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

Mini Star Wars Birthday Cake

Amy saw the Star Wars cake I made a while back with a similar design and wanted something smaller for Summit's birthday cake. It's covered in marshmallow fondant with MMF shooting stars and light sabers on top. I hand-cut the characters and the logo from MMF. By this point, I've made Yoda, Darth Vader, Leia, Luke, and R2 so many times, I could do it in my sleep :)

Chanel No 1... in cake form

Katie was throwing an awesome 1st birthday bash for her daughter, Chloe. She had adorable pictures of Chloe in pink and black with a Chanel purse done up for the invitations so I modeled this cake after that idea. We have the perfume Chanel No. 1 bottle on the left  covered in marshmallow fondant and edible pearls. Then, I made a cute black and pink hat box with a Chanel purse on top that's covered in edible shimmer. The little pink purse in the front was little Chloe's smash cake. I had so much fun with this cake! Thank you, Katie, for always giving me such great cake designs!! :)

Strawberry Shortcake Cake

Rachel wanted a little cutesy Strawberry Shortcake Cake for Reagan's 3rd birthday so we made this sweet little cake with marshmallow fondant strawberries and sign. It was Strawberry Not so Short Cake (of course! How could it not be!) :) Umm... let's see. I think that's it. Oh, the red stitching and trim around the pink top were all hand piped with buttercream. Okay, now I think that's it :)

Shopping & Make Up Sweet 16 Cake

Tonya threw a big Sweet 16 bash for her daughter Shontae and wanted a shopping & make up themed birthday cake. I know it doesn't look like it but there are three flavors here, Brownie Lovers Cake, Ruby Red Velvet, & Cookies & Cake. See, the trick it, the tall shopping bag is actually 2 full tiers of cake and then it's covered in marshmallow fondant so that it looks like one cake. The bag handles and the "tissue paper" are also made out of marshmallow fondant. I made all of the make up pieces by hand out of fondant and then added those around the two bags. I'm realizing right now that I shouldn't have put the cake and accessories on a pinkish/red-ish background because you can't see the details in the make up pieces. Dang it! So sorry! I'll work on that :)

Dress Form Birthday Cake

My favorite vintage wedding dress maker, Betsy from Modest Couture by Elizabeth (http://modestcouturebyelizabeth.com/) was having a birthday and her daughter wanted to me to make her a special cake. I have to say that this family is one of my most favorite clients to make cakes for because they always come to me first with great ideas, second with such faith, and third with so much enthusiasm! (The Ice Age cake I just posted and the Gold and white Princess Jasmine wedding cake were for this family... many more to come!)

The idea we had for this cake was to make it a dress-maker friendly cake. My thought was to do a dress form on top of a cute-sy little cake. Who knew it's ridiculously hard to sculpt a dress form out of rice krispies and then somehow get it to stay up there on a pole? Yeah... learned that the hard way. Haha. Anyway I added a few little marshmallow fondant rosettes and then said a prayer that the dress form would stand... luckily it did :) Thank you, ladies, for always challenging me and trusting me!

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? 

Black & White Shimmered Damask Wedding Cake

Jarom and Hillary wanted a very elegant wedding cake to match their wedding theme and venue. They got married at Chateau Faire, which is a beautiful and cozy wedding venue with a cottage feel to it. To keep to the black, white, and red theme, we did an all white wedding cake with touches of black and deep red roses. The whole cake was shimmered with edible pearl shimmer. The middle tier was quilted with a special cushion pattern to give it a little more detail and then small black dragees were placed in the corners. The bottom tier was all shimmered with a three piece damask pattern on each side.

The cake was Lemon Supreme Cake, Vanilla Latte Cake, and Brownie Lovers Cake (Check out more information on my website, www.SaltCakeCity.com under flavors). Yum!

Thank you so much to Hillary and Suzanne. This cake order was so much fun to complete and they were just such wonderful people. I've worked with both of them on several cakes now and look forward to a long cake future together :)

Hot Pink & Damask Wedding

Lisa wanted an elegant but still fun and girlie wedding cake. Her wedding colors were hot pink, black, and white and she wanted to add some bling in there too. After getting a better idea of what she wanted, we came up with this design together. We used a full black damask pattern on the bottom tier to match her damask wedding scheme as well. The middle tier had pink and white pinstripes with an edible black border. We added some jewels around the monogram for extra bling and then used pink dragees in the corners of the diamond pattern on the top tier. I created small pink, hot pink, and white sugar flowers to make up a flower bunch on the top of the cake.

The wedding was held at a relative's beautiful home. The whole backyard was set up beautifully to match the color and damask scheme. It was stunning! I was so happy that the cake fit in perfectly to the wedding landscape. Congratulations, Lisa & Jared!!

Oh, her flavors were White Raspberry Kiss and Turtle Power Cake (you can check out the flavor descriptions at www.SaltCakeCity.com).

