Romance.

This cake is pure romance.

Lillian and her niece Tracey wanted to surprise Tracey's parents who were renewing their wedding vows after 30 years of marriage.  They had sent me a photo of a cake they liked, a two-tiered square cake with red ribbon roses running up one corner of the cakes.  Lillian and her niece were open to suggestions, and I sent them back a drawing quite similar to this cake, which raised the height of the resulting cake without adding additional servings.  We made a few small changes to the design, and this simple but elegant cake was the result.  The key design element according to Lillian was the red roses.  There had to be red roses.  

Lillian and I had discussed the idea of using ribbon roses (they are a bit more casual, and appear like a ribbon has been rolled up into a flower form) or even fresh roses.  But Lillian and her niece had seen the sugar roses on some of the cakes I had done and wanted those for the cake. I think they made the right decision! 

A better view of the top rose

The roses in the middle of the cake go all the way around the cake.  On top, instead of a bouquet of roses, we decided to put one large extra-large rose with a couple of buds and leaves.  It really made a statement.  

I made all the roses on this cake by hand from gum paste, a sugar dough that holds it shape nicely when dry.  Each petal was placed on a rose one at a time, layer by layer.  It is an amazing process to watch the roses come to life as petals are added and curled just so.  A final dusting with powdered food colors enhanced that beautiful red. 

Detail of the side of the cake

The inside of the cake is also red -- red velvet, that is, frosted with a white chocolate laced swiss meringue buttercream.   

In addition to this cake, Lillian also had a special request.  An avid baker herself, she had made a rum cake she wanted me to decorate. (Rum cake is her specialty - and she gave me a taste and I can attest that it was delicious.  She and I have very similar philosophies about baking, such as making everything from scratch and using the best quality ingredients.) Lillian wanted the rum cake to be decorated like a vinyl record (remember them??)  Specifically, she had a song that the couple had played at their wedding, and she wanted to record label to show the name of that song.  More romance!  

The song was an oldie from 1964 called "The Wedding", by Julie Rogers.  We decided to show the record as a 45 rpm single, with lyrics from the song around the edge.  (My kids weren't familiar with record singles, so just in case someone else isn't familiar with them, here's a little background.  Until CDs took over, records were released as albums and singles.  Albums were the big 12" vinyl records with many songs on their two sides, and they played on a record player at 33 1/3 rotations per minute (rpm).  Singles were hit songs released on smaller 7" records, and they spun at 45 rotations per minute.  There was usually a hit on one side ("the A side") and a second, less well known song on the other ("the B side").  45s often had a big hole in the middle of the record, so you needed an adapter to make it fit the spindle in the center of the record player's spinning platter).  

When Lillian picked up the cakes, she was so happy with everything that she gave me a big hug!  I hope the anniversary couple loved the cake and had a beautiful celebration to renew their vows.  If Lillian is at all representative of the kind of love and care in that family, there's no question that they will have another 30 years of happiness together.  And I suspect that they'll keep the romance alive! 

A Wedding in Central Park

Sarah and Rod were married in beautiful setting: New York City's Central Park!  They chose to have a non-traditional wedding, with a picnic lunch after the ceremony, organized by wedding planner A Central Park Wedding.  The weather was fabulous, albeit a little bit warm by cake standards - a sunny 90 degrees.  But there was a nice breeze, and matching white and champagne colored quilts were spread out across the lawn near the Bethesda Fountain and the lake with the boaters.  It was a spectacular setting for a celebration!

The cake was made to match the wedding colors: white, cream, champagne and yellow.  The bride's bouquet was made of yellow and cream colored roses, and the bridesmaids carried cream roses in their bouquets.  I made the flowers on the cake by hand of sugar to match the flowers in the wedding.  You can see an up-close image of one of the roses at right.   Inside, the cake is a white vanilla cake filled with a combination of passion fruit curd and passion fruit buttercream and frosted with the same passion fruit buttercream.  The couple planned to take home the top tier to save for their first anniversary.  

Congratulations to Sarah and Rod!!  I wish you a beautiful lifetime together filled with love and laughter!

Flower Power

I just got back from a fabulous gum paste flower class given by the extremely talented Jacqueline Butler of Petalsweet Cakes in San Francisco.  I've been admiring her work for a couple of years since I first saw it online.  She makes the most fabulous sugar peonies, hydrangeas and a variety of other flowers - her work is truly sugar art.  The two-day class focused on one of my favorite flowers, the peony, as well as the French tulip, with its frilly petals.  Not surprisingly, these beauties are labor intensive, but I think they are worth it.  I'm thrilled with the flowers we made and can't wait to use them on a cake, now that I know how to make them.  Jacqueline's style is to use a very soft color palate, and I think it is beautiful, but I'm not limited to that.  Wouldn't a bright pink peony be just amazing on a white cake?

Early Spring Wedding Cake!

We certainly are having an amazing March, with spring-like weather even though the calendar still says "Winter" for a few more days.  Influenced by this nice weather and thoughts of my yard bursting into bloom in the coming weeks,  I was inspired to make another display cake full of flowers.  This cake is covered with white, lavender and pale green roses, deep purple ranunculus, and reddish purple carnations, complemented by shiny green leaves and bare brown branches. The cake also shows a trend in cakes these days: tiers with different shapes and heights.   The purple tier is a hexagon sandwiched by round tiers, and the base tier is a square.

All the flowers on the cake were made by hand, petal by petal, out of gum paste (a type of sugar dough which hardens as it dries).  It is a time-consuming process, but well worth the effort. The flowers are technically edible, but I'd say you probably wouldn't want to eat them as they're very dry and brittle.

I love spring, and the flowers and colors on this cake make me happy.  I hope they make you happy too!