BELLINI ROSE
This is a 50th anniversary cake for Cherokee and Ella Morgan on January 8, 2005 at the Silicon Valley Capitol Club in San Jose, CA. They are the parents of Leslie Cusimano who is the head of HR at Steinberg Architects where I work.
This is a new recipe called the Bellini cake named after the famous drink of peach liqueur and champagne. I have wanted to try this recipe for some time now and luckily Leslie was game for it too. It is made with a delicious white cake that is not too sweet and melts in your mouth. Each torte of each tier is moistened with a simple syrup made from sugar, water and an entire large bottle of peach schnapps! Between each of the 3 torte layers is a fruit filling made with peach preserves, whole peaches, and champagne. The icing is an italian meringue buttercream infused with Mathilde peach liquor made from a 100 year old French recipe. The overall flavor is the most delicate peach flavor that lingers on your tongue...
The decorations are all hand shaped sugar flowers. The roses are made with 3 shades of peach/orange gumpaste which hint at the flavor of the cake. Because of the humidity from the rain, I could only attach one layer of petals each day - which took 5 nights. The 50 white flowers are made from white gumpaste and the centers are painted gold to doubly symbolize the 50th anniversary. The peach liqueur filled glass topper also symbolized a toast to congratulate their anniversary.
Special thanks to my colleague Karen Costa who helped out tremendously making the 50 white flowers for each year the couple was married. She was also instrumental in its delivery. I also thank my boyfriend Blake for making sure we were fed and for helping out with all the important little things that needed to be done. As usual, I couldn't have done it without you guys! We celebrated afterwards by drinking the left-over champagne and eating cake scraps!
