Design The bride had a photo of a cake she liked and I simply interpreted it with my own artistic style and skills.  It was a pretty simple, yet elegant design and didn’t require much advance preparation.  I did spend some time on the cake base, however.  I visited the wedding venue several weeks before the wedding to get a sense of the architecture and decor.   The venue was mostly ivory in color with some medium colored wood accents and large picture windows looking out onto the gardens and greens.  At that moment I decided to look for a picture frame or mirror that would play off the crown molding and beveled trim around the windows.  Additionally, the bride gave me a large piece of decorative ivory paper that had been used on the wedding invitations which I integrated into the base as well.  I think  the picture frame base worked  because it resonated well with the adjacent architecture and other elements of the wedding and the neutral ivory color helped focus attention on the dark chocolate scrolls . Additionally, the couple can use the frame for their wedding photos !

Cake The ever so popular chocolate blackout cake by Margaret Braun with a few tweaks of my own.

Filling Raspberry Italian meringue buttercream loaded with beautiful, whole ripe red raspberries.  A startling contrast to the conservative chocolate/ivory cake cladding when the cake is cut.

Icing A delicious vanilla Italian meringue buttercream.  Butter and vanilla just go so well together….

Decoration Simple, though time consuming, chocolate ganache swirls and scrolls with fresh roses provided by the florist.

Thanks As always, many thanks to Blake.  He did some grocery shopping, made the ganache and also made a batch of buttercream in addition to his standard responsibilities of feeding me, cutting the dowel supports, transport/delivery and taking the photos.  The usual, helpful, supportive guy he always is.

Design Halima was actually born on Halloween !! So, it’s only fitting that she should have a Halloween themed birthday cake. I actually had the idea for this cake for awhile, and her parents decided to dress her up to match the cake. Now that’s a first !!

Cake Delicious pumpkin spice cake. This cake is special in more ways than one. I made a variation of this pumpkin cake for my cousin, Omar, and Lela’s wedding (Halima’s parents) many moons ago as well as for Halima’s baby shower cake before she was even born! Additionally, this is probably my favorite cake to make. It is so yummy and you can almost convince yourself that it’s good for you Every time I make this cake I tweak the recipe a little. I’ve never made it the same twice, but I think I’m getting close to a perfect recipe. This time I substituted half the white sugar with brown sugar. The brown sugar really added a richer sweetness to the cake that it didn’t have before.

Filling The filling and frosting for the pedestal cake is white chocolate cream cheese frosting. This frosting has no added sugar, except what is in the white chocolate itself. The result was a bold cream cheese flavor with a white chocolate after taste that was not too sweet. This icing will also not crust like other typical cream cheese frostings made from powdered sugar. However, this icing will definitely not hold up in warm weather - use a powdered sugar variation instead.

Icing The teddy bear is iced in bittersweet chocolate cream cheese frosting with a fondant pumpkin “costume”.

Decoration Not a whole lot of decoration was needed for this cake. The teddy bear is the main attraction. The marzipan pumpkins and leaves help develop the overall theme without detracting from the focal point of the bear. The green leaves around the neck, the fondant pumpkin “hat” and gumpaste tendrils give the cake just the right amount of cuteness to match little Halima.

Thanks This wasn’t a very complicated cake, so I didn’t need too much help. I actually think this cake was probably one of my fastest cakes ever. Maybe I’m finally getting good at this??? I started it around 4pm on Saturday, got a full night’s sleep and finished it on Sunday at 2pm. None-the-less, Blake was a big help as always. He made all the marzipan pumpkins and leaves !

This cake was made for Anika’s 4th birthday on October 19, 2008.

