Sweet Ride – Literally!

Sweet Ride – Literally!

Last week I had an order for an Audi R8.

Needless to say, I didn’t know what an R8 was, but it was an Audi so I knew it would be NIIIIIICE.

My favourite cakes to design and create are the ones that have some importance to my client; something that tells their history, story, personality. And that means paying very special attention to the details that will replicate those items.

So. If I’m designing and making an R8, then it better end up LOOKING like an R8!

The process for a project like this is two-fold. First, print a template for the size of the cake. This was a 2-D cake so my printout was the outline being used for the aerial view, or top of the cake. Slab cakes are used to stack and decorate and then the cake is cut into the outline of the template.

Next, individual pieces of that same template are cut out to use as smaller templates for the individual pieces of the item, or in this case the car parts. The entire cake is covered in the base fondant colour and the smaller templates are then used to make the smaller, fine-detailed items like lights, exhaust etc.

When the entire piece is done I use a fine paint brush to touch up small holes, wayward fondant etc., using Edible Art paint by Sweetsticks.

When it was time for delivery, this luxe car was presented at The Cellar, an amazing restaurant at the Bear Mountain Westin. Upon walking it into the catering area, a staff member took one look at it and stated “Oh, John drives that EXACT car!”

I guess I’ll take that as a ‘win’.

😉

Gold Dust? Gold Leaf? Gold Everything!

Gold Dust? Gold Leaf? Gold Everything!

There have been a lot of gold cakes lately. For clients, in instagram stories, online tutorials and on The Food Network! The difficulty sometimes is knowing which products are best to use for the cake design you have in mind.

Lately I’ve been using a fair bit of gold leaf.

Warning – it’s not cheap! And that’s because you need to be using a good quality leaf to make sure it’s edible and food safe. I think my last order was $60 for 12 3″ x 3″ squares, and that’s 23 karat edible gold. The good thing is, a little goes a long way when applying gold leaf. For random placement I simply press small areas of the leaf directly onto the fondant covering my cakes. For much smaller, more delicate placement I’d suggest using a brush to lift and place the gold leaf exactly where you want it.

For edible gold paint, and a different look altogether, I can’t rave enough about Sweetsticks Metallic Paint Palette.

It’s vegan and alcohol, gluten, dairy, soy and peanut free! It’s also applied using only water – no vodka or lemon extract needed!

This is suggested for smaller, finer details. For larger areas use Sweetsticks Metallic Edible Art Paints – simply shake, pour and paint!

A Birthday, A Bike and a Blank Space

A Birthday, A Bike and a Blank Space

I’m so far behind on blogging that I won’t even TRY to catch up. So I’m going to jump to a concept that I thought was so cool. Sometimes my mind is full of ideas of cake designs, hoping that a client with no idea what they want will jump onto my crazy design-train. And SOMEtimes clients come to me with the coolest ideas that I embrace them with open arms.

THIS was one of those clients with one of those ideas.

A Blank Slate!

The idea that makes you think “Why have I NEVER thought of this?????” The idea was to include a bike (a love of the birthday-boy) but basically leave the rest of the cake white. A blank slate. The client had purchased edible markers so that all of the party guests could sign the cake as an ‘Edible-Birthday-Card.’

WHAAAAAT?

Crunchy spaghetti spokes 🙂

I know.

Genius.

London, Rainbows & Unicorns!

London, Rainbows & Unicorns!

My friend Laura, is inspirational.

She is a blogger, a preacher, an encourager of women and a great party-planner.

She is also, possibly singlehandedly, my most prolific client 🙂

So when her daughter London was about to turn 1, we set about planning what kind of cake to make for her birthday.  In fact I think we had barely just finished her son’s birthday cake when we started chatting!

In addition to her unicorn cake, Laura also had various other Pinterest-worthy ideas for the rest of her food table.  You can see all of the amazing details here.

Exciting for me was the fact that she was collaborating with Focal Photography to shoot the party so I knew she was going to get amazing photos from Marlboro Wang Photo who got the shots of the day!

Giddy Up!

Giddy Up!

Do you want to know a secret? Want to know who is my FAVOURITE kind of client?

The ones who say ‘I don’t know. Here’s the theme. You just design something, and make it fabulous!”  #FAVOURITECLIENTEVER  !!!!!!

Tweet This Country Western Inspiration!

Well, Cal Faber is that kind of client.

His wife, Zenaide, was turning 50 and he wanted to surprise her with a Country-Western themed birthday party at a local hotel.

Literally all he said was two things:

1. I want it to be awesome; and 2. Here’s my budget.

I can work with that!

Being given free reign on a design actually gets my creative juices flowing.  Not that I won’t be willing to do an exact copy of your most favourite design ever viewed on a cake, but I always prefer to give a design my own flair.  And starting from scratch gives me a LOT of room for flair.

I knew right off the bat (is this a baseball term? I’ve always wondered…….) that I wanted to put Zenaide’s face on a Wanted Poster. Think a little bit Country-Western, a little bit outlaw.  Not that she is one.  FAR FROM IT! There is apple pie, and then there is Zenaide.

This made the contrast all the more wonderful.

Especially since every photo ever taken of this lady has her smiling from ear to ear!

Then, rather than do the normal cowboy, horse, boots look I decided I wanted more of an homage to the CW life than icons of the CW life itself.  Does that make sense? Perhaps the photos will.

