Wedding Cake

One of my friends' cousins emailed me and asked if I would make their aunt a wedding cake. She sent me a picture of what she wanted it to look like.

So I made this cake. She asked for enough cake to feed 200 people, and it turned out that there were less than 100 there, so I guess they had a ton of cake to bring home or give away to their guests. Pretty cool! Not something that usually happens at weddings.

The cake was red velvet with strawberry buttercream, and vanilla with strawberry buttercream. I covered the tiers with a thick layer of fondant because the wedding was outdoors, and piped designs with royal icing. The problem was, the picture she sent me had a cake with silver dragees, those little chrome looking balls, on it. Well, you can't buy them in California, and you can't even buy them on ebay and have them shipped to Cali either, there's an ongoing federal case against silver dragees, something about the silver being toxic and that sale of silver dragees should be taxed because they don't hold any nutritional value so they aren't technically a food product. Whew! So after all that, I bought pearl dragees and painted them with silver luster dust. My husband said they looked silver enough. So that's what you see on the cake.

This was technically my first wedding cake, so buying flowers was a daunting task. They are really expensive! I couldn't believe how much they cost. And the orchids I got from Citti's were all banged up, I don't think I'd ever go there again.

While I was setting up the cake, the ceremony began on the other side of the tent. There was beautiful mariachi music continuously playing in the background, and roosters crowing. See the coop in the background? There were a dozen chickens in there, and even a brown duck! The roosters, there were maybe five or six, kept crowing, and roosters at the coop next door were crowing, it was so funny.

Here's how I stacked the cakes for delivery

Uno, dos and tres

Quatro and cinqo- this one was soooo heavy!!!

Pincushion cupcakes

Today was my mom's last day of quilting class. At least, until she starts the new one. If you haven't read my other blogs, my mom is an avid quilter, and she has been taking classes for years and years, maybe 5 or 6 years, maybe even more. She has made some really lovely friends in her classes, and after I made her that sewing machine cake with that little pin cushion she asked if I would make her some in cupcake form for her class.
It was a lot easier than I anticipated. I had the perfect size circle cutter for those little cupcakes, and I put the frosting on in a little dome shape so they would be round on top. They turned out pretty cute, I must say. The pins were all made of gumpaste and wire.

Grandma's 91st Birthday

My grandma turned 91 yesterday! It gives me so much hope that I'll live long enough to see my great grandchildren, which will be when I'm old because I have already told my daughter how important it is to graduate from college and buy a house, have a career, etc BEFORE you get knocked up. OK, I didn't say those exact words but you get the idea. (yes, these are all things I didn't get done before I got knocked up)
Anyway Grandma loves hummingbirds, so I decided to make her a cake that had a couple of hummingbirds drinking nectar from morning glories. The hummingbirds and flowers were all made of gumpaste.

Love you a Latte !!

Today is teacher appreciation day at the kids' school. If you've read my previous blogs, you know that I hold our school in the highest regard. I mean, there's practically golden gates opening and rainbows and birds chirping as you walk in every morning. At least it feels that way.
Our teachers are all so wonderful, and the school is such a tight knit community that everyone knows who everyone is. The kids all call the teachers and parents by their first names, and everyone is given equal respect and all voices are heard. Most of the time.
So, I decided to give the wonderful teachers and staff a big coffee break cake. I didn't tell anyone I was making it, so the social committee was surprised too. It was really neat. After that the teachers gave me hugs, so I know they really felt appreciated and loved.

Kokeshi doll

This doll cake was a gift for my mom on mother's day. In Japan, these little wooden carved dolls are very popular and are given to children on children's day, and other special days. They are all painted with different types of kimonos and special hairdos and stuff. Some of them are painted like brides or little girls, or old grandmas, etc. I don't know if I've ever seen a boy kokeshi doll before, though, come to think of it. Hm.
Anyway I found a pic of this doll online, and thought it looked so cute. It reminded me of the sweet innocent side of my daughter that is rarely seen these days. :)
And my daughter, I call her my helper number one (my son's number two), made all of the flowers and hand painted each one in gold paint with a different pattern for each one. She's really creative and getting really skilled at using my flower cutters on fondant. Saves me so much time, and makes for a fun mother daughter bonding. (keeps her out of my hair too)

Angelina Ballerina

This is such a princess cake! I had so much fun creating this one. It's Angelina Ballerina, our favorite ballerina mouse who always gets herself into trouble with her impulsive antics and clumsiness. I can relate to that, except for the ballerina part. I'm more of a break dancer. Just kidding.
This cake was also for a first birthday. And, I was actually almost on time for this delivery! woohoo!



*~ Happy Birthday Kira ! *~

Foster and Eebee

One of my son's friends has a little brother whose name is Foster. He just celebrated his first birthday, and I made him this cake. His big sis came over and created part of the Eebee doll and carefully painted each star, she's a budding artist. In case you didn't know, (I didn't) Eebee is a developmental toy that bears a slight resemblance to Ernie on Sesame Street, except he has punk rock hair and different colored extremities. And what one year old birthday party is complete without a Foster beer can cake?? Especially when you have a cool name like Foster.




~* Happy Birthday Foster !! *~