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!

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

Black & White Damask Wedding Cake

So last year, I made quite a few black and white damask wedding cakes. This one was definitely different and it was REALLY heavy! The cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and then I used a designer stencil and buttercream to essentially "paint" the design onto the side of the cake. I know that sounds easy but if it doesn't come out perfect, I have to take down all the fondant and then re-fondant the whole tier (is re-fondant a word??). The tiers were separated by styrofoam blocks and then the florist provided the flowers. I always tell people who want to have a tier of flowers in between that however many they think they need for the design, double it! This cake was a perfect example! The florist gave me a full bucket of flowers and if you could see the back of the cake, you would see where we ran out! Yikes! Luckily I used some extra filler flowers that the florist had left over to fill in the gaps in the back. Even more lucky, the cake was against a wall :) haha.

Red, White, & Purple Wedding Cake!

Okay, so I know the color looks blue here... but I promise, it was much more purple. It's weird how my purple never shows up correctly. Anywho... The cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and then I piped the swirl design in the middle tier (wow, I just said that in my last post!). It was English Toffee Cake & Rainbow Bright Cake. Yum! :)

Swirls & Quilting Wedding Cake

 I ended up really loving this simple white wedding cake once I put the beautiful red roses on there. It's funny to me how sometimes I think some cakes look naked without flowers on them! Anyway, the cake was Samoa Says Cake and Southern Butter Pecan Cake (check out my website for more flavors and descriptions, www.SaltCakeCity.com). It's all covered in marshmallow fondant and then I piped the swirl design on the middle tier.

Modern Pink Ruffle Flower Wedding Cake

 Vy wanted a unique wedding cake and had a very modern cake idea in mind. It was modeled after a cake she saw and loved. When I got to the wedding venue, she had a beautiful cake table set up complete with this adorable sign and a list of the cake flavors! Genius! The cake had Chocolate Hazelnut, White Raspberry Kiss and Double Chocolate Raspberry. The trick to the middle tier is to have 2 full tiers of cake inside one. I made 2 separate 8 inch round tiers and then put one on top of the other. I covered the whole thing in marshmallow fondant and then added this pink ruffled flower. Enjoy!

Police Car Groom's Cake

This groom's cake went with the yellow square wedding cake below. The groom is a police officer so they wanted a cool groom's cake to reflect that. It's all cake and then covered in marshmallow fondant. I actually cut out wheel holes in the side of the cake and then make full sized (to scale) tires to fit in the holes. That way, it looks like a real wheel on a car. So here's the process: Bake the cakes, let them cool. Stack and torte the cake by adding frostings and fillings (Yes, I do this to all my cakes so that my shaped cakes taste just as good as my tiered cakes). Chill in the fridge. Carve the cake. Frost the cake again. Chill in the fridge. Carve the cake again. Frost it yet again. Chill in the fridge. Cover in marshmallow fondant. Chill in the fridge. Add grooves in the cake, paint the front and back of the car.... chill in the fridge. Make the tires, mirrors, front and back lights, and lights on the top. Add those details. Take a step back and fix anything that's missing or wrong on the cake. Adhere it to a base of some sort. Now back into the fridge. It's amazing just how long cars take to make out of cake! :)

Yellow & Gray Square Wedding Cake

This 4-tiered square cake was a twist (literally) on a Tiffany blue & black wedding cake I made a while back. The bride wanted something fun but still elegant. It was all covered in marshmallow fondant and then I added the white swirl pattern by piping it on there (painstakingly!). Yup, that takes a long time and kinda hurts! haha. Here's an up close photo of the piping.

The bride, Toni, chose Brownie Lovers cake, Just Peachy Cake, and Truffled Chocolate Cake. Yum! Here's a weird thought. I made this cake over a year ago but by just looking at it, I remembered the bride's name. Is that weird? I guess that's good, right? 

Yellow Flowers & Branch Cake

This wedding cake went with the Tardis groom's cake below. This was an all buttercream cake with a marshmallow fondant branch and sugar flowers going up the front (well, that's obvious, isn't it?). Let's see, what to tell.... This type of cake is just a matter of free-forming branches and placing them so that they don't look too bulky or too cluttered. Then, I added a few little sugar flowers with an edible pearl in the center of each. 

Katherine ordered Ruby Red Velvet, Vanilla Latte, and Lemon Supreme for this cake. Oh, for messy buttercream, it's actually hard to walk away from the design. I'm kind of a perfectionist so I always try to make it look "right" but messy buttercream is supposed to look wrong. It's about moving your wrist back and forth while rotating your cake and then taking a step back. Hard to explain, hard to walk away from :)

Doctor Who Tardis Groom's Cake

I can't tell you how many people see this cake in my portfolio and say "Oh my gosh! Doctor Who!" Yes, this is a Dr. Who Tardis which is his time machine. I had seen a few pictures of Tardis cakes before but I wanted to be as exact as possible. I researched this thing for weeks before the wedding because the one thing the groom asked for at the cake tasting was that the groom's cake be awesome. He was quite serious about it too! Haha. It was half Emerald City Cake and half Brownie Lovers cake covered in marshmallow fondant. I painted the wording on the top with edible food coloring and the sign on the front was written with edible food coloring markers. You can check out the real Tardis to see what it says because I wrote it word for word.

When I delivered the cake, I set this puppy down and started taking pictures of the wedding cake. Then I heard the groomsmen come in and start ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the cake. The groom walked in very slowly and walked around the table before saying. "It's perfect." Haha. That's all I wanted!

Lemon Buttercream Wedding Cake

This cake fit perfectly at Millcreek Inn! It was up the canyon and deep into the valley with greenery everywhere. It was beautiful! The cake was all vanilla cake but 2 layers had lemon curd and raspberry filling and 1 layer had strawberry cream filling. It was all buttercream and then I used real lemon rinds around the tiers and 4 real lemons on the top. The whole cake smelled like lemon! It would've been weird if it were all chocolate on the inside :)

Round & Hexagon Wedding Cake

Have you ever made a cake and stepped back and thought "Oh no... that's not good." That's how I felt about this cake when I first made it. It was REALLY tall and I wasn't sure that I liked the combination of shapes... but then... I delivered the cake and helped the florist add the flowers and BAM! It was GORGEOUS! The off-white color with the edible pearl shimmer worked beautifully with the deep purple flowers. The whole cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and I used a few edible pearls here and there in the design. Here's a close up shot:

The flavors were Banana Cream Pie, Coconut Cream Pie, Strawberry Cheesecake Cake, and Emerald City Cake. Quite the variety! Yum!

Lime Green & Pink Topsy Wedding Cake

This bride wanted some REALLY bright and fun for her wedding cake. This 3-tiered topsy turvy cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and then I added the swirls at the bottom by rolling long thin ropes of MMF and cutting them in half (so that there was a flat side to stick well to the cake). I free-handed the design which created way more variety in the design. I added white pearl swags and multi-colored ball border. For the sugar flowers, I used daisy cutters and sunflower cutters and dried them in small bowls to give them some shape. I love that we used the extra flowers on the table!

The flavors were Banana Cream Pie, Emerald City Cake, and Coconut Cream Pie Cake. For more info on the flavors, check out my website and the full list of flavors (www.SaltCakeCity.com).