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!

Poker Groom's Cake

Regan wanted to surprise her future husband with a poker themed groom's cake. I made a similar cake for the TV spot I did on KUTV and so we recreated it with a better hand :) The cake was Mocha Java flavored (Chocolate cake layered with coffee buttercream... yum!) and covered in homemade marshmallow fondant.

I love the simplicity of this cake. The cards are really just rectangles, the chips are just circles, and the side pieces are fondant discs with spades, clubs, hearts, and diamonds cut with aspic cutters. To make the chips, I cut out circles, then used a circle cutter even small to indent a circle inside of the chip. I cut out tiny white squares and placed them around the edges to make it look more realistic.

Thank you to my brothers for all of their help and "research" in getting the cards and chips as accurate as possible :)

White & Black Separated Cake

Chanelle wanted a really unique but also traditional wedding cake. We spent a lot of time figuring out which details to include and exclude for this wedding cake in order to get it perfect for her. We kept it traditional by using the columns to separate the cakes but threw in a more modern design with the floral designs and using a black and white color theme. The top two tiers were hand-piped designs, the third tier down was a floral designer stencil and the bottom tier was quilted with black dragees at the corners. The whole cake was covered in marshmallow fondant. Half of the cake was Chocolate cake with strawberry filling and the other half was White Chocolate Dipped Strawberry cake.

I have to admit a major fault here. Chanelle wanted the whole cake to be shimmered, which I think is so lovely because it shines beautifully. So I completed each tier, then sprayed the whole cake with edible pearl shimmer. I had a total panic attack when I realized that the shimmer on the black piping turned the black into silver. AH! I spent the next few hours hand painting all of the piping back into black. I felt so silly afterward!

So I try to assemble most of my cakes, if possible, before I get to the venue. There's really nothing more nerve racking than assembling a cake with a crowd of wedding guests surrounding me. Makes my hands shake!! Haha. This cake, however had to be assembled on site. I brought all of the back up supplies just in case I had a cake-tastrophy on the way over. Luckily, it was smooth sailing all the way. I loved the lighting behind the cake table as well. I placed the bride and groom on the top, added the cute purple flowers and took off just in time for the wedding to start. Yay!

Maroon & Brown Shimmer Cake

I was asked to make a display cake for an awesome venue that I partner with (The Gathering Place at Gardner Village) because they were doing a wedding show. I've been to their main reception hall and it's warm and rustic so I wanted to bring in those tones with this display cake. The whole cake is covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. This top tier is quilted and I placed little impressions in the corners so that it looks more like a cushion or pillow or fabric. Then, I placed little edible dragees in the center of the corners. I added a beaded border made out of MMF to top off this tier. The second tier has an edible brown ribbon with a brooch studded with more dragees. I layered fondant around the tier a few times to give it the look of fabric as well. The third tier is a hexagon and I covered it in white fondant. Then, I used a sponge and food coloring to sponge on a brown tone. I let it dry and then sponged on another layer of brown dye.

Lastly for this tier, I used a damask stencil up against the dried fondant and essentially spray painted edible shimmer onto the cake so that it only showed up in the light. It's such a soft pattern that's barely noticeable but it's one of my favorite touches on the cake. I added a very small pearl border around this tier as well. The fourth tier repeated the design of the second tier with a maroon background and the "fabric" fondant border and a larger edible bow & brooch. The last tier was similar to the top tier. For this one though, I did a little something different.

I have done the quilted pattern on many cakes but I wanted to make it unique for this display. Rather than quilting the whole base, I centered the pattern on each side and only quilted a triangle shape onto the cake. Again, this was such a subtle touch but I love it. This final tier had a pearl border as well. I sprayed the whole cake down with the same edible shimmer that the damask pattern was sprayed with and made the whole cake pop a little more.

The ladies at the Gathering Place said it was a big hit and it looked like it belonged in their wedding set up at the wedding expo. It was home :)