Design I asked Anika what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday. Without hesitating, she exclaimed, “Bunny cake !!!” I wondered what type of bunny cake a 3 year old actually had in mind, so I asked, “What kind of bunny cake?” She looked thoughtful, so I probed, “Bugs Bunny?” She looked at me with wide eyes and replied, “Yeah !!!” I’m still not convinced, so I asked, “Easter bunny?” She exclaimed, “Yeah !!!” in an equally excited tone. Hmm, this wasn’t helping. So to test to see if she actually had something specific in mind, I asked, “Playboy bunny?” Again she exclaims, “yeah!!!” Hopeless. I realized I was on my own to design this thing. We ended up coming up with the rabbit in the magician’s hat theme, but I struggled with exactly how to make the bunny in the first place. At first I had settled on a round ball pan for the head and would build up the body and paws with carved cake pieces and icing. This approach would give the bunny a more cartoon-like look. Unfortunately, I only had two ball pans, one large and one small and neither size really worked proportionally with the size of the hat. It was either going to be a huge bunny head or several smaller ones like my kittens in a basket cake. However, when I was digging through the cupboards for the ball pans, I hit the jackpot to solve all my problems !! It was an easter bunny 3D pan from William Sonoma that my Mom had given me years before and I had never used and completely and utterly forgotten about. What a huge relief!! That bunny pan saved me hours of time. I was so grateful that I called her in Mexico just to thank her!

Cake This hat is full of magic right?  So I chose a white cake because I wanted dots of color to represent the “magic” inside the hat and needed a light colored cake that would contrast nicely. I also felt that white cake would represent good magic whereas chocolate cake might be construed as black magic. The white cake also contrasted well with the filling and the black fondant so that the color palate was consistent inside and out. I used Dede Wilson’s basic white cake recipe and mixed pink and purple candy sprinkles into the batter just before baking. The candies melt to form dots of magic!!

Filling The filling and frosting is a black raspberry buttercream. Originally we intended to use red raspberries, but they were out of them at the grocery store. The black raspberries produced a bright fuscia purple-pink buttercream which contrasted nicely with the white cake and black fondant and fit the theme rather well.

Icing The magician’s hat cake is iced with black Satin Ice fondant for that satin-like top hat look. The bunnies are iced with traditional decorator’s buttercream.

Decoration The typical magician’s color palate are black, white and red. To make the cake more appropriate for a little girl, I replaced the red with a dark fuscia pink and added flowers and silver glittery things to make the cake sparkle. I also wanted to have “magic” coming out of the hat, but wasn’t sure how to represent magic in 3D. I ended up forming wire into swirls and adding faceted pink glass beads, silver dragees, gumpaste flowers and dots of fuscia pink royal icing. I didn’t really have a design, just figured them out as I went. The flowers, bows and wand are all made from gumpaste. The playing cards are made from color flow royal icing. You’ll notice that the cards are all number 4, one from each suit, to commemorate Anika’s 4 years of life! The handkerchiefs are made from fondant, colored pink, pressed with a pattern transfer mat, and dusted with luster dust to give them a realistic, silky look. Overall, I think that this magician’s hat was a perfect fit for a 4 year old birthday!

Thanks Anika’s Mom and Dad were very enthusiastic about learning the cake process. Her mother, Poorti, came over two nights in a row to help and her father, Michael, accompanied her the second night. They helped make the playing cards, flowers and bows. Blake was also a tremendous help as usual. He did the grocery shopping, washed dishes and frosted the full bunny sitting on the table.

Design The best part about this cake is that Liz designed her very own birthday cake without even knowing it!!! Several of us women at work got together for a “ladies lunch” one day just so we could “catch up”. I just “happened” to bring along my recipe and cake picture books because I needed “help” to come up with some ideas for a garden birthday cake that I had in July (well after Liz’s birthday so she would not suspect). I’ve been doing quite a few cakes these days, so it wasn’t unusual that I was working on another one. My friend Linh was looking at the picture book and Liz was actually looking at it upside down. When Linh turned to the page that showed a tiered cake with purple wisteria, Liz exclaimed, “If you ever make a cake for me, this is the one I want.” I couldn’t believe how easy it was!! I almost laughed out loud. After continuing to look through the pictures and recipes, she found other things she liked including the lattice fencing, red poppies and the lemon poppy seed cake flavor, to play off the poppy theme. She certainly didn’t hold back any opinions and by the end of our lunch, she had completely designed her cake, flavors and all. It was TOO easy and we had so much fun telling everyone the story so that by the time the party took place, everyone couldn’t wait to see her face when she realized what had happened (hee, hee). The unfortunate thing is that the poppies were eliminated from the design when I realized they would need at least 3 days to do, which was more time than I had since I was starting the cake on Friday morning and the party was on Sunday morning. My work deadline had been extended which left me only 2.5 days to do this cake. I call it the ‘marathon cake’ as it took a total of 43 hours to make, 40 of them were from Friday morning to Sunday morning and I wasted 7 hours trying to make the poppies before I realized it was a dead end. So, as a result of taking the poppies out of the design, I decided to play off the lemon theme instead. It worked out nicely because the yellow color sets off the lavender and purple so well and the lemons hint at the flavor within.

