More Florida I.C.E.D. Pics

So I apologize for the lack of new cakes, but I have to go to school sometimes.  Oh yeah, and my apartment is finally reasonably cleaned up after the I.C.E.D. competition so I need to enjoy it for a little bit before I dirty it up.  Don't worry, I'm not out of ideas yet.

Here are some of the professional pics from the competition, courtesy of Elise Kersey Photography.

My cake, clearly.

Here are some detail shots:

Did I mention I loved the floral tier on this cake?  And did I also mention I have nowhere to store this cake, so it's currently my centerpiece on my dining room table??

I feel my stringwork could have been just a little cleaner, but I was still happy with the results.  Except for the part where I broke one whole section after turning the cake right side up.  I wasn't too happy about that result since I had to redo it, cramped hand and all.

Strings and brooches.  I liked this separation concept, but I wish I had made the bottom tier a little bit bigger.  Lessons learned...

Here I am receiving one of my awards from my blog buddy, Melanie Judge from Mel's Cake Walk.
This was the first time we actually met in person, though we've been corresponding via email for about a year-- she was relieved that I was at least mostly normal in real life. :)  Thanks again to Melanie and her mom for being great hostesses!

And finally, here I am with the judges: Edna De la Cruz, Mercedes Strachwsky, and Rebecca Sutterby.

Overall, a great experience!  Lots of fun and lots of lessons learned. :)

Orange Birthday Cake

I was asked to make a 30th birthday cake for a fabulous lady who's favorite color was orange...

It was an interesting challenge to come up with a theme and color scheme that incorporated orange that would not look like Halloween, so here's what I came up with. 

First of all, this was my first gluten-free cake, so I learned a few things, like don't use Pam Baking (with flour in it!) when you're making such a cake. FYI.

I covered the cake in Swiss Meringue Buttercream, which I colored orange.  However, I found that it was hard to smooth it and keep the color consistent, so I ended up airbrushing it with some orange and pink pearl shimmer to even it out.   I piped the scrolls with white royal icing and painted them gold, then the strings and letters I piped with burgundy royal icing.  However, it was super humid when I made this cake and this was the first time I ever saw color start to run.  If I had it to do over again, I would have let the cake thaw from the fridge longer (because it was sweating a little) and let the airbrush color dry longer before I had done the piping.  I finished the design with buttercream borders and purple isomalt gems.

My friend who requested this cake said they ate the whole thing, so I hope it was tasty! :)

Wedding Gum Paste Stilettos

So the Florida I.C.E.D. competition also featured a wedding accessories category, so I brought along 2 gum paste stilettos (of course!)

I like how this one came out, even though it didn't win anything:

I ordinarily write my name on the label, but to keep it more anonymous, I drew the tattoo I have on my foot (in slightly different colors) as a signature and just put a little 'R'.

This other gum paste stiletto I made came in 2nd runner up in the professional division:

I opted to try a floating criss-cross ankle strap, and to add to the technical difficulty, I piped strings across the toe straps with royal icing.

If I had it to do over again, I think I would have only entered one accessory so that I wouldn't have had to rush and I could have put more detail or other pieces onto the board, but hind sight is 20-20 like that. :)

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! :)

My Gum Paste Stiletto Class!

This past weekend I taught my very first class-- Gum Paste Stilettos!

I taught at the International Sugar Art Collection (Nicholas Lodge's Studio) in his Studio B classroom.

The class was 2 days-- Saturday 10-4 and Sunday 10-5, and we managed to finish more or less on time!  Not bad for my first go round... :)

At the end of class, we lined up all our shoes for a photo shoot.  Don't these look like they're straight out of Carrie Bradshaw's closet?

Everybody made 2 stilettos, and there were no significant casualties.  I think everyone did an awesome job.

Up close so you can see the details...


I had a blast and I hope my students did too!

Now I need to work really hard on my competition cake for the end of the month because I'm already way behind schedule. :)

And a couple more shoes...

So in prepping for my class this weekend, I made this pair of shoes in... odd... colors.  Although they came out a little bit psychedelic, don't you think? The have a little bit of a 1960's thing going on.

Anyway, I apologize for my lack of posts for the last few weeks.  I've been swamped with school work this semester and just turned in another conference paper on Friday.  This week I'm gearing up for my class and then I'll be focused on some competition entries for the Florida I.C.E.D. Cake Competition on March 27!

The tricky part is, I'm going skiing for my spring break the week before, so everything needs to be done before I go... I guess I'd better get started!  And I might need to rent a car to drive down there, because god forbid I design a cake with constraints in mind, like fitting through my car door... :)

Valentine's Inspired Gum Paste Stiletto

This week I made a Valentine's inspired gum paste stiletto to be displayed at the International Sugar Art Collection (Nicholas Lodge's studio).  It's on display to promote my new class coming up the first weekend in March!

You can find the details about the class here: My class!

The shoe was constructed similarly to the red/ leopard print shoe posted last month, only instead of the zipper I created a large buckle and added a ruffle up the middle strap.  To add a little valentine's flair, I added a pink heart to the shoe lining.

I'm so excited about the class and about developing some new high heel styles... And about the real shoes I just ordered from DSW. ;)

Have a great week!