A Western Wedding...

Yesterday I delivered a wedding cake to a reception with a true western flair. Decorations included hay bales and saddles, all very tastefully done. The cake top ornament was a cowboy bride and groom, with hat, rope, and wooden horseshoe. I used "rope" borders on the cake with tiny sahuaro cactus accents. The drop flowers were made with royal icing and then air-brushed to match the desired color. A rope and miniature hay bales were used to complete the effect. The design on this cake works well with an oval-shaped cake. The flavor was yellow with a whipped cream and strawberry filling.

Party Cakes...

Party cakes are allot of work. They take extra time because you are usually working with several colors and a specific design that you have to come up with unless it's something that you've done before. I get allot of my patterns from google images. Of course, you can't charge as much for a party cakes as you do for wedding cakes, but sometimes you have to do the party cakes to get referrals for the wedding cakes, so it all works out in the end. I usually fill in as much of the design as possible with icing, and only use the airbrush for shading or background. It makes for a nicer finished product. Here is a picture of the cake I did today for my friend's daughter; she was into rainforests and wanted some specific things on the cake...gorilla, monkey with banana, and bird, so I ended up putting about 4 different patterns together to get the one desired picture. The cake was yellow filled with whipped cream and fresh strawberries.

Update on cake tasting day...

Yesterday afternoon was my cake tasting day for prospective brides. It was successful, even though I was pressed for time getting ready. We had several different flavors to choose from:

• Fudge marble with bavarian cream
• Lemon with cream cheese and fresh strawberries
• Chocolate with fudge and raspberry
  
• Spice with cream cheese pecan and white chocolate cream cheese frosting
• Chocolate with coconut pecan filling
• Banana split cake (everyone's favorite, of course)

Bruce was very helpful in cleaning up while I was talking with my customers. Since we had leftover cake as usual, we invited some of the neighbors we had not yet met over to take cake home. It was a great way to become acquainted and they loved the free cake.

Especially for Star Wars fans...

Here's one of the seven cakes I decorated last week. I was asked to do a cake for Garrett, the son of my friend and hairdresser, for his tenth birthday. He wanted something from Star Wars and he let me use my decorator's prerogative to determine what I would put on the cake. I found this great picture of Yoda with a light saver. I thought it turned it out great, and I think Garrett enjoyed it.

Free cake tasting rescheduled for June 20...

My next free cake tasting for prospective brides is rescheduled for Saturday, June 20 from 1-4 pm. If you are visiting my blog and are interested in attending that day, please call me or email me to schedule a time during those hours.

Delivering cakes in the rain...

Yesterday we catered a wedding reception for a friend of ours. It was supposed to be an outdoors reception, but, as we know, the weather here in Colorado Springs can be very unpredictable. So, at the last moment, it was decided to bring the reception inside the house. Diane has a very lovely large home, so it wasn't the end of the world, even though she had planned some beautiful decorations for outside. So anyway, we were late getting everything set up since it was a last minute decision. Everything turned out fine, except delivering cakes in the rain is not fun, and because it was raining when Bruce was bringing the cake in, the beautiful finish on the fondant was marred slightly by the rain drops. The cake was still very nice and, of course, tasted wonderful. We used a beautiful orchid spray on the top tier, and it was placed on a mirror and my newly purchased silver cake plateau, which was perfect for this type of cake design. The bride and groom chose some wonderful flavor combinations. . . chocolate mint with chocolate mint mousse, chocolate with peanut butter mousse, and fudge marble with cream cheese. The picture actually makes the cake look smaller than it was. . . the bottom tier was a 14 inch square and the cake plateau was 22 inches in diameter.

Graduation, Promotion, and Retirement Cakes

It's that time of year again...graduations, promotions, and retirements. This is a cake that I did last last night for an Air Force retirement. Of course, living here in Colorado Springs I have the opporturnity to decorate cakes for military celebrations, especially Air Force. These cakes usually involve alot of work since they usually deal with creating detailed emblems in icing. I can also design graduation cakes for specific schools--colleges, high schools, and middle schools--customizing your cake with a specific logo or emblem. Prior to relocating to Colorado, this was most often my busiest time of year. One year I baked and decorated about 20 cakes within a 3 day period. Of course, I didn't sleep much, and was beginning to run out of room to place the completed cakes, but some how I managed to get through. I'm not sure I could or would want to be that busy again, but I do enjoy the opportunity to do these special cakes. My skill and talent for detail comes through.