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.