A Very Modern Wedding Cake!

Ashley was a very brave bride who wanted something a little more modern than most wedding cakes I've done. Okay... a lot more modern than most of my wedding cakes :) This square cake was different heights for each tier and the cakes were not centered (on purpose, of course!). She showed me a pattern that she was using in the wedding of these black and white flowers and so I came up with a few sketches. I mimicked those black and white flowers in the design and then brought in 2 much larger flowers for pops of color.

The couple ordered Chocolate Peanut Butter No-Cup Cake, Tuxedo Cake, and Almond Joy Cake. It's all covered in marshmallow fondant and then I hand painted the black and white flowers. For the larger flowers, I used different sized round cutters, created petals by carving out pieces of the flower and then used a pattern tracing wheel to create the lines in each petal. When I painted the flowers (one in teal and one in red), the grooves of the pattern tracing wheel created deeper colors than the flower itself, which I loved! I made a rounded yellow center and then used round piping tips to create a pattern on the centers as well.

Thank you, Ashley, for trusting me with your vision!! :) I loved making this cake!

Animal Print Birthday Cake!

Zeth wanted a "super girlie" birthday cake for his wife. He knew it should be about shopping, purses, shoes and knew she wanted animal print, pink, and black. We came up with this design together. There are 4 separate cakes here and everything else is made out of sugar.

I made this high heel out of gumpaste and waited till it dried before painting on the leopard print. The box underneath was also cake with a hand-painted leopard design. The zebra print shopping bag in the back was so much fun because making tissue paper out of sugar is actually super easy! Roll out your fondant (marshmallow fondant in this cake) very thin. Cut into different size squares and rectangles. Bunch up some plastic wrap and place on a cookie sheet. Now, lay the squares and rectangles over the plastic wrap so that they are taking on the shape of the valleys and hills of the plastic. Let them dry over night and then you'll have  sugar tissue paper :)

This purse cake was covered in white marshmallow fondant and then I painted it black so that it would keep its shine. I dried the purse strap over a round piece of styrofoam until it was hardened and then it stood up on its own. I made the bow and flowers out of marshmallow fondant as well. I used a pattern tracing wheel to create the stitched look on the purse itself. So simple but gives it a really nice detail. The square cake behind it has a sugar bow and a stenciled buttercream design on the sides.

The cakes were 24-Carrot Cake, Brownie Lovers, Cookies & Cake, and White Raspberry Kiss Cake. Yum!

Camping Outdoorsy Birthday Cake

Gloria was throwing an awesome 70th birthday bash for Jeff and wanted to have a cake that reflected him and his hobbies. He loves fly fishing, camping, and flying model airplanes. How do make that into one cake? Just like this :) The cake was Turtle Power Cake and then vanilla cake (Check out my full flavor list at www.SaltCakeCity.com). It was covered in marshmallow fondant and then the water/lake scene was all buttercream. I made little rocks, fish, reeds, and a fishing tool kit out of fondant to complete the fishing scene and then I made the tent, little boots and a campfire on the top of the cake for his camping hobby and lastly added a model airplane flying off the side of the cake too. I LOVED making this cake. I love when there are little details in the cake that make it so special. Everyone at the party loved the cake and seeing their excitement just made it even better :)

Mama Mia Spaghetti themed Cake & Cupcakes!

Kristie has amazing parties and when she asked me to do little Mia's birthday cake, I knew it was going to be an amazing design! I think my favorite part of this was that she came up with this design herself and sketched it out for me! So cool! :)

The cakes were covered in marshmallow fondant and then I used styrofoam rounds for the black separators. The cupcakes were cream cheese frosting piped out so that they look like noodles topped with ferrero rocher candies and whoppers and then covered in strawberry sauce. I love, love, LOVED making such a unique cake :) Thanks, Kristie!

Skateboard Cake

Stephanie wanted a unique cake for Kamrin's 12th birthday cake. He's a skater and she had a specific skateboard design she wanted replicated in cake form. The skateboard and wheels are all made of fondant and then the cake underneath is Cookies & Cake flavored... yum! I cut the design out of marshmallow fondant and hand painted the shading to give it more details. Here's the design of the actual skateboard.  I loved how the cake turned out!

