a happy little {wedding} cake

FINALLY it's done!  My first wedding cake!  And I'm beginning to understand why these things cost so much.  It was a lot of work, but I love it.  And I learned a LOT doing it.

Here's the work in progress:

1.  2 layered cakes.  9" and 6".  French Vanilla and Devil's Food with butter cream frosting.

2.  Cakes + more butter cream for a crumb coat.

3.  And... marshmallow fondant!  My batch incorporated too much air, so it had some bubbles.  :(

4.  But I'm becoming more and more of a firm believer in the cake decorator's motto:  "Butter cream will fix anything."  SOOO due to the fondant bubbles I picked a cornelli lace design that turned out beautifully after a few hours of decorating!  Here's the final product!  Fun!

an indoor rose garden

These little guys have dominated my evenings over the past week and a half... but as of last night, they are DONE and just waiting to decorate the wedding cake I'll make for class on Wednesday!

The roses are fondant and are in three blooming "stages".  I used the colors from a friend's wedding last year and think they turned out so fun!

The green brings them to life:

And some leaves:

Tonight I whipped up a batch of homemade marshmallow fondant (yum) and four cakes: two 6" and two 9".  It's all coming together for a gorgeous blooming wedding cake and should be done late Wednesday evening!

New beautiful blooms!

I learned a few more flowers last night.  These flowers are a lot more detailed and time consuming, but it's time will spent.  Once finished, they {almost} look REAL!

I just made them for practice purposes.  They're beautiful flowers for seasonal cakes and would be gorgeous for spring weddings (or Christmas if you like the poinsettias, which are my favorite!).  They'd also be fun cupcake toppers.  I would probably not combine them with other flowers, but do an entire cake in just one of them.  They're about the size of an egg, which is why they're currently drying in an egg carton!

Here they are.  Pretty pink poinsettias:

Petunias:

Easter lilies and morning glories:

 And the whole beautiful bunch!  Fun!

i {heart} fondant

Last night was hands-down my favorite cake decorating experience.  We began.... FONDANT!  And I love love love it!  Here's the final product before it dried:

...a fondant present cake.  It is supposed to look like it's covered in wrapping paper with a big bow.  And it was SO FUN to make.  The cake itself is a devil's food chocolate cake with strawberry filling... also a new experiment.  Paired with the fun wrapping paper theme, I am just loving the results!

This cake would be fun in a lot of different scenarios.  Stacked gifts could make a gorgeous wedding or bridal shower cake.  And it would be wonderful for any celebration... birthday, wedding, baby shower, etc.  Depending on the color scheme, it could be VERY elegant or just a ton of fun!

B's cake

So the hubsters laments often that the cakes I make are not for him.  He gets to watch me make them, smell them baking, and his sweet tooth aches as I sweep them out the door for someone else.

I do often have random leftovers for his consumption, however, that I make sure to mark with post-its so he knows he won't be sleeping on the couch for ruining my perfect batch of frosting for class.

Thus, last night when I was photographing my handiwork, B asked me to "take a picture of his cake too".  So here it is.... the cake (if you can call it that) I worked so hard on for my one and only.

Some assembly required.  Not as pretty, but combine the two bowls and you'll get something that tastes eerily similar to the cake in my next post...

(Authors note:  The hubsters is turning 24 in June.  This means he WILL be receiving a legitimate cake in the near future.  So don't feel too bad for him, mom.)

HE is risen {indeed}

These are long overdue, but here a few photos of cakes that graced our family's tables as we celebrated this Easter season.

The first is a from scratch strawberry cake with fresh strawberry filling and whipped buttercream icing.  I am only beginning to experiment with from scratch cake recipes.  I learned on this one that I should have let it bake 5 minutes longer BEFORE opening the oven, as my gorgeous puffy cake sunk in just moments when I opened the oven to check it and take it out.  Sad.  It did prove, however, the cake decorator's mantra: "Frosting can fix anything".  In this case, a LOT of frosting in the middle of your sunken cake will smooth over your experimental baking woes!

But, I am told the strawberry cake was yummy and I was loving it with strawberry ice cream!  I also misquoted the hymn... "Sing ye heavens and earth reply... Alleluia!" were the intended lyrics.  But I suspect heavens and earth were both rejoicing on Easter morning, so I think we're good.  Here it is:

The second is a quick Easter egg-shaped cake that Meg and I made for our Palm Sunday Easter celebration with the hubby's extended family.  Cute, quick (ignore the pulled crumbs... whoops!) and fun!  These pans will also make great footballs next fall!