City-Inspired Wedding Cake

 This cake has been a pet project of mine for a while now.  My friend Mandi had requested I do her wedding cake back in the spring, and I had so much fun designing this cake for her occasion.  I worked on the gum paste components on the side over the last month, and needless to say, I didn't sleep much the couple days before her event.  It was totally worth it to see this design come together.

Let's go way back to the design.

Mandi was great to work with-- she gave me photos of her dress, the bridesmaids' dresses, a color swatch, save the date, centerpieces, etc.  She told me she was doing a city theme and was thinking of maybe using the king and queen buildings that are iconic on GA 400 as inspiration.

To give the cake an architectural look, I mixed square and round cake tiers and got the idea of adding a topper to look a little like the queen building.  My goal was to fuse architecture with feminine flair, so I thought of building a gum paste peony and bud into the the topper.

As you can imagine, getting those gum paste 'straps' to stand up like that required all of my cunning.  And I had to put the peony in before adding the second strap...

Another idea I had in my head was inspired by an old cake decorating magazine where I saw someone build a filigree tier out of pastillage for a cake show.  I thought, why not do it for a real cake, in gum paste instead of pastillage, and add some building profiles to add to the city theme.  The artist in me thought to put more gum paste flowers inside the mesh and the engineer in me thought... how about a light source so that when the sun sets the whole filigree is illuminated...

It is hard to see the light in broad daylight, but you can see it catching one of the rose petals (it is mounted to the top of a clear cake plate).   If I can get pictures of the cake from the reception after night fall, I will share them with you.  The bride told me the light worked! :)

Here are the gum paste roses and leaves that went inside the filigree tier.  I just clustered 3 roses and some leaves while I was setting up so no styrofoam was required.

The piping on the two round tiers was inspired by the details on the bride's wedding dress.  It is was hand piped with royal icing and then hand painted in silver luster.  The silver detail on the top tier around the topper was done the same way.

Sorry for the backlight (though the scenery is amazing!).  This venue is on a 14th floor downtown near the aquarium here in Atlanta.   You can imagine the view is gorgeous day and night.

The silver beads were done with gray 50/50 paste (half fondant, half gum paste) using a pearl mold and then painted silver to match the piping.

The squares on the bottom tier are actually an underlay-- I made fondant squares a day or so in advance and let them dry.  I adhered them to the bottom tier before putting on the fondant and then carefully smoothed to reveal the design using both my hands and some tools to enhance the details.

Here is a view from the back (with less back light):

And one more from the front!

Delivery to the 14th floor presented its own set of challenges.  It took a long walk and 2 different (slow) elevators to get all the bits and pieces up to the venue.  The bottom half consisted of a custom wooden board, plus the square and round cakes which together probably weighed 60 lbs.  I could not have done it without the help of the boyfriend, Craig, who assisted with heavy lifting, sandwich delivery, and general moral support.  If you decorate cakes then you know-- it's not over till you actually deliver it and get it set up.

I really enjoyed seeing this cake come together and pushing myself to try new techniques.  Thanks for looking and happy caking!

Romantic Wedding Dress Cake

So first of all, I am alive and well! :)  Sorry you haven't heard from me in a while.

Yesterday, I entered the Florida I.C.E.D. cake competition.  This was particularly tricky because I spent the whole week prior out in Colorado skiing with my dad (I know, poor me) but that meant I had to finish as much as I could before I left!  And do my homework and pack, etc. etc. etc...

I came back on Friday night and left for Florida early Saturday afternoon.  Fortunately, this cake is not real (i.e. the tiers are all dummies) which made transportation and lifting much easier.

For this competition, you had to select a picture of a wedding dress to use as inspiration and display it next to your cake-- here was my dress:

I liked this dress for a variety of reasons: 1) It's not white  2) I liked the fabric effects 3) The strings on the bodice/ shoulders lend themselves well to string work.

Speaking of string work...