Cars themed Birthday Cake

Jana wanted a fun birthday cake for Kristian's 1st birthday! She was doing a Cars themed party from the Disney movies and so we came up with this design based on a cake she had seen and loved. The top tier was Kristian's smash cake and it was all buttercream with the iconic Cars logo with Kristian's name inside of it.

The cake was Ruby Red Velvet and Strawberry Cheesecake Cake flavored. The bottom two tiers were covered in marshmallow fondant an decorated with fondant road signs. So much fun! :)

Penguin's Igloo Birthday Cake

I love this little topsy turvy penguin cake! It's all buttercream and the swirls on the side of the cake are marshmallow fondant. I made the penguins out of fondant as well and the snowflakes were fondant that have been dried with a little wire in them. Everytime I see this cake, it just reminds me of how cold Utah is! :) haha

Twilight Birthday Cake

I don't know much about Twilight but I do know there are some die-heart fans out there! I've done a few Twilight themed cakes in the past and this time we went with a different idea. Geysan had some of Valeria's favorite quotes from the book and so I wrote them all around the cake. I used the iconic chess pieces, apple, flowers, and ribbon from the books too. The cake was After Dinner Mint Cake and Snow white Cake (see my whole flavor list at www.SaltCakeCity.com). Ah, Team Edward, Team Jacob? I don't know but love to make the cakes for them!

Purple Zebra and Flowers!

Here comes an adorable story! Wendy emailed me and said her birthday was coming up and wanted to get a cake from me since she had some of her friend's wedding cake a while back and loved the flavor (Tuxedo cake, one layer of chocolate and 2 layers of vanilla cake layered with chocolate and vanilla buttercream and mini chocolate chips). Her request was to have a purple cake, maybe zebra stripes with colorful flowers on it. We planned it all out and came up with this design:

 That same week, I got a request from Sean for a purple cake with a black design on it and pretty flowers on it. He requested Tuxedo cake too, same specifications of 1 layer of chocolate, 2 vanilla, and mini chocolate chips! I thought it was strange but made it anyway and we came up with this design:

Turns out, Sean is Wendy's boyfriend who wanted to surprise her with a cake for her birthday! Wendy ended up with 2 Tuxedo cakes both in purple with flowers on it. I was pretty impressed at how well Sean did with describing what Wendy wanted. When Wendy came to get the surprise cake that Sean ordered, I asked if she still wanted it since she had just picked up the other one. She laughed and said of course, more cake for her! :) haha.

Pirate Birthday Cake

This single tiered pirate birthday cake was for Makayla's 14th birthday. She loves pirates, Halloween, and skulls so we came up with this design. It was a Chunky Monkey cake (chocolate cake with banana cream filling, fresh bananas, and chocolate ganache). It was covered in marshmallow fondant with piped buttercream spiderwebs. I loved the simplicity of the design :)

All Draped Wedding Cake

This 3-tiered wedding cake was all draping with bunches of fresh purple and white flowers. When Monica told me what she wanted, I was a little skeptical. Okay, I was REALLY skeptical. I was afraid that the full draping wouldn't look right. I'm glad we went forward with the concept though because I ended up loving this design. This was a 6-10-14 inch round cake but it doesn't look as big as it actually was. The wedding cake was covered in all marshmallow fondant and then I placed toothpicks where the fresh flowers needed to go.

The wedding was held at the Capital Building in Salt Lake City, which was a journey in and of itself! I had to deliver 3 wedding cakes that day so I was on a time crunch. We pulled up to the back of the building and went inside to scope out the location. It was upstairs and quite a bit away from where we were parked (illegally parked, I should mention) so I knew we wouldn't be able to carry the cake that far. I searched down a caterer to ask if they had a push cart we could use... and 30 minutes later, we finally had one. We slowly rolled the cake over to the reception area (every bump in the tile flooring was exaggerated with the cake on this push card) and my hubby ran back to the car to move it since we were parked illegally... outside of the Capital Building. Haha. Ironic. Anyway, I was trying to put the flowers on as quickly as possible since I heard the music starting and all of the wedding guests were awaiting the bride's walk down the stairs (it's nerve racking finishing a cake with a crowd of people surrounding you). I finished the look, snapped off some pictures, and ran away as fast as I could to see if we had a parking ticket (luckily we didn't). Phew! The cake turned out better than I could have ever imagined.

