Ombre Ruffled Sunflower Cake

I've been wanting to try this new ruffle technique I learned on Craftsy, in a class taught by the amazing Maggie Austin.  When my dear customer Mary came to mind, I remembered that her daughter's birthday was in July, and she always lets me design the cake for Cristina.  She loves sunflowers, so I immediately thought of a bright yellow, ombre cake with a huge fantasy sunflower on top. 

 

The little sunflower hand painted detail around the board was my favorite part of making this cake.  I would hand paint every cake if I could, no pattern just free and crazy, lots of fun!

Southern Sweets Divine Dessert Table

Phoenix Arizona is my home, but I am a Southern girl at heart.  Born and raised in the South, my roots take me back to my grandmother's kitchen and her sewing room.  This dessert table is the realization of my heritage, right down to the tastes. Gracious, glamorous, delicious, and abundant....the epitome of Southern Hospitality. The masculine pinstripe combined with the feminine flowing pale pink skirt merge bride and groom..

 Chocolate and Vanilla Buttermilk Cupcakes with cream cheese frosting were baked in natural parchment paper.  The lace trim at the table was custom dyed to match the pinstripe gray backdrop fabric.  The skirt on  the table is blush pink chiffon with a pink satin underlay, custom made by Angela Saban Design, I wanted to create the feeling of the skirt of a dress, flowing and beautiful.  Sparkling Pink Lemonade in champagne flutes.

Buttemilk Blanc Mange with fresh peaches slices and blueberries in shot glasses.

 Bourbon Pecan Tarts

Rich Chocolate Tarts with chocolate crust and whipped cream and shaved chocolate topping

Blackberry Tarts, my personal favorite.  I spent many hours as a child picking blackberries from bushes and suffering the "chiggers" for their deliciousness!

Red Velvet Cake with buttercream Frosting and covered with fresh flowers. My grandmother's antique silver cake pedestal, no one knows how many weddings it has been to.

Modern Mini Dessert Table + The Fairmont Princess Resort

I met Michelle and Ryan last year and we started planning their "Modern Neutrals" destination wedding.  Gold, silver, white and touches of purple were the beginning pallet for this fun, modern, family filled event.  We looked at wedding cake designs, but it soon became very clear that mini desserts were going to make this couple the happiest.  They wanted it all!
French macarons, cake truffles, mini pies, mini cupcakes, cake shots and a small cake just for the two of them to cut at their outrageous clear acrylic sweetheart table.  Their favorite flavors were lemon, blackberry, raspberry, vanilla, peach and espresso (with dark chocolate).

 So, Memorial Day weekend at The Fairmont Princess Resort in Scottsdale, the celebration began.  I decided to use the venues amazing new tables, modern sleek, grey stone tops and silver trim.  This was actually my first dessert table with NO LINENS.  I loved it!  I used two tall, curvy white vases and one very traditional black vase in the center.

The florals we chose for all the guest tables were white tulips, But, when Ivy walked into the ballroom with dozens of white parrot tulips, well my heart was singing!  These gorgeous beauties gave such a n exotic feel to the my design for the arrangements.  I absolutely love the movement of the tulips throughout the evening, uncontrollable and wildly natural.  Just lovely.

The Sweetheart Cake that I created for Michelle and Ryan was vanilla bean with raspberry butter cream.  Two large white sugar roses graced the top, pure and simple, just like this couples' love.  I perched it simply on a mirrored charger and placed it in the center of their sweetheart table.

 

 

 

 

 

Espresso Mini Cupcakes with vanilla butter cream, drizzled with dark chocolate and salted caramel.

 Mini Peach Cobblers, Lemon Macaron with vanilla butter cream, Espresso Mini Cupcakes, Dark Chocolate Cake Truffles with edible purple Disco dust, Vanilla Bean, Peaches and cream Cake shot.

 

 Purple macaron is vanilla with lemon butter cream, Cake shot is vanilla bean with blackberry butter cream.

  Different heights for the tables and my tall three tier white stand fit perfectly.  The vases were illuminated by LED pads under the vases covered with flower petals.  Clear crystals sprinkled around to mingle with the sparkly desserts caught every one's attention as they entered the ballroom.  Votives filled with more LED lights and covered with clear rocks, and labels held by black and white marble squares gave the display a modern, eclectic design.

Such a fun couple, a crazy fun family and by the way...ALL of the food and desserts for this spectacular wedding celebration was not only Kosher style, but together with The Princess, we managed to insure that ALL of the food was also GLUTEN FREE as well.  I can not tell you how wonderful the chef and the entire staff at The Princess was to work with, and the fact that Michelle could enjoy every last bite of her wedding feast, made the evening so memorable for them both.

Venue: The Fairmont Princess Resort
Photography: Imaginale Design
Florals: Garage by Ivy
Design, coordination and decor: Angela Saban Design

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.

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.

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.

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.