One tier was a cactii display on a sunset background and the middle was a simple country fence with one sole lasso hanging at the gate.  Little delicate flowers were dropped all around the bottom of this tier.

All of the tiers were airbrushed and I capped off the sugar print of the Wanted poster (Thank you Cake By Taryn for that!) with a set of saloon doors either side.   I also ‘beat up’ the poster a little with extra tears and some dark brown shading and curling to really make it look like it had been dragged through the town from the water well to the Sheriff’s office.  Stuck a ’50’ on the top and there you are! Cowgirl meets outlaw meets sweetest birthday client ever 🙂

You want a shot at the title?

You want a shot at the title?

The only way I would ever own a championship boxing belt, is if it were in the form of cake.  And I have to confess, I know

N O T H I N G about boxing.  Other than the fact that Ali was the king, and George Foreman wasn’t always known for his grilling in the kitchen.

But a friend of mine has a husband who was turning 50, and is a HUGE boxing fan.  So when we were discussing cake options, we chatted about the usuals – boxing gloves, 2 little boxers, a boxing ring.  All had been done many times before but I had never seen a championship belt cake.  This was intriguing to me ……

BUT, it couldn’t be just any championship belt.  It had to be personal.  And on that note, when doing a themed cake I always try to take the direction of the client along with my design ideas, and then add in an element that they are not expecting but still follows along with the theme.

After deciding on the belt idea, I did some info gathering with the wife and daughter of said birthday boy and discovered that in a fight being televised at the birthday celebration, the surprisee’s choice would be competing for a belt. After finding out that he owned a belt in the WBO organization, I decided to recreate one of theirs.  But, of course, with a little bit of ‘birthday tweaking’.

Burgundy is a very deep colour to tint so I first coloured the fondant with some reddish tones but finished it off with the airbrush for a more realistic hue.  HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY PABLO – YOU’RE A KNOCKOUT!!!!!!

 

 

Minnie Mouse – think pink!

Minnie Mouse – think pink!

Last weekend’s cake was for a sweet little 2 year old.  Who I never met.  But trust me, from the photos her Mum sent me she is the sweetest-looking-munchkin-in-a-Minnie-Mouse-Birthday-dress that you ever did see!

Another Disney themed cake for this event – this time a Minnie Mouse on the front (with her ears balancing in the air above her head!) and a matching dozen cupcakes for all the little guests.  Happy Birthday Little Abigail !!!

How To Build A Car When Your Husband’s Not Looking

How To Build A Car When Your Husband’s Not Looking

18 MONTHS IN THE MAKING !

June 3, 2017

My husband is a genius. Other than being really smart, he can build stuff.  And I mean HARD stuff.  He has been working on building a 1930 Model A Ford for the past 8 years or so and this month it will finally be finished.  Talk about a lesson in patience…….. (which you MIGHT need to make it to the end of this post, but I personally feel it’s worth it 😉 )

So 18 months ago, when it occurred to me he wasn’t too far away from his 50th birthday ……..

(OK, let me take a minute here.  I’m sorry but that DOES make me feel old.  I mean, HOW can I be married to a 50 year old man when I’m only 25 myself? Ok, 25 myself ‘in-my-head’.  But still, YOUNG??

Ok. Over it)

….. I knew exactly what his cake was going to be for his 50th birthday.  A replica of the car he had poured his heart and soul into.  But, this presented a few problems.

  1. How does one prepare a surprise cake, for a surprise birthday party, in the home of the surprisee? (is that a word? it should be a word)
  2. When preparing said cake, how does one react when surprisee (I’m going with it) suddenly comes home when you’re not expecting him?
  3. And finally, how does one learn about electricity enough to have working headlights in the cake once surprisee arrives at his surprise party?

Well, here’s the answers.

  1. You tell surprisee that you have two cake orders that week, and they’re big so you need to start on them VERY early in the week.
  2. When surprisee arrives home and you’ve already cut said cake into the OBVIOUS shape of a car, you hurl a 10×14 inch cake board on top of your carving, and let it ‘hang’ there as it swings to and fro.  That’s right.  A cake board. On TOP of a cake. That is smaller than the cake.  Making the board act like a see-saw. And THEN acting like this is completely normal (it’s not!)
  3. Lastly, you go to the local lighting store, have them set you up with lights, wires and a 6volt battery (that sucker’s huge!) and have them tell you about positives and negatives and that you ‘probably won’t have a fire’ with this setup. Probably? Like I probably won’t eat this whole bowl of leftover ganache by myself and call it ‘research’? NEWSFLASH – I’m eating the ganache. It’s ‘research’.

The bad news is, the battery didn’t last long enough for the surprisee/husband to see it.  The good news is, all of the guests did.

Wait a second.  All of the guests DID LAST LONG ENOUGH in order for the husband to see them, but they ALSO got to see the working headlights. Note to self, sentence structure is important…..

The other bad news is I wasn’t able to hide the battery inside the cake like I was hoping to, but the good news is I learned plenty about car cakes for the next one.  (Did I REALLY just say ‘next one’? Like I’m planning to DO a ‘next one’? Re-evaluating……..)

Anyways, you’ve been very patient reading. So here’s the visual of this whole ordeal.  Happy 50th Birthday to my best friend, car-building extraordinaire, my husband xoxo