Cake Lemon poppy seed cake. Finally a new recipe for me !!! I had a lot of fun researching recipies to find one that wasn’t heavy like a pound cake and yet not super light like chiffon. This one was somewhere in the middle and included folding meringue made with the egg whites into the batter to help lighten the texture.

Filling A thin layer of tangy lemon curd and a really thick layer of lemon mousse.

Icing Lemon Italian meringue buttercream, colored lemon yellow to further enhance the citrus theme.

Decoration The decorations are pretty simple. The wisteria and fencing was made from two-tone buttercream of white and various shades of purple. The little lemons were made by coloring marzipan and hand forming them into the shape of little lemons. The topper was made with a whole lemon and lemon wedges with real lemon leaves for garnish. Blake took an early Sunday morning “walk” in the neighborhood and found a few lemon leaves along the way….  The feather butterfly was a last minute addition from Linh.  It added the perfect live-like nature touch to the entire garden theme design.

Thanks There are a lot of people to thank. A special thank you to my friends and colleagues Linh, Araceli, Mani and her two boys for attempting to help me make the poppies and sunflowers which were part of the original design. They also helped share the cost of the cake along with another two friends, Karen and Carlos (and Blake too). Steve, another dear old friend and Blake made the mini marzipan lemons (after some trial-and-error). Steve came over to see what the whole cake process was like and I roped him into helping out !! This is a warning to the rest of you: don’t come over while I’m doing a cake unless you plan to help!! And finally, Blake got a new camera lens and took some amazing photos of the cake. I probably over did it on the photos, but they were all so good and it was hard to choose, so I just put them all up on the website.

Design It is quite fitting to have a concrete cake for a concrete company, don’t you think? Before I even had time to think of anything, Blake came up the initial design concept of a concrete slab. Together we morphed the concept into a concrete column in addition to a concrete slab complete with broom finish and rebar!!!

Cake Famous “Chocolate Blackout Cake”

Filling Tart raspberry Italian meringue buttercream

Icing Vanilla Italian Meringue buttercream, colored gray to match concrete. Plain or vanilla Italian meringue buttercream is actually pale yellow in color, not white like you would think. I added black food coloring, expecting to get grey, but it turned out bright lavender. This was not a complication I had anticipated. I asked Blake if he thought that they would notice if the concrete was purple…? While Blake was researching on the internet how to make gray, I took small buttercream samples and proceeded to add various colors to see what happened. Red, blue and orange did not work, but green did. Adding dark green would give me dark gray and adding light green would give me light gray. At the same time, Blake discovered that mixing colors on the opposite sides of the color wheel make gray. I guess we learn something every day, right?