Piece of Cake!

Contrary to what this blog might suggest, I don't always make a cake for my classes. I did happen to make this cake for my students at Neumont University last quarter. I wanted it to be fun and festive and I've always wanted to do a slice of cake-cake. This was my opportunity!

To achieve look, I baked a full size cake. Then, before I frosted and filled the cake, I cut out the slice that I wanted to use as the top. I torted and frosted each of these two pieces separately. I did a flavor experiment with my students (free cake should always be an experiment :) It was a Peach Cobbler Cake, peach flavored spice cake layered with peach filling and granola. Wasn't my favorite experiment but from it, I revamped my peach flavor and now have the Just Peachy Cake (cinnamon vanilla cake layered with peach filing, peach slices and cinnamon buttercream). Anyway, back to this cake!

I covered the whole cake in white marshmallow fondant, then, I used a yellow fondant and made the sides of the cake lined with purple filling (I'm not quite sure what purple filling would be but I loved the color combination). I added stripes to the outside of the cake, then covered the top of the cake with teal "frosting." In order to the get that ruffle look, I simple didn't push the sides of the fondant onto the cake itself, I lifted the sides of the fondant to give it some volume. Lastly, I added marshmallow fondant "sprinkles." Yum!

Thank you, ladies & gents for a great class! It's always a fun time at Neumont :)

Tiffany Blue Wedding Cake

Jennica & Braden were having a very traditional and elegant wedding and at the tasting, Jennica said she wanted a fun and colorful cake to offset the traditional. This is what she had in mind. This cake was based on a cake from Creative Cakes & Cookies and incorporated Jennica's beautiful wedding colors (black, white, and Tiffany blue). The whole cake is covered in marshmallow fondant and decorated with MMF as well.

Jennica & Braden chose three flavors for their cake. The first was Brownie Lovers (chocolate cake layered with chocolate ganache and a layer of chewy brownies), the second was Ruby Red Velvet Cake (moist red velvet cake layered with cream cheese frosting), and the last was White Raspberry Kiss (white chocolate cake layered with white chocolate ganache and raspberry cream filling).

When I got to the venue to deliver the cake, they had a BEAUTIFUL room set up. I came in just as the wedding party was taking their photos together and wow, they looked wonderful. Everyone was dressed in black, white and Tiffany blue and room matched. Have I mentioned that this was a picture perfect couple? :) I have to give a special shout out to Penny, mother of the bride. She was amazing to work with to make sure all of the details were correct on the cake and also for the set up. Thank you all for being so easy to work with!

Soccer Birthday

Carol wanted to get Matthew a unique birthday cake for his 16th birthday (not sweet 16, but rather a soccer 16 birthday). I remember telling her that it's not as easy as it sounds to make a soccer themed cake that doesn't look like a child's party cake. I came up with this design to incorporate Matthew's school colors, red and gold, along with his soccer jersey. Making a completely edible soccer net was quite the challenge. Fondant likes to lay flat to I had to dry it against a curved object that it wouldn't stick to. Four nets later, this one worked :) It's hard to see in this picture but it's on the top there with the fondant 16.

The cake was an Orange Dreamsicle Cake (orange cake layered with orange cream filling and buttercream) covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. Carol and Matthew were so excited when I delivered the cake while I apologized the whole time about it still looking childish to me. Haha... I'm such a perfectionist. They both loved it and so I just have to get over it. :)

Bright Zebra Birthday

Whitney wanted a bright & fun birthday cake with a zebra print theme somewhere in there so we came up with this design for her 13th birthday party. To make it a little more whimsical, I tapered in the sides and made it slightly topsy so that it almost looks like it's falling over. The cake was Cookies & Cake (vanilla cake layerd with crushed Oreo cookies) and white cake with raspberry filling (the birthday girl's choices, of course). The balls and the number "13" are all made out of fondant and the whole cake was covered and decorated with marshmallow fondant. I had a ton of fun with this cake because it was just bright and colorful. Hmm... I don't think there's much else to it! :)

Chocolate Truffle Box

Mona wanted a unique birthday cake for her mother-in-law and she thought a chocolate truffle box would be great since she loves chocolates so much. For this cake, I wanted to make cake truffles in the place of chocolate truffles and they are peaking through the lid there. The whole box is edible including the lid and bow. The cake was Chocolate Dipped Cherry Cake (chocolate cake with baked cherries layered with chocolate buttercream) and it was covered and decorated with marshmallow fondant. I love how simple this cake looks while being very elegant and realistic as well. Enjoy!

Rock Star 1-Year Old

Nia wanted a memorable and fun 1st birthday cake for her daughter, Sela Malaysia. She knew off the bat it needed to be rock star but wanted to keep a pink and brown color scheme. We came up with this design with fun stars shooting out of the cake along with an edible guitar and microphone.