My middle tier featured string and extension work suspended by pearls.  To do these sections, I had to flip the cake upside down, pipe the strings and extensions, then turn the cake right side up once the sections had set.

I was really excited about my floral spacer (all the flowers are gum paste, of course).  The judges seemed to really like my roses, so that makes me happy.  I really liked the colors.  The teal stephanotis may not be botanically correct, but that's part of the joy of gum paste, right??

My bottom tier featured fabric effects which I airbrushed with a pearl sheen.  I also set medallions between the tiers and then piped the suspended drop strings.  The board is isomalt (poured sugar) over aluminum foil.

There were more pictures taken at the show, but I don't have them yet.  When I get them, I will share them!

For the record, I was 2nd runner up in the professional division.  There were lots of awesome cakes!!

I also entered a couple of gum paste stilettos-- I will blog about those tomorrow, but I'll post pictures on my facebook page tonight if you can't wait! :)

Gum Paste for the Holidays

This weekend I was fortunate enough to celebrate the completion of my PhD proposal by taking Nic Lodge's 'Gum Paste for the Holidays' class.  If you ever get a chance to take a class at the International Sugar Art Collection (ISAC), I highly recommend it.  Not only do you get to spend all day playing with gum paste and learning from the master, they also serve you lunch and warm cookies.  I like to think of it as my personal heaven.

In this class we made: poinsettia, christmas rose, christmas rose bud, christmas rose leaves, eucalyptus, mistletoe, yew, juniper, pine, pine cones, variegated ivy, bird's foot ivy, english holly, variegated holly, and spruce.  See if you can spot all of these things! :)

Gum Paste Poinsettia

Variegated Holly and Berries

Christmas Rose

Eucalyptus, Mistletoe, Christmas Rose Bud, Bird's Foot Ivy, Blue Spruce, Pine Cone, Var. Ivy, English Holly

Pine/ cone, Yew, Juniper

English Holly

At the end of class, we arranged everything into basically a bouquet with the Christmas ribbon.

Here was the beginnings of it:

And the final product!

Now if only I didn't have an accounting exam tomorrow... :oP

Another Status Update

The problem with making huge, detailed cakes is you spend weeks prepping them. My next competition cake will be done 1 week from today.  I've been working on different pieces of this cake for weeks already.  Here's where I am now:

I was up past 1 last night finishing up the dusting, steaming and glazing for all the roses and leaves-- hydrangea leaves are the big ones and the smaller ones are rose leaves.

The pictures legitimately don't do the roses justice.  They are much brighter in real life.  I dusted all 32 of them last night.  And steamed them.

You know you're OCD when you actually add thorns.  ;)

 

You can see some brooches I'm working on in the bottom of this picture.

The pictures don't do the hydrangea justice either.  They're actually all dusted with no less than 4 different colors. 

The dendrobium orchids are actually a very light pink on the edges... which you can't see in the pic. :(

Final count: 27 fully blown roses, 1 mid sized rose, 5 tight rose buds, 60 pearled stephanotis, 122 hydrangea, 22 hydrangea buds, 18 dendrobium orchids, 18 hydrangea leaves, and 14 rose leaves.

I also made isomalt gems today:

Isomalt is a sugar substitute known for its clarity.  However, if you overcook it, it starts to yellow, which is why some of the gems are like low-grade diamonds. ;)

More of today's labors:

 

And I made a custom board for the cake:

It has feet, so you can get your fingers under it to lift it:

All this and I haven't even started baking yet! :oP 

Don't worry-- I'll be sure to get better pictures of the final product next week before the show.  In the mean time, trust that I haven't fallen off the planet.  Quite the contrary, I'm busily caking away! 

In case you haven't heard yet, I did not win anything in Threadcakes.  I wasn't expecting to, so it's alright.  The important thing was that I tackled a really big 3D cake project and I was happy with the outcome.  At the end of the day, it didn't seem to be in the same style as the winning entries.  Sometimes you have to make a trade-off between doing what you want to do and what you think the judges will most appreciate.  That said, I hope the judges appreciate this cake I'm working on now, hahaha.... :) 

Enjoy the rest of your Labor Day weekend!  