Decoration I wanted the cake to look like real concrete, all edible except for the metal decking base. I used my favorite AutoCAD program to layout the design, finalize proportions and the final size. The concrete slab ended up being 16″ x16″ x5″ high from the top of the decking flute, the metal decking was 24″ square and the concrete column was made from two 5″ high, 8″ square stacked cakes. The BASE was made from real steel decking cut to size from an Albanese jobsite. Blake deburred the edges and washed it to make sure it was as clean as possible even though the cake would be separated from the decking by a thick cardboard layer the same size of the cake. Styrofoam blocks were glued to the decking to help support the edges and to form a barrier for the frosting that extended to the decking on all sides. The sugar REBAR were made by forming gumpaste into the shape of rebar using a food grade silicone mold. First the gumpaste was colored dark gray with food coloring and the mold was pre-dusted with moonstone luster dust to get that shiny metal look. Then the gumpaste was rolled out to about 3/4″ diameter tubes and pressed into the mold until no extra gumpaste seeped out when squeezed shut. The sugar rebar were unmolded and stuck onto bamboo skewers which helped support the heavy gumpaste sticking out of the cake. The hardest part was making the rebar mold itself. I was able to acquired a few pieces of various sized rebar from my jobsite where I work. Blake cut off 12″ long pieces with a hack saw and then ground off the burrs, dirt and rust with a metal brush piece fitted on a drill. We washed the rebar and then proceeded to make the molds - which wasn’t as easy as the instructions implied. Also, this was my first time making a mold, though I had read about it on several cake websites. There are two parts, one white and one pink, that are mixed together and then cure/harden to form the mold. The instructions said that we had 20 minutes to work with it once the two parts were mixed to a uniform light pink color, but we really only had about 5 minutes before the silicone began to set! Additionally, the instructions said to spray the object to be molded with vegetable oil. This only made the molding process worse because the rebar is very stiff while the silicone was very soft and rubbery which made the silicone gape away from the rebar. I think the vegetable oil idea would have worked better if I was trying to mold lace or some other flexible, porous material. However, we managed to get one decent mold for the large rebar, but the mold for the smaller rebar (that was to be the column tie) completely failed. We had to work with just the one rebar mold because the silicone kit is expensive (around $35 for enough to mold a 7″x7″x1/2″ flat object) and I only bought one kit expecting it to be as easy as the instructions claimed. Plan ‘B’ would have been to use black licorice which sort-of have a rebar look to them, but luckily we didn’t have to do that. The company LOGO PLAQUE is entirely edible! The yellow background, bulldog face and black ‘Joseph J. Albanese’ letters were all made separately and then glued together with icing to create a more 3-D look. I adjusted a JPG file of the company logo in Photoshop to fit just the right proportions, printed it out and used this to trace the design in color flow. I first made the yellow base and let dry overnight and then used a #9 tip to make the brown border and let dry several hours. Meanwhile, I traced the bulldog with a #1 tip using black color flow. I then filled in with thinned tan color flow icing for the head and brown for the hat and let dry over night. The next day I piped in thinned white color flow icing for the eyes and teeth and red for the collar. I used a pin to create the ‘JA’ logo on the hat with color flow icing. I tried a yellow food color pen, but the brown background was too dark and it absorbed all the yellow color. However, I did use a black food coloring pen to create the black shadows on the bulldog face, his black pupils and also for the words ‘Concrete Construction’ on the yellow background. The red ‘D.O.G.‘ letters were also made using color flow icing. I used MS Word to find a font that matched as closely as possible to their logo and then printed it out at a size proportional to the sides of the cake, but not too big as to distract from the logo plaque. I then traced the outline with a #2 tip and filled in with thinned color flow icing.

Thanks Many thanks to Leslie Cusimano, the HR director at JJ Albanese (who used to work at Steinberg Architects), who acquired the metal decking base for me. She had quite a challenge to get a piece of decking cut to just the right size. Special thanks to the field guy who went out of his way to actually fabricate the piece of decking. The decking added just the right touch of reality and the cake would have been drab without it. Also, mil gracias a Blake for all his support and help as always. This cake doesn’t look that complicated, even to me, and I underestimated the amount of time it would take to complete it. The cake was due on a workday Monday for a noon-time BBQ and Blake and I didn’t go to sleep on Sunday until 5:00am. We then got up at 9:00am and proceeded to finalize the stacking and the last layer of buttercream. We arrived on-site at 11:30 am and finished the assembly at 12:00 noon sharp - just in the nick of time ! Blake and I both had to rearrange our work schedule to deliver this cake on time.