The top was Lemon raspberry cake, the middle was Smore's Cake and the bottom was Ruby Red Velvet cake. All marshmallow fondant draping... and it was HEAVY! haha. One more thing. When making this cake, it was quite possibly one of the ugliest cakes I've ever made until the put the flowers on it. It looked naked... and sad. Once those flowers were on though, gorgeoud! :)

Wood Grain Wedding Cake

Elaine wanted a wood grain wedding cake to match her beautiful venue up in Millcreek Inn. At this point, I had done a few wood grain cakes but I wanted to try a new technique. This cake is all buttercream with a marshmallow fondant border, bows, and pine cones. I frosted the cake a few times and let the buttercream set up. Then, I went over the cake with a modeling tool to create the grooves to look like wood grain. Then, I took brown food coloring and traced over the grooves with the color. I used a much wider brush and a bit of water to smooth out the color to give a much lighter wood grain color throughout the tiers. I darkened the tops of each tier, then added the forest green marshmallow fondant border and pine cones. I wish I could take credit for the base but that was provided by the wonderful bride and groom. That piece of real wood weighed A TON! I wasn't strong enough to put it into the car or carry it up to the venue myself! But it was so beautiful with the cake, and therefore totally worth it. :) Oh, and the whole cake was Can I Have Smore's Cake (You can check out my full flavor list at www.SaltCakeCity.com)

Mini Wedding Cake

I love this little mini-wedding cake! I did Suzanne's daughters wedding cake earlier in the year and then her son was getting married as well! That's one busy mama! She wanted a much smaller wedding cake for this second wedding and we came up with this little baby. Isn't it adorable? It's covered in marshmallow fondant and I believe it was Vanilla Latte Cake. Yum!

Let's Talk Groom's Cakes!

 I love when brides surprise their new hubbies with groom's cakes totally tailored to their likings. It's SO much fun to match a very elegant wedding cake with a much less elegant, and oftentimes explanation-less cake that even I don't understand! haha... don't worry, we'll get there. 

First up is this golf groom's cake. There was a very long discussion at the cake tasting on making a unique groom's cake rather than the same-ol-golfer on top of an argyle cake. I LOVED making this cake because it really was just one giant brainstorming session on making this cake totally different. Maren & her lovely mother, Betsy, helped come up great ideas, sketch ideas, colors, design, etc. for this lil' guy (actually, it was a huge cake :) The cake had red rocks on the backside along with a sand trap (made of brown sugar and graham crackers) and a water hazard. Oh, so much fun!

Next up we have a Minnesota Vikings Football groom's cake. ShiAnne wanted another unique groom's cake idea, not just the normal football shaped cake. We went with a topsy turvy design covered in marshmallow fondant with edible sugar balls coming out of the cake. Again...So... Much... Fun!

 Now we have a cake that needs some explanation. Do I know what this is? Not really... haha. If you're a Star Wars mega-fan you might recognize this as a Slave One. Yup, otherwise to the rest of you, google Slave One and you'll see what I was going for :) This really was quite a challenge because the whole thing was edible so I had to structure it correctly to have the top part hanging out of the top but not sag or fall over. I hand painted the colors on here to get them as close as possible to the Slave One I was going after. Ah... this was a challenge indeed but I do appreciate the challenge... thank you, KiElys!

Next up is a snowmobile. Katie wanted to display her hubby's favorite snowmobile all out of cake. This cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and again, hand-painted to get the right colors for the exact snowmobile I was going for. The windshield was exceptionally difficult to get to stand up correctly but worked out in the end :)

Lastly, we have an Adidas shoe groom's cake. The bride wanted to surprise the groom (and we went to great lengths to hide this puppy until after the wedding) with this all cake shoe covered in marshmallow fondant. Yup, I hand painted the stripes and logo on here after putting the right grooves in the front of the shoe and after adding the laces. It's funny to recreate something real because I want it to be as exact as possible while still looking edible. Loved making this shoe! Thank you, Danielle, for allowing me to make such a fun groom's cake for your hubby!

