Cute Animal Cake

So, the last couple weeks I've spent a few hours working at Apple-Butter Bakery in downtown Atlanta.

Yesterday, I spent my evening decorating this cake for a baby shower:

Made at Apple-Butter Bakery, Atlanta, GA

I didn't do the baking, and I didn't stack or ice the main cake, but I did ice the cupcakes and I made the figures and little faces out of fondant, etc.  Also, I did not design the cake-- I worked from a photo.

Apple Butter Bakery

I was supposed to finish this cake in 4 hours or less... took me closer to 6.  I need to work on my speed!  I am not used to actively hurrying when I work on cakes.  I also hate leaving out details!

The baby's name will go in the empty space... ;)

Enjoy your weekend! :)  More coming your way soon, I hope!

Wedding Cake Competition-- Finally!

After much anticipation..... ta da!

My final design featured isomalt gems and board, gum paste flowers: 60 hydrangea, 80 stephanotis, 25 fully blown roses, 5 rose buds, 1 mid size rose, 16 dendrobium orchids and assorted rose and hydrangea leaves.  There were also some fondant pearls and string-work, as well as a 50-50 paste bow and brooch.

From the bottom up, my flavors were: cream cheese pound cake with amaretto cream, chocolate blackout cake with espresso truffle filling and chambord syrup, butter cake with white chocolate raspberry cream, and another chocolate blackout cake on the top.


Finally had the competition yesterday-- I'm still exhausted and I feel like my head is going to explode.  :oP  I was pretty happy with my cake overall except that I wanted the tiers to be blacker and squarer.

My friend Prem came over before the show and took a bunch of really great quality pictures for me.

Then I had to transport this beast...

Unfortunately, my seats in my car aren't completely flat (though I tried to compensate a little with some extra foam), but in the 90 degree weather, things slid a little bit.  I also had to take off my top tier and carry it separately so that everything would fit through the door, and it slid a little bit in its box and destroyed its ribbon around the bottom.  So when I set up, my cake looked like it was leaning and that ribbon was just a disaster.

I fixed things as best I could (my friends swore that the table was sagging and that was contributing to the leaning issue) and then I just had to walk away because I was so frustrated.  If I hadn't been so tired, I would have thought to shim the cake board under the front left corner, and I think everything would have been much better.  Now I know.

This event was soooo long.  I set up @2:45, judging started at 4, and they didn't announce the winners till 8!  I was STARVING!  And sleep-deprived, and tired of standing by my leaning cake... 

One thing that I find frustrating is that I wonder if I even understood the 'rules'.  I put rules in quotations because their rules consisted of a couple sentences saying that you had to have at least a 10" base with variable height.  Totally edible, cakes and cupcakes in any combination.  'Creative Wedding Cake and Cupcake Competition.'  Okay, from that I take away 'I need to make a wedding cake with at least a 10" base, and I'm welcome to use cupcakes as well'.  Until one of the judges came up me and asked where my cupcakes were.  Ummmm..... ?????  Seeing as how the winner and runner up both had cupcakes in their designs, I wonder if I completely missed the mark on my design.  Unfortunately, I didn't get score sheets, so I really don't know what the verdict was.

After judging was completed, I was overwhelmed with people wanting slices of my cake.  And my mother suggested bringing boxes for the slices, which turned out to be brilliant!  People loved my cake and loved more that I could package it in an easy-to-carry mini cake box for them.  When I was fast enough, I put on little 'Cakes by Roxanne' stickers, designed by my wonderful Aunt Carol. All in all, it was a big success.

Now I just need to clean up my poor apartment.

And I'll be sticking to much smaller projects for the foreseeable future. ;)

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...