]]> http://slocakes.com/blog/2008/06/02/the-concrete-cake/feed/ http://slocakes.com/blog/2008/05/15/little-shop-of-steinberg/ http://slocakes.com/blog/2008/05/15/little-shop-of-steinberg/#comments Thu, 15 May 2008 20:00:33 +0000 dani http://slocakes.com/blog/?p=310 Watch out, it might bite !! This cake was made for the Annual International Interior Design Association (IIDA) ‘Culinary Challenge’ charity event to benefit Heifer International on May 15, 2008 in Milpitas, CA. We won the “people’s choice” award which was a trio of rabbits to be given to a family in a developing nation.

Design This cake was designed by the Interiors Group from Steinberg Architects where I work. This year IIDA actually had a theme that wasn’t just the charity organization itself, which was “Take a Bite Out Of World Hunger”. The cake we did for last year’s event was a perfect fit for the theme this year, but of course we couldn’t do the same thing twice !!! So, we decided not to take the theme quite so literally. One team member, Lisa (who has a background in theater productions), came up with the idea of the plant called Audre II from Little Shop of Horrors helping to end world hunger. We came up with several other ideas that might have fit the theme a little closer, but they were all too similar in nature to last year’s design and none seemed as fun or interesting as the colorful Audre II !!! Albiet a bit stressfull, this cake was a ton of fun to design and definitely a challenge to make. During the course of making this cake, specifically Audre’s head, I realized that the sculpting portion of my brain is not as developed as the color and contrast part of my brain. I really struggled to figure out a solution for creating Audre’s head. As compared to my other cakes where I knew instantly how to make it and could definitely see the final result in my mind, I could do neither for this cake. I literally created Audre’s head bit by bit as I went and it eventually evolved into the what you see here.

Cake Chocolate blackout cake was a fitting representation of the soil inside the flower pot and under the grass.

Filling Bittersweet chocolate Italian meringue buttercream and gummi worms for additional earthy effect.

Icing Italian meringue buttercream: vanilla for the grass and chocolate for the flower pot.

Decoration All the colors that you see in this cake were hand mixed using various food colors, just like an artist would mix paint for a canvas, to specifically match a paint swatch color palate selected by team member Shannon to create the most dramatic effect. HEAD OF AUDRE II - At first, I didn’t actually know how I was going to make the head. I literally walked the halls of Michael’s Craft Store looking for a solution. I eventually found a styrofoam egg that was just about the shape I was looking for. Audre’s head evolved over 6 days and each day brought new ideas for the next step. I first cut the egg in half using a saw and then stuck a sharpened dowel through the two halves so that they were positioned with the back as a hinge point and the mouth open. I then stuck the dowel into another block of styrofoam to hold it up and just stared at it… willing more ideas to come to mind. I wasn’t quite sure what to do next, but the next day I applied a thin layer of royal icing all over the styrofoam with another layer of red gumpaste for the mouth and yellow for the head. I was somewhat disappointed with the results as it looked like an oblong version of pacman. Blake suggested giving it some veins to give it a more organic look that would mimic both a leaf and a living creature. So I piped on various diameter widths of royal icing “veins” over the yellow gumpaste in a wiggly leaf-like pattern. The next day I applied another thin layer of yellow fondant (more elastic than gumpaste) and pressed it in around the “veins” for a disturbingly life-like look. I also applied the red lips and gums to let dry over night. It was finally starting to come together and I could breathe a sigh of relief !!! I was a bit stressed before because the head would be the main focal point of this cake. If it didn’t look just right, the whole cake would be a disaster and all my time wasted. The next challenge for the head was the hinge point because the two halves were not really connected and still looked like two halves of a now evil pacman. As I was falling asleep that night, I suddenly thought of an excellent solution!! The next day I made large green leaves pressed into a resin mold to give them veins and applied them to the back of Audre II’s head to hide the gaping hinge point. This worked perfectly and made the head feel more connected to the rest of the plant. The following day I secured the beautiful purple gumpaste tongue (something you’d see from the band KISS) in place with royal icing colored to match the mouth and also applied the tan spots. On the final day, I applied the white royal icing teeth which contrasted nicely with the red, yellow and green and gave it the final realistic touch. I was so pleased with the results that I even danced a little jig !!! LEAVES & TENDRILS - I set up a little afternoon workshop in the office and the interiors team learned to color gumpaste and to made the leaves and tendrils. The leaves were made by Lisa and Erin using a resin leaf mold to cut the leaf sharpen and make the veins. The tendrils were made by Tina who rolled out the gumpaste, stuck a toothpick in the end and wound it around lollipop sticks to form the curly ends. LETTERS - Shannon came up with the clever title “Little Shop of Steinberg” by combining the name of the theater/movie production and that of our company. I typed the words on the computer using similar fonts to match the theater production title, our company logo as well as the Heifer International logo. I then overlaid the print-outs with cellophane and outlined the letters with stiff color flow icing and filled in with thinned icing. I purposefully chose to color the Heifer International title white to match their logo, but also to contrast with the green grass and draw the eye to the whole purpose of the cake. I also chose to color the title of the cake “Little Shop of Steinberg” yellow to match Audre’s head, but also so that it wouldn’t contrast too much with the brown flower pot and thus detract from the Heifer International words. The Hunger sign was made by cutting out a flattened bit of gum paste and using a round tip to cut out holes to make the teeth marks. After it was dry I piped on the word ‘HUNGER’ with royal icing.