Two tiers are Brownie Lovers (chocolate cake layered with chocolate ganache and real brownies) and one tier is Rainbow Bright Cake (vanilla cake dyed to match the color of the cake with sprinkles layered with buttercream and rainbow sprinkles) The whole cake is covered in homemade marshmallow fondant.

For those of you interested in caking, making shooting stars is so easy to make and gives the cake a little extra pop. Roll out your fondant (I use MMF) pretty thick. Use any cookie cutters you have laying around but remember that if your shooting star is too big, it'll make the wire bend and fall over so you want something not too big, not too small. Cut out your shapes with your cookie cutters. Now use flower wire (or really any thin wire you can find) and twist the very top of the wire into a little loop. Shove the loop into the fondant and twist the wire just gently. The idea here is that the loop will catch onto the sides of the fondant and not let the star slide off of the wire. Then set the shape aside for a day or two. It'll dry and harden, then you can just pop into the cake. Yay!

Blue & Silver Stripes Cake

Heather & Craig needed a simple but elegant cake for their marriage at The Castle in Layton. When I met them at the tasting, I thought they were SO kind and just an all around fun couple so I was thrilled to make this cake from them. Heather had seen a similar cake I made for a previous wedding and wanted to incorporate her wedding colors. They were having a winter wedding but were firmly against having a Christmas theme or a snowflake theme so we kept it simple with silver and blue.

The cake tiers were 6-inches tall a piece so it was a very heavy and very tall cake. The top tier was Strawberry Cheesecake Cake (strawberry cake layered with cheesecake filling and buttercream), the middle tier was Rocky Mountain Road Cake (chocolate cake layered with mini-marshmallows, chocolate chips, and chocolate buttercream... we left the chopped almonds out) and the bottom tier was White Raspberry Kiss Cake (white chocolate cake layered with raspberry filling and white chocolate ganache). Wow, that was a mouthful!

Now for the details. The cake was covered in marshmallow fondant. I used the paneling method in which I roll out fondant in the size of each side of the tiers. Then, I essentially put the MMF on the cake just like a contractor would with drywall except I use buttercream :) I then cut out stripes of gray and blue and placed them on the cake so that they overlap. Lastly, I painted the gray stripes with edible silver luster dust to give it more shine. Ah, so much fun!!!

I ran into Heather last week at the "What a Woman Wants Expo" and she said she loved the cake :) From that order, I actually became one of the preferred vendors at The Castle and she was so happy that her wedding cake was the catalyst for the connection (I was thrilled too :) Thank you both for the trust and support in making your wedding cake!

Cake in the Hat?

Reena needed a small but fun cake for Sawyer's second birthday. She wanted to do a themed birthday cake and was thinking the Cat in the Hat would be fun. We came up with this design together and I actually think the real cake came out better than the sketch! The whole cake was Truffled Chocolate Cake (chocolate cake layered with chocolate cream filling and mini chocolate chips along with chocolate buttercream) and it was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. The bow and the #2 at the top were also MMF so that Sawyer could really eat the whole thing.

To make the top cake, I layered stripes of white and red fondant over each other to make it look like fabric. Then, I used black food coloring and a paintbrush to paint on the infamous black lines from the book. When I delivered the cake, Reena loved it! It was just such a cute, whimsical cake :)

Brown & Burgundy Wedding Cake

Elise was getting married and wanted a brown, burgundy, and white wedding cake to match her decor. She wanted something elegant but still fun at the same time. The top tier was Brownie Lovers (chocolate cake layered with actual brownies and chocolate ganache), the middle tier was English Toffee Cake (sweet yellow cake layered with chocolate buttercream and toffee chunks) and the bottom tier was Spices & Cake (spice cake layered with cheesecake filling and buttercream).

The whole cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and the bow on the top was also MMF. The floral pattern was stenciled on using a designer stencil and buttercream. I've recently had many people ask how I do stenciling on a cake. It's been a learning process and I have to say, I've learned a lot in making mistakes first. The first time I did a stencil, it worked beautiful so I thought to myself, "Yay! That's so easy!" Then I went through a rough patch where I would stencil, it wouldn't come out to my liking. For example, if the cake is white and I'm using brown buttercream to stencil, the brown can bleed or get smudged and unfortunately, it's not like I can just "erase" the errors. Essentially, I had to take the fondant off, recover the whole cake, and try the stencil again. With this technique, it's quite noticeable when there's an error and on my cakes, that's not okay for me. On this cake, I took my time to make sure my buttercream job was perfect, then made sure my fondant job was good to go before attempting the stencil. If the buttercream or fondant aren't done correctly, the stenciling will just not work right. I really think that's half the battle (G.I. Joe... knowing is half the battle.... :)

Anyway, when I went to deliver the cake, they had this amazing cake table set up under a gazebo with a great table and lighting. I thought it was such a beautiful set up and the bride and groom were there taking pictures (they looked beautiful). Thank you both for allowing me to make such a fun cake! Congratulations!