even better. 
