Triple the fun! Triplets Bar Mitzvah Cake

Congratulations to triplets Ethan, Caleb and Louisa!  I made this cake for their b'nai mitzvah celebration (yup, that the plural) which was on a fabulous fall day at the beautiful Keeler Tavern in Ridgefield, CT.

When I make cakes for people, I try to personalize the cake for the recipient.  I like to use colors they like, and I also often incorporate the recipient's interests in the cake design, so that the person receiving the cake knows it was really made especially for him or her.  That's a much harder task when making one cake for 3 kids with different interests, preferences and personalities.  That said, I was pleased with how this cake turned out, and even happier that the triplets and their parents loved it!

On the bottom of the cake is Ethan's tier, which is made of lemon butter cake, filled with lemon meringue buttercream and raspberry jam, and topped with lemon meringue buttercream.  The covering is blue, Ethan's favorite color, and the football (which is 100% edible, made of rice krispy treats and modeling chocolate) and the penant flag reflect his love for his New England Patriots.  He's also a big Red Sox fan.  (I blame their father for this Boston passion. Sigh. They should be Yankee fans, not Red Sox fans.  But what can you do?)

In the middle is Caleb's tier.  Caleb is a soccer player (he plays goalie), and he too roots for Boston-based sports teams.  Caleb's favorite color is orange, but their mom asked me to incorporate the lime green color which was a theme in the party decorations, along with blue and purple (no orange in the party decor).  Finally, on top, Louisa's tier has an edible ipod perched in front of it and handbags around the sides, as Louisa loves to listen to music (James Taylor is a favorite - she has excellent taste!) and she likes to accessorize.  Purple is Louisa's favorite color.  Both Caleb's and Louisa's tiers (the top two tiers) were made of chocolate cake with the crowd favorite cookies and cream (aka Oreo) filling, which has big chunks of real Oreos in it.  The outer frosting was a vanilla swiss meringue buttercream.  There wasn't a bite left from the entire cake, which was made to serve about 80 people!

On top of the cake is the logo used in the b'nai mitzvah invitations: a modern take on the two scrolls of the torah, although to me they look a little bit like candles too.  As a result, I thought it was the perfect thing to use on top of the cake.  I think the topsy turvy design added a bit of whimsy on this cake made for newly minted teens.

It was a fabulous day for the triplets, and I wish them all the best!  Their parents should be very proud of their terrific trio!  And of course, the triplets should thank their parents for everything they do for them.

Diet Coke and Sandwich Groom's Cake

Groom's cakes have become a very popular part of weddings these days.  They're cakes made especially for the groom, since, let's face it, a great deal of the wedding is all about the bride.

This two-part groom's cake was made for one of my daughter's favorite teachers as a surprise for her fiance.  It seems that he has a rather limited repertoire when it comes to lunch: a turkey sandwich and Diet Coke are his favorites.  And so that lunch was transformed into a cake, making a loving tribute to a future spouse's quirks.  I, of course, as an appreciative parent, was thrilled to be able to make this cake for her teacher and really enjoyed getting to know her a better through the design process.  I'm happy with the way the cake turned out, and more importantly, they were thrilled!

Don't let the photo fool you: this is a pretty large cake, meant to serve 50.  The diet coke cake is almost 11" tall,  larger than a half gallon of milk!  Inside, the cake is a deep chocolate cake made with a pint of Young's Double Chocolate Stout in the batter, and it is really, really tasty.  The stout flavors the cake but it is very subtle; the alcohol burns off and all that's left is a bit of depth and complexity of chocolate goodness.  Nonetheless, the cake has a nice crumb and isn't too dense.  I love chocolate and think it should be its own food group, and in my opinion, this is one of the best chocolate cakes I've tasted.

We paired the cake with alternating layers of chocolate buttercream and mint buttercream as fillings between the layers, and covered the cakes with dark chocolate ganache (a delicious mixture of chocolate and cream, which gives it a fudgy consistency).  This cake is a chocoholic's dream!

I also wanted to take this opportunity to wish Lauren and Tim all the happiness in the world for their future together.

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!

