Wedding Cake Wednesday -- Ben and Hannah

Ben and Hannah tied the knot...like two and a half months ago! I am really behind on posting my wedding cakes. Embarrassing. Anyway, I had the honor of making the cake for my good friends, and I have to say that this particular cake was one of the best experiences of my pastry career. Fortunately, I had Greenie helping me set up that day. He was able to get some great shots.



"O hai!"

(If you follow icanhascheezburger.com, that caption will make sense. If not, don't worry about it.)

Here's one of me in "all business" mode. Each flower had to be placed just so. In case you're wondering why there is a different cake topper from the "official" portfolio picture, it's because I swapped out toppers for the reception. I believe the one shown below belongs to Hannah's grandmother, so there was a lot of sentimental value in having it on the cake.



Here's a nice close-up of one of the flowers and some of the leaves. Special shout-out to my incredible friend Meghan for making the leaves! They are beautiful.

I made each flower -- lovingly -- by hand. Why? Because I'm crazy!




Details on the cake:

Bottom tier: Chocolate with Kahlúa buttercream

Middle and top tiers: Zucchini spice with vanilla buttercream

Outside: People were really curious about how I did the panels. I made them out of modeling chocolate. It involved a pasta machine, some serious problem-solving skills, and a really long evening!

Flowers and leaves: Dark modeling chocolate. The process is very similar to making gumpaste roses and leaves, only you use cocoa powder to keep everything from getting sticky. Also, these flowers are awesome because they don't become super-brittle as they dry. That means you can fiddle with them on-site as you're setting up the cake. Which I did.... SO AWESOME.

This cake was incredibly satisfying to make. It was truly a departure from the standard fare, not to mention challenging on a number of levels. I really had to "bring my A game."

Thanks for letting me make your cake, Ben and Hannah! (P.S. Sorry for all the stuff I did in your photo booth.) Also, I have an extra five pounds of white modeling chocolate sitting around if anyone wants any.

Wedding Cake Wednesday -- Emily and Jason

Last Saturday was my cousin Emily's wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony, and it was great to catch up with everyone on my mom's side of the family. I also got to make the cake! The couple had a tropical theme and requested lots of blue, some bubble-sugar coral, and some sea creatures made of white chocolate.

Below is a closer look at the bubble sugar. This stuff is so much fun to make! It is incredibly simple, but at the same time, slightly dangerous -- molten sugar is not something you want touching your skin. Anyway, once you pour it and let it set up, you break it into pieces that look like shards of glass. (FYI, they are just as sharp.)



I made one clear batch of bubble sugar and tinted the other batch green. In the end, I decided to go mostly with the clear, because I think it looked better. If you are interested in making this, here is the recipe I used:

http://candy.about.com/od/hardcandyrecipes/r/bubblesugar.htm

Be careful!!! One time in pastry school, I got a tiny bit of molten sugar on my hand, and I had the scar for years and years. It also hurt like a mutha.



Bottom tier: chocolate cake with chocolate filling
Middle and top tiers: lemon cake with lemon filling

Frosting: white buttercream with lots of airbrush to get the blue colors. Sure, I could have just tinted all of the buttercream blue, but I didn't want to. I think that when you use food coloring in the quantities necessary for color that intense, the buttercream stops tasting like buttercream and starts tasting like blue food coloring.

Normally for a cake like this, I would prefer to use colored fondant. It is much safer, as there are serious "bleeding" issues involved with using food coloring on buttercream. But the bride was very against the idea of fondant, so I was determined to make it work.

Sea creatures: I just used a basic candy mold from the craft store. I used white and dark chocolate swirled together to get a more realistic effect.

Coral accents: bubble sugar

Ribbon: each tier actually got two white ribbons wrapped around it. The first one was used to soak up the blue grease, and the second one was for show.

…I took this picture myself: