Cake

Last week, my coworkers and I held a celebration dinner at a local pizza restaurant to celebrate a coworker’s upcoming wedding. I was commissioned to make the cake and, because it was a pretty casual event, I wasn’t restricted in making a traditional wedding cake.
This is the first cake I’ve made that wasn’t for a decorating class, and the first I’ve ever stacked! It came out a little crooked which ended up working out for me since it looked like a sand dune. I learned a lot from making this cake, so I am sure the next one will look better. One piece of advice I received in decorating cakes is people will rarely notice your mistakes. All they see is cake and what piece they want. Luckily the flavors of these cakes were pretty delicious. The top tier was lemon with a cream cheese frosting and lemon zest filling and the bottom tier was french vanilla cake with cream cheese frosting and fresh strawberries as a filling.

My inspiration for this cake came from my coworker’s love of surfing and the couple’s appreciation for nature. The “sand” is made out of crushed graham cracker and pressed against a layer of frosting. The seashells and starfish are made using a chocolate mold and pouring melted chocolate into them. To give them a more realistic look, I used small brush to add a teaspoon of cinnamon all over the shells and starfish. For the wedding cake topper, I used to shells to make a clam, squeezed in some blue frosting, and my boyfriend added the couples initials using pearl sprinkles. I am proud of all the details and how it really dressed up the cake.
Enjoy my fashion picks inspired by the chocolate seashells and starfish!

As promised, here are the photos of the cake my sister and I decorated for a baby shower last weekend.
This cake was a gift for my sister’s friend. To not go over budget making cupcakes for an event with 100+ guests, we ordered a plain sheet cake from Costco and made the decorations. It took about 4 hours on the day of the event, and the decorations came out great and the mom-to-be was very pleased with the cake.
We purchased some pound cake and sculpted it in the shape of the bassinet and cubes. My sister rolled out and shaped most of the fondant. Even Mando helped out too by doing the sculpting of pound cake structures and letters on the cubes free handed. I did the icing of our edible decorations, added borders, and the bow!
Everything was edible, and while we probably could have made our own sheet cake, it is important for my sister and I to really focus more on detail and other artistic touches. I have been watching a lot of episodes of Cake Boss on Netflix lately, and what always impresses me are the details of a cake. I was also really pleased with carrying in the cake and having people marvel at what we had done. I can see why Buddy from Cake Boss loves doing what he does, because making people happy and smile is really fulfilling.
It just so happens my sister and I attended another baby shower today, and there is another one my family is scheduled to attend next weekend too. So many people are having babies, and me and my sister are over here like “Hey, we made cupcakes!”
For now, our cupcake business is our baby, and we plan to keep it that way for a long while.

6 Comments

Life’s a Beach…Cake

Baby Showers