Sunday, May 13, 2012

Ivory Wedding Cake with Champagne Bow and Gum Paste Flowers



This past weekend I made a wedding cake (and a groom's cake, next post) for my friend Amanda, who I met taking tap dancing classes here in Atlanta.  She asked me no less than a year ago about doing her wedding cake and groom's cake, so of course I accepted!  But this was no easy feat-- this cake weighed 50+ pounds and had to travel all the way to Augusta with the accompanying groom's cake.  And let's remember I have an apartment-sized kitchen and a not-so-amazing oven.  Making enough room in the fridge... also a challenge.  Here are the 4 tiers for the bride's cake and the parking spot for the groom's cake.  Not a whole lot of room for much else...



Another part of this story that has not yet made it to my amazing blog readers is that I defended my thesis on April 30!  And passed!!!  That means I finish up my thesis revisions and as of this Friday I am DONE with my PhD.  I'll graduate officially in August.  :)  This also means that I didn't have much time to work on stuff in advance as I usually do.

But I started the flowers about a month ago.  The bride wanted pale pink and green hydrangea, and I suggested pink cymbidium orchids as focal flowers along with some little dendrobium orchids.  I had a new mini-cymbidium cutter set that I was excited about, so this was a great opportunity to try it out.


This is the un-dusted cymbidium... cute huh?  I kind of love it.

I finished the flowers over the weekend and finished assembling the topper on Monday.
Here's the dusted dendrobium orchid:


And the painted/ dusted cymidium... it really comes to life, right?


Here's the assembled topper:


I had some fun figuring out how to get the fondant pearls to stay in place on the silver wires, but I thought the end result was pretty nice.

As far as the rest of the cake, I designed it together with the bride based on some other ideas she liked, her wedding colors, her dress, and her number of servings.  I made a mold of the brooch she wore on her dress and created a replica to be featured in the center of the bow.



The cake traveled fully assembled all the way to Augusta, thanks to some help from my friends. :)  I borrowed a friend's SUV and had some heavy lifting help (+ sandwich delivery and general moral support) from my 'date'. ;)


I finished the cake with just a few more cymbidiums on the bottom corners.

The topper went perfectly with the centerpieces, and the ribbon/ brooch was a perfect match to the bride's dress.  And obviously, I was really happy that everything arrived in one piece.

Congratulations Amanda and Philip! :)

10 comments:

  1. Hi Roxanne. I just discovered your blog and I think you did an amazing job with this cake. Do you have any tips on refrigerating fondant covered cakes?

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  2. Thanks, AnnaBeL! Just try to keep moisture out as much as possible. I have more trouble with cakes that are airbrushed because of the surface moisture. Just be careful you don't place them under anything that is likely to drip (like a carafe of water). I have heard that some industrial fridges can be adjusted to have less moisture content, but usually I don't have many problems. :) I like to keep the cakes cold because I work mainly with butter-based buttercreams, fresh fruit purees, etc.

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  3. We could not be happier with how these cakes turned out! I love you hon!!! You are amazing!!

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  4. Roxanne, you're a genius! These painted chymidiums look amazing! If I can make my sister a wedding cake that looks only half as good as the one you made for Amanda, she'll be thrilled :-)
    Anyway, you haven't told us yet what your plans for the future are, now that you passed your PhD thesis. Is Engineering or Caking in your future?

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  5. Beautiful wedding cake. It's really mouth watering. The floral designs and ribbon are awesome. Thanks for sharing this post to us.

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  6. Wow! Such a unique wedding cake. I love it! Thanks for sharing this to us.

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  7. I just found your blog, and I am so impressed with your cakes. You are so talented...and to think you were defending your thesis while trying to get these flowers made. Wow!

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  8. can you please tell me what size pan was use for this cake thanks

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  9. Nice post! This is a very nice blog that I will definitively come back to more times this year! Thanks for informative post. best wood to make a bow

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