Twins who Love Purses

Brian called to say that his wife and her twin sister were turning 30 this week and to celebrate, he wanted two really cool purse cakes. They were spending the week vacationing in Park City and so it was only fitting to do two really chic handbags. I modeled both of these cakes after actual purses but edited them just a bit while trying to keep the same feel and detail work. In addition to the cakes, Brian wanted to make sure that these were personalized for each woman. Dallas' cake was a vintage Chanel purse (Strawberry Tall Cake: Strawberry cake layered with vanilla filling and buttercream) while Danielle's purse cake was a Coach handbag (Supremely Lemon Cake: Lemon cake layered with lemon filling and buttercream). They both turned out to be life-size. The Coach bag was over 8inches tall, 9inches wide, and 4.5 inches thick. Everything in these pictures are completely edible and made out of homemade marshmallow fondant. The ladies are from Texas so we had to add that detail in here somewhere, so we thought of the key chain. There are doggy collars as well because they love their dogs, Dixie, Stella, and Miles. The Park City postcard was made out of marshmallow fondant and the trees are painted onto the "card." The necklaces were modeled after Carrie's necklace in Sex and the City.

Now for some more detail on caking. In order to give the cakes the right shimmer, I tinted the fondant just a touch and after covering the cakes, I painted the cakes with edible silver or gold shimmer. Although it's hard to see here, the shimmer made the cakes really glow. The lipsticks, necklaces, pearls, key chains, and dog collars were all hand painted as well. In order to make the pearl necklace, I rolled out small balls of white fondant. I let them dry and harden just a touch over night. They were hard on the outside but still a little squishy on the inside. Then, I took a thin wire (18 gauge florist wire) and threaded the beads onto the wire. After connecting the last ball to the first with the wire, I painted the whole necklace with white petal dust. It's pretty amazing to see how fast time can fly when you're caking! Hours and hours into the night... ahh, so fun!