Princess Jasmine's Wedding Cake

Yes... this is actually Princess Jasmine's Wedding Cake! So it turns out that Disney created wedding cakes for some of their princess including Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Jasmine. My bride was also Princess Jasmine (like... really... Princess Jasmine) at Disney World so she thought it fitting that she have Princess Jasmine's wedding cake too! Being a huge Disney fan, I was thrilled to make this cake!

This cake was really a labor of love. It was SO heavy that I had to transport it in two pieces and assemble on site.... down a hill... in a light rain.... in front of the guests. It was all covered in marshmallow fondant and then I used edible gold shimmer for the middle tier and all of the gold accents. It's hard to see in this picture but I hand rolled and placed the white fondant scroll details on the top, 4th, and bottom tiers. Took forever and ever to get the designs spaced correctly around each tiers.

Honestly, the best part of making this cake was working with the bride and her mother. Her mother, Betsy, makes the most beautiful vintage dresses (http://modestcouturebyelizabeth.com/) and even made the bride's wedding dress. They were just as excited about this cake as I was... which always helps the process. It turned out exactly how I hoped it would... even in the rain :)

Red & Orange Cherry Blossom Cake

Rissa & Jasper were having a fall wedding but knew they wanted a cherry blossom flower cake so we joined the two ideas and came up with this red & orange cherry blossom wedding cake. The branches and flowers are all sugar as well! They chose Truffled Chocolate Cake and Tuxedo Cake with chocolate chips... yes, this couple loves their chocolate :) Since then, Rissa has ordered the Tuxedo cake a few times... sometimes, pregnancy cravings really need to be fed with cake! haha. Congrats on the baby, you two :)

Penguin Wedding Cake

Norman is from the east coast and wanted to surprise his fiance with a penguin wedding cake for their wedding out here in Utah. She loves this penguin stuffed animal she has and so he sent me pictures of it and I modeled this cake as closely as possible to the stuffed animal. The whole thing is cake and covered in marshmallow fondant and then I hand-painted the coloring to match the toy. The cake had three flavors inside of the little guy, Mom's Apple Pie Cake, Southern Butter Pecan Cake, and Ruby Red Velvet Cake. He was surprisingly heavy! haha

Bring on the Damask!

Dam-mask? Da-Mask? However you pronounce it, damask was in last year for sure! I made this 5-tiered damask and quilted cake for Carolyn & Parker who had their wedding at the beautiful Castle venue in Layton. Because the venue really does feel regal, we had to make this cake a definite display piece for the wedding. They chose White Raspberry Kiss Cake, Brownie Lovers Cake, Chocolate Hazelnut Cake and Ruby Red Velvet Cake for their flavors. The whole cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and I use buttercream for the damask pattern.

 This beautiful 3-tiered cake was for Ann Marie's beautiful wedding. I remember it being an exceptionally hot that day and so setting the cake up outside was really nerve racking for me. The florist had created this beautiful cake topper and flowers for the cake which I loved! Brought in so much color! Ann Marie wanted a square cake but wanted rounded edges which proved to be quite interesting when trying to get the damask stencil to go around the whole bottom tier. Then, we twisted the tiers a little bit to give it a little more personality. The couple chose Rainbow Bright Cake, White Raspberry Kiss Cake, and Ruby Red Velvet Cake.

This last wedding cake was for Meri's wedding. She had seen a cake I did last year with the same design and said it was perfect so we recreated it for her wedding. The whole cake was marshmallow fondant and then I shimmered the stripes on the top tier and shimmered the middle and bottom tiers. I used buttercream again for the damask patterns on the bottom and then accented the cake with fresh roses. Meri chose Banana Nut Cake, White Almond Wedding Cake, and Lemonberry Cake. You can see my full flavor list at www.SaltCakeCity.com