Thanks Special thanks to the Interiors Team at Steinberg Architects for the ultimate theme and cake design and for coming up with creative ideas. Tina, Erin and Lisa were instrumental in creating the colorful leaves and tendril details and Shannon for creating the color palate and who also helped set up the cake at the venue. Also many thanks to Blake for helping me work through the creation of Audre’s head, for other helpful design suggestions, for helping to set up the cake and for taking great photos.

This is the wedding cake that Blake and I made for our dear old friend, Matte Elsbernd, and his lovely bride, Nicole, on May 3, 2008. Their wedding reception was held at the Fleur De Lys in San Francisco, CA.

DesignThe Bride picked out a picture of a cake she liked online. The challenge for me was to recreate it, which, I must say, is challenging. The peach color was custom made using food coloring to match Frazee paint color “Endless Peach” that the bride picked from a paint color fan deck.

Cake Each tier has four layers of decadent chocolate blackout cake with three layers of filling. I added an extra egg to the recipe which I think really helped firm up the texture of the cake.

Filling Each layer of filling consists of a thin layer of passion fruit curd for instant zing and a thicker layer of creamy passion fruit Italian meringue buttercream so the flavor lingers on the tongue….Passion fruit, also known as lilikoi in Hawaii, has a very tangy, tropical flavor which, when paired with chocolate, is an absolutely amazing flavor combination. Something to make your taste buds tingle !!!

Icing Fondant over passion fruit Italian meringue buttercream.

Decoration The flowers were made by piping an outline of stiff color flow royal icing onto cellophane over a flower template and then filling in with thinned royal icing. When dry, the flowers were brushed with super pearl luster dust to give them a elegant sheen. The topper is held up with a bamboo skewer that was “glued” to the flower with a little royal icing. I used a computer aided drafting program called AutoCAD to create the templates for the flowers. I also used the program to draw the entire cake and layout the flowers so that the size of the flowers would be proportional to each tier and to the cake as a whole. I found the votives at Target which matched the design perfectly.

Thanks Blake and I are truly a wonderful team and I thoroughly enjoy working with him (so long as he does what I say ;-). But really, this art of mine would not exist without him. Blake colored all the fondant peach, rolled the fondant out for applying to the tiers (it’s a lot of hard work and I was sore for days afterwards) and painted all the flower decorations with pearl dust. He also did a little last minute grocery shopping and helped me finalize the design of the cake base. Blake was a life-saver as always and I am forever grateful to him for supporting me in my artistic endeavors!!