What I've been Up To-- My Sugar Flower Garden

So if you're wondering why I haven't blogged in a little bit...

I've grown quite the sugar garden in my living/ dining room.  All of these little children (and more) will be used on a competition cake on September 12.  My sampling includes something like 30 huge roses, 5 rose buds, 60 stephanotis, 40 hydrangea, and 20 dendrobium orchids.  I still need to make more hydrangea, plus add some calyxes and leaves, hydrangea buds, and dusting.  :)  Plus, you know, ultimately make the cake and stuff.

And the fall semester started this week-- it's shaping up to be a little busy. But hopefully I'll share a thing or two with you before my cake monstrosity on September 12.  

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who 'Like'-ed my Threadcakes entry.  Even though I don't feel like I will place, I am so pleased with how it came out and at how much everyone supported it.  Results should be up in the next few days.  

Is there anything in particular you (my wonderful readers) would like me to write about before September 12?  Edible pearls?  Cake pricing?  My personal views on the correlations between cake and engineering?  :)

Gum Paste Flowers Galore!

I was really fortunate to be able to take the Ultimate Gum Paste Flower Class from Nicholas Lodge for the past 5 days.  The class was AWESOME.

First of all, I'm really lucky because I happen to live about 12 mins away from the International Sugar Art Collection (ISAC) where Nicholas has a beautiful gallery of supplies and equipment and a state of the art classroom.  The wonderful thing is you don't have to bring anything to class with you-- they have all the equipment you need in the classroom.   They even supply lunch and hot cookies in the afternoon.  I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  :)

Anyway, the classes are really well organized and over the 5 days we made: the rose, stargazer lily, lisianthus, stephanotis, hydrangea, sweet pea, daisy, gerbera daisy, calla lily, cymbidium orchid, cattelya orchid, dendrobium orchid, gardenia, as well as buds and leaves, variegated ivy, bird's foot ivy, eucalyptus, and ferns.

The top picture is obviously the gum paste stargazer lily, with a bud and a few lily leaves.  Here it is again:

Just to clarify, the petals, bud, and leaves, as well as the anther in the center are all gum paste.  Everything in this little arrangement is wired and taped together with floral tape.  The stamens for this flower are paper.  The color is all done with petal dust and then the flower is steamed to set the color.  The leaves are also dusted and then sprayed with an edible lacquer for some sheen.  So while this flower is 'edible', it's really intended for decorative use. 

Here's the other stuff I made.

Gum Paste Rose and rose bud with leaves:

I freaking love this rose.  And I think the leaves are super realistic.  See the little thorn peeking out from behind the rose?  Also gum paste.

Gum Paste Lily of the Valley

 

Bird's Foot Ivy:

The ivy was painted with diluted gel and then the vein accents were painted on, and the whole thing was lacquered.

Variegated Ivy:

My calla lily, from the top:

Side view:

My Gardenia Spray:

Pearled Stephanotis:  (Yes, the pearls are edible.)

My daisy spray:

Gum Paste Cymbidium Orchid:

My Cattelya Orchid:

Eucalyptus and 2 fern fronds:

My Lisianthus Spray-- I love this color.  I had never heard of this flower before.

My carnation/ bud:

My dendrobium orchid spray:

Hydrangea:  I fell in love with these little guys.

Sweet Pea Spray:

And finally, the Gerbera Daisy:

Aren't gum paste flowers amazing?

Me and Chef Nicholas Lodge:

I learned so much in class and had such an amazing time.  Sad to go back to grad student life tomorrow and that proposal I haven't written yet... 

Hope you enjoy the flowers! :)

You'll probably see some of these again when I do my show cake for the September 12 Pattycakes Competition...