Bird Baby Shower

A very pink Baby Shower Cake

This sweet bird baby shower cake was designed based the invitation.  Obviously, a baby girl was on the way.  It is a very spring-like design, with a blushing pink bunny, butterfly, lots of flowers, and a bird in a beautiful, blooming tree.  I took the liberty of turning the smallish bird into a much larger pair of birds - a mother and a father bird who were waiting anxiously for their precious egg to hatch! 

The cake is a double height, 7" round cake, also called a double barrel cake.  This means that it is really two tiers of cake that are both the same size, separated by a hidden cardboard round.  The two tiers are frosted and then decorated as though they were a single, very tall tier!

Inside, the cake was tinted different shades of pink for an "ombre" effect.  If you had a slice, you'd see that the 4 layers of cake in the slice was each colored a slightly different shade of pink in ascending order!  The effect was very dramatic and oh so girly.  I was very happy with how this cake turned out.  I hope you like it too!! 

Enchanted Icing is also on Facebook

Enchanted Icing has a Facebook page!  Come see it and "like" our page.

www.facebook.com/EnchantedIcing

See you there!

Spiderman Takes The Cake

THWACK! Spiderman spins a web in a (vain) attempt to save Manhattan from a cake knife!!

This Spiderman cake was made for an avid Spiderman fan named Rohwan, who was turning 4.   I had a blast making this cake.  The cake is vanilla with chocolate frosting, and the whole thing is covered with fondant (sugar dough) for that lovely smooth finish.  The cake is constructed with the top at an angle to create the impression that Spiderman is climbing or perhaps clinging to the side of a building.  Flat just didn't seem right for Spiderman.

I made Spidey himself from another type of sugar dough called gum paste - the advantage is that it gets much firmer than fondant as it dries.  The buildings are also made from gum paste.  And by the way, both Spidey and the buildings are 100% edible! 

I got to use my brand new airbrush machine on this cake (being the cake geek I've become, that was really exciting and fun for me!)  I hope you can see the hint of pink between and behind the buildings (the gaps between groups of buildings represent the avenues which run east to west in Manhattan).  

Rohwan's mother wrote me that the cake was a huge hit with not only Rohwan and his friends, but also with the parents who attended the party!  She wrote to me:  "Loved the spiderman cake! Lots of oohing and aaahing from kids and adults!"  

I hope it was a great birthday Rohwan!  

Cobra Cake - I Ate Snakes

Have I ever told you that I don't particularly love snakes?  They slither and have no limbs.  They don't greet you at the door when you come home, offering you a ball to throw for them to fetch, their bodies shaking with excitement.  No, snakes are cold, indifferent to hostile in temperament, and look like they should be slimy to the touch.  And some of them can kill you.

Last week, your Fearless Cake Artist (me) had an order for a snake  birthday cake for Wyatt, a six year old boy who thinks snakes are just the icing on the cake, I mean, the greatest thing ever.   And he's not just into any snake -- he particularly likes cobras, especially spitting cobras.   Yup, a snake that spits venom at its intended victim. A poison loogie.  Could it get any more disgusting?

Seriously.  Take a look at a real red spitting cobra at right.  He looks mean. Is that an open venomous spit-launching tube in his mouth?  I don't want to get within 100 yards of that guy to find out.  Do you?

The good news is that a cobra cake is an entirely different beast from a real cobra.  You can eat a cobra cake.  You can't eat a real cobra (unless you're Bear Grills, that guy from TV who gets dropped off in the back woods somewhere and has to make it out alive with no food or water or anything.  He eats all sorts of disgusting stuff.)

This cobra cake was made from chocolate cake and vanilla bean buttercream frosting, and covered with fondant textured to look like scales.  The sand he's sitting in?  Brown sugar.  His teeth are made from marshmallows so they don't hurt.  The rest of what you see is fondant, hand colored and sculpted to be as scary as possible, just so I could give a bunch of six year olds a thrill.

According to Wyatt's mom, the cake was a big hit with the Wyatt and his pals!  She wrote to me after the party:
"Thanks for the awesome cake! The kids loved it, although there was a major squabble over who got to eat the tongue. The birthday boy ultimately got to the tongue and teeth. The cobra's head now looks like a toothless old man ;-)".


You never know what will make a six year old happy.  I'm glad I was able to help Wyatt achieve total domination over the deadly red spitting cobra.  Happy Birthday, Wyatt, and many more to come!