Gourmet Specialty's: 2012

Kaitlin and Adam

The final wedding cake for 2012 was as beauty. The reception was held at Quincy Cellars Winery and the cake was displayed on a wine barrel.

The design was replicated from a cake the bride had seen in a magazine. It features an 11"x 6" Almond cake with Almond mousse, 9" Almond Joy cake (rich dark bittersweet chocolate cake with the traditional Almond Joy coconut filling and a layer of fudge); note that this layer is only 2" high. Designs where the layers are different heights give a truly dramatic look to the overall cake. The next tier was 7" x 5" White cake with Italian buttercream and the top was 5" x 4" Almond cake with standard buttercream.

All tiers were covered in an ivory fondant and the flowers are small roses in relief made both in deep aubergine and lavender colors. The greenery is hand piped in royal frosting. Around the base of each tier is a royal frosting pearl border and the couple monogram was the final touch.

Ella's 2nd Birthday

Ella's cake was an 8" Almond cake with fresh Raspberries and buttercream frosting. The letters, ribbon, bow, number and Elmo are all made of fondant.

Jack-O'-Lantern

As our children are grown, we no longer carve pumpkins for Halloween. I looovvvveeee Halloween, so this year I decided to make sugar cookies that I could light-up in the house.

Using my favorite sugar cookie dough, I rolled out and cut my pumpkin, as well as three small squares. Once the pieces were cooled, I frosted the cookies, then using isomalt I filled in the eyes, nose and mouth. Royal icing was used to glue all the pieces together and allowed to dry overnight.

Here he is all lit-up using a tea-light candle :)

Brenda and Rob

The brides design was one found on the internet in black and white. However, she changed just about everything from the picture to create an original design just for her big day.

Colors of Tiffany and Brown.

Being a A-type artistic personality, I usually keep all things in natural color to represent the beauty of nature, i.e. flowers. With that being said sometimes fake color works better and this cake was just one that worked. These flowers are based on a poppy and impatiens. First I made small cone centers in several sizes and painted them tiffany blue or brown. I then wrapped coat-thread around my fingers several times to make the stamen which were tapped into place. These were allowed to dry overnight.

Next I cut the petals and took a center down through the middle of each flower. When all the flowers were complete, I typed the wires to create a cascade of flowers for the front of the cake. I added spiral wire in brown to give the final design a little edge.

The cake board was initially white and to much of a contrast to the flowers so before assembling the cake I airbrushed the lace a tiffany blue.

This cake features a 12" Chocolate Peanut Butter cake with Peanut Butter Mousse, a 9" Red Velvet cake with Strawberry compote and a 6" Spice with Apple Butter Cream Cheese filling. The couple also had a half sheet cake of Marble cake with Fudge filling.

Bernice

The couple was married in Sedona, AZ, on Bear Mountain and returned to Erie Pennsylvania to celebrate with those who could not make the trip.

I had a lovely conversation with the mother-of-the-bride (Bernice) who placed the order.

She requested a two tier design and emailed a picture of the centerpieces another daughter had made for the tables. The centerpieces where small pails with a Saguaro Cactus in the center and red and yellow desert flowers all around. The pail then had a raffia bow tied around its middle.

Using the Fat-Daddio paisley cake pans (as a representation for the mountains), the bottom tier was White and the top tier was Chocolate all with a Strawberry Compote. The Saguaro Cactus are sugar cookies, the desert flowers were gumpaste. I airbrushed the surface of the cake the color of the raffia. I then added a warm sun-set sky, and candy pebbles all around. I also made a Sugarveil bow this same color as the raffia to tie around the base of the flowers.

A full sheet of Marble cake with Strawberry Compote made a grand total of 150 guest.