Sunday, June 30, 2013

Sea Turtle Cake + Finding Nemo

First Birthdays are BIG.  I have had the pleasure of helping a lot of little girls and boys celebrate their first birthdays with their favorite themes and characters.  This is one of my very favorite.


 Crush's head and flippers are Rice Crispy treats, his body, including the shell is vanilla bean cake with raspberry butter cream, Charlies' little smash cake on the side is the same. Crushed graham crackers mixed with powdered sugar sprinkled all around as sand, and dark chocolate signs hand painted and  buried in the graham sand.
 Little Squirt sits on top of the smash cake and is made from fondant  His spots are cut from dark chocolate fondant.
Crush's head was my biggest sculpting attempt yet.  Big meaning most challenging.  Faces are intimidating for me, but I have discovered modeling chocolate mixed with fondant is very workable and gives me lots of time to make adjustments, add on and keep working until i am happy without my subject getting hard and cracking before I have time to finish.  The head accounted for roughly 3 hours of the overall time on this cake, maybe more, I lost track about 2 am .
 This last picture is from little Charlie's mom who shared the picture on Face Book along with a very nice comment:

 "Angela totally blew me away with Charlie's birthday cake! I totally feel like I am on a tv show. Love!!Gorgeous and delicious! Absolutely amazing   "
 Life has definitely led me down this cake covered path, but I never thought I would fall in love with sculpting.  The challenge of carving a shape from cake, or squeezing a shape out of rice crispies is crazy, but I really have to say, in the end , I'm hooked.  So much more fun than churning out the same boring round cakes week after week.  I am truly grateful that I can choose my projects and enjoy the time and process of each one.

Monday, June 24, 2013

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

My Grandson Tyler, aka Bubba, turned 7 this month and requested a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Party.  This brought back so may memories of my own boys growing up in the 1980's.  They even had TMNT underwear (briefs) for little boys.  The video game did not exist, but the action figures were a really big deal then.  I seldom get to do a cake that is all my own, meaning, I have no one else to impress but me...so I had a lot of fun with this one.



Friday, June 21, 2013

Dogwood + Sugarpaste Flowers + Diana Elizabeth

Growing up in the South, I learned about flowers, bushes and trees from my Mom and Grandmother.  The Dogwood carried a mythical fascination for me, as I was taught that it's delicate petals symbolized the Crucifixion of Christ.  The pale pink indentations of the petals represented the nails in his hands and feet and the thorny center represented the crown of thorns he wore.  I was fascinated with the symbolism, touched by the story of his love and sacrifice, and as I made these delicate sugar Dogwoods, I felt as though my life had come full circle.

Diana Elizabeth came into my life at a time that I needed someone to believe in me, someone to acknowledge the passion I felt for every design, every little detail, no matter how simple and delicate.  Her camera magically finds every painstaking crack and crevice, the details that sometimes I feel only I can see.  I open her email,  and there it is....my soul seems to be exposed with each image.  Suddenly it was worth every painstaking second it took to create this perfect little flower.  All of the imperfect ones I threw away, the seemingly infinite night, and hours of work were worth this one image. A naked mini vanilla cake seemed to be the perfect temple on which to balance this delicate, symbolic bloom.  Is this description too dramatic?  Not at all, not if you are a sugar flower lover, creator, or storyteller, then you get it, the effort is not wasted...ever.

If you are a cake designer and love sugar flowers, I suggest you get yourself over to Craftsy for tutorials from some of the best cake designers and artists in the world.  Maggie Austin and I shared a long evening together via her video, as I formed each of these little beauties with her expert help.




Sunday, June 9, 2013

Bling + Bows Wedding Cake

Allie and Ryan wanted and elegant, classic, vintage cake for their celebration taking place this weekend at The Breakfast Club in Cityscape.   I was excited and anxious to try out a new technique for applying the silver and pearl for the bling effect on this cake.  Bows and subtle pleating replicated Allie's dress design.  The Monogram "C" is hand painted.  The couple chose Chocolate Toffee Crunch and Red Velvet for the layers, YUM!  The tall double barrel bottom layer can be split in half and serves twice as many guests.  I personally love the look of taller tiers, a very chic look.