This was a surprise wedding test cake that I made for my friend Nicole on April 19, 2008.

Design Not much design to do on my part. The bride found a cake design she liked online and I was simply challenged to reproduce it. I think it’s pretty much identical.

Cake Famous “Chocolate Blackout Cake” recipe by Margaret Braun.

Filling Passion fruit syrup brushed onto the cake layers with a thin layer of passion fruit curd and another thin layer of mocha Italian meringue buttercream.

Icing Mocha Italian meringue buttercream with white chocolate fondant colored peach to match Frazee paint chip color 7333M Endless Peach.

Decoration The flowers were made from color flow royal icing piped onto parchment over a flower template. I used a computer aided drafting program called AutoCAD to draw the templates for the flowers. I basically eyeballed the size and shape from the online image.

Thanks I can pat my own back for this one. I woke up Saturday morning and decided last minute to make this test cake. So I made the curd, went grocery shopping, baked the cake, made the buttercream, made the syrup and filled, frosted, decorated and photographed the cake myself all in 6.5 hours. I had previously made the royal icing flower a couple of weeks prior, so it was all ready to go.

This cake was lovingly made for Nisha’s 6th birthday party on March 16, 2008.

Design Nisha requested “roses, especially pink ones.” Hmmm… what to do with roses that doesn’t remind me of Valentine’s Day or weddings? So I came up with this garden theme which was a little more kid-like, yet a little educational too. It’s as if someone came and took a soil sample core right out of a rose garden, worms and all.

Cake Famous “Chocolate Blackout Cake” recipe by Margaret Braun.

Filling Chocolate buttercream with gummi worms !!! The kids loved it and how better to mimic real soil?

Icing Chocolate Italian meringue buttercream for the lower “dirt” layer. For the top tier I wanted to incorporate the theme of roses, so I flavored the buttercream with rose water. You can buy rose water made from rose hips at any Middle Eastern or Indian market. It was a bit risky as most people are not familiar with rose water and it has a very “floral” taste. I actually think you smell it more than taste it, but everyone seemed to like it, or at least they didn’t seem to hate it. I really liked the idea of putting roses in the cake, not just on top of it.

Decoration The roses and lady bugs are made from royal icing. The leaves are made from gum paste. The dirt look came from crushing together oreo cookies (without the cream filling) and chocolate teddy grahams to get varied crumb sizes and colors and then carefully pressing the crumbs into the buttercream on the sides of the cake. And let’s not forget the gummi worms sticking out of the soil for extra earthy effect.

Thanks Many thanks to my friend, Karen, who made all the leaves, lady bugs and bouncy butterflies and bees while I made the roses. And of course a big thank you to Blake who attached the wires to the leaves with candy melts and most of all for delivering and assembling the cake all by himself !!! At least 1/3 of the design happens at the point when everything is assembled on the cake. It’s somewhat of a “design-build” project as you place the decorations on the cake however you feel looks best. He did an amazing job and everyone loved the results.

This cake was made for Anika’s 3rd birthday party on October 21, 2007.

Design Anika’s only design criteria was “kitties”. Who knows what she actually had in mind, but this is what I came up with. I had a hard time deciding between the basket of several kittens or one big cat lounging. But the kittens peeking out of the basket seemed a little more dynamic and kid-like than a boring lounging kitty.

Cake Famous “Chocolate Blackout Cake” recipe by Margaret Braun.

Filling & Icing I went with a little twist this time and flavored the Italian meringue buttercream with peppermint extract. The cake tasted like a peppermint patty !!

Decoration The kitten’s heads were made with the mini ball pan. The ears were molded from candy melts piped into a small hole piping tip and quickly chilled in the refrigerator. The flowers were made from fondant with shaped cookie cutters and dried in cups and bowls to get the rounded shape. The whiskers were made by piping melted chocolate over dry spaghetti.

Thanks Again, many thanks go out to Blake. He made the ears, helped pipe some of the kitty fur and also placed all the flowers on the cake. These cakes are really labors of love from both of us.