On Sunday, May 24th one of my best friends, Robyn, got married. Not only was I one of her bridesmaids, but I made her wedding cake as well. She wanted the cake to be very non-traditional and funky. At her request I made the cake black to match the bridesmaid’s dresses and I included brightly colored gerbera daisies to match the bouquets we carried.

The cake was five tiers of cookies and cream cake with chocolate ganache filling and vanilla buttercream. Each tier was covered in black fondant and decorated with green royal icing in a cornelli lace pattern. The gerbera daisies were all made out of gumpaste. I attached a dowel to the cake board that went through all the cakes in order to support the top tier and to make it look like the stems of the gerbera daisies were going through the top cake. I used green straws wrapped in florist tape for the flower stems.

Keeping with the theme from both the engagement and bridal shower cakes I also made for Robyn, I included a bride and groom that I hand made out of fondant. Since her new husband, Bryan, is a fireman I made sure to include a firehat as well.

Here is a picture of my entry:

All the cake tiers and the cake board are covered in ivory rolled fondant with cranberry and gold accents. The cake is topped with 3 hand made white gumpaste lilies (one of the flowers in the Bride’s bouquet) that were brushed with white luster dust. The stamens were painted with gold luster dust to match the other gold accents on the cake.

The main inspiration for the wedding cake was the bride’s theme of “Tradition with a Twist”.  I used a combination of topsy-turvy tiers with geometric red accents to create the optical illusion that the cake is actually twisting. I also incorporated all three of the bride’s colors (ivory, cranberry, and gold). The gold decorations on the cake were modeled out of fondant using a mold and then hand painted with gold luster dust.

To keep with the groom’s wish that his cake not “clash” with the bride’s cake I kept the style very similar but inverted the color scheme. I also wanted to highlight his interest in Impressionist art. One of the most famous impressionists was Claude Monet. Monet loved to paint many types of flowers including tulips (another one of the bride’s flowers). The image on top of the groom’s cake is a reproduction of a painting by Monet called “Tulip Fields in Holland”. The image was printed using edible ink on an icing sheet.

This past weekend two of my good friends, Merryl and Karen, got married. I was honored when they asked me to be a bridesmaid, but when they also trusted me to make their wedding cake I was truly grateful. Since they were getting married in January the theme of their wedding was everything winter and snowflakes. I knew they both loved penguins so I thought what would make a better cake topper for a winter wedding than a bride and groom penguin.

The bottom tier is a 15inch hexagon cake, chocolate cream cheese swirl with chocolate ganache filling, and caramel buttercream. It was covered in vanilla fondant and each face of the hexagon was decorated with a fondant snowflake. The second tier was a 10 inch round, maple cake, white chocolate cinnamon ganache filling, and white chocolate buttercream. It was also covered in vanilla fondant and painted with pearl dust to give it shine.

For the separator I covered a 6 inch 4 inch cylinder with fondant and then submerged it in a sugar solution for about a week in order to grow sugar crystals on it so that it would look like ice. I did the same thing with a piece of foam board I cut into an 8 inch hexagon, the top tier sat on the foam board. The top tier was the same flavor as the second tier, I covered it in fondant and then an alternating pattern of small fondant snowflakes. To top it off I hand made a bride and groom penguin out of fondant. The groom has a silver bow-tie and the bride a veil along with a Calla Lilly (the brides flowers).

This cake was entered in the 2008 Mid-Atlantic Cake show Wedding Cake Competition. It was my first entry in the Wedding Cake competition and there were over 80 entries that year. The theme for the competion was “Fabric Fantasies”. You had to choose a piece of fabric and decorate your cake to match it, then use the fabric as part of the table decoration. For my entry I decided to make a cake that looked like a Saree (or Sari). A Saree is a garment typically worn by woman in India. It consists of a long piece of cloth worn wrapped around the body with one end forming an ankle-length skirt, with 5-7 pleats in the front, and the other end is draped over one shoulder. My husband is originally from India and we have been there a few times now so I own a few Sarees myself.

For the cake I decorated all of the tiers as well as the fondant draping with free hand embroidery to match the decoration of the Saree. The embroidery was done using royal icing and was then painted with silver, red, and green luster dusts. All the rhinestones on the cake and cake base are made of poured sugar that was cast using a homemade silicone mold. The decorative cake plate and cake server are made out of rolled fondant. The handle of the cake server was piped with royal icing to match the cake decoration, and both the plate and cake server were painted with silver luster dust. The picture frame is made of wood, but was hand painted to match the design of the cake. The Saree that was the inspiration for the cake has been used as part of the table covering.

This cake was entered in the 2006 Mid-Atlantic Cake show, Intermediate division. It was my first cake show and I placed 2^nd. Starting from the bottom, the cake board was covered in tan fondant and sprinkled with brown sugar to look like sand. A silicone mold was used to make the fondant sea shells. The first tier was covered in fondant and then blue piping gel to look like water. The sea animals were made out of fondant using a silicone mold and then hand painted with food coloring. The dolphins are on wires to make them look like they are jumping out of the water. The middle tier was covered in fondant and brown sugar, with more fondant seashells. The third tier was covered in green fondant with shredded green fondant around the base to look like grass. The orchids on top were hand made out of gumpaste and dusted with petal dusts.

This was the first tiered cake I ever made. It was the final assignment in the Wilton Level 3 course.  The round tiers were covered in fondant and stacked. The roses were hand made out of fondant.