Posts Tagged ‘SweetElement’
Latest Wedding Cake
Posted on: December 1, 2008
Here’s the latest SweetElement creation … a fall wedding cake made as a wedding gift for a friend. Her request … a simple, elegant, fall-themed (with leaves) cake with her Charlie Brown topper incorporated. I think the end result turned out quite nice. All tiers were comprised of vanilla cake filled with strawberry preserves and frosted in buttercream and fondant. All the leaves were made out of gumpaste, and the tiers were adorned with ribbon on the bases. The biggest compliment (aside from a gushing appreciate bride), was seeing one of the slender female guests at our table eat two pieces of cake … AND yell at the servers who were trying to clear her cake plate when she still had a bite left. Now that’s a true compliment!
Mike & Penny’s Engagement Cake
Posted on: September 18, 2008
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Without further adieu … here’s the latest SweetElement cake made for one of the cutest couples I know!
Each cake tier was comprised of one layer of devil’s food cake and one layer of yellow cake. The entire cake was filled and frosted with Italian meringue buttercream, and then decorated in buttercream leaves and painted gumpaste flowers.
Bridal Shower Cake
Posted on: August 11, 2008
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Here’s the latest bridal shower cake that was made for a co-worker. She wanted to replicate the design on plates they were using at the shower, thus the “bridal shower girls” on the gifts chocolate plate design. The actual cake was comprised of one layer of yellow cake and one layer of devil’s food cake, filled and frosted in buttercream.
Red Stripe Cake
Posted on: July 6, 2008
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As with most of my days “off”, I spent this past Friday making another SweetElement cake! While I throughly enjoy making cakes for commission, the joy of making cakes for friends and family that leaves me total creative control from start to finish is something that just can’t be matched.
The inspiration for this cake came to me simply by thinking of things that my friend Jon loves … beer & monkeys! The cake itself was a devil’s food cake filled with cookies & cream buttercream, frosted in chocolate buttercream and decorated in fondant and royal icing. The “sand” was a combination of crushed cookies. Total height was ~12″.
Initially, I thought it would be a cute idea to theme the cake around the 4th of July since we were going over for a 4th of July BBQ (even though the party was on the 5th), so I made red white & blue monkeys as accessories. My favorite of the three was the red stripe drinking blue monkey with his hand on his little beer belly — too cute!
The red monkey sporting a “420″ um, “plant inspired” shirt is happily munching some chips and smokin’ a little something ;p
Here’s a view of the bottlecap and the three monkeys … including the white Jamaican monkey bearing the Jamaican flag. (There’s also a secret brown monkey hiding incognito in the back.)
And the finished Red Stripe cake ~ monkeys and all!
Wedding Cakes I & II
Posted on: June 9, 2008
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What do you do when the bride forgets to tell you she moved her wedding out a week?
1. Freak out that you missed a communication about the date change
2. Realize that you sent a confirmation email a few weeks before and that you are NOT crazy
3. Figure out what to do with wedding cake I (ended up delivering it to the bride the next day)
4. Decide whether or not you will be a kind cake designer and make a 2nd wedding cake the following week
5. Opt to make a 2nd wedding cake since you had that weekend open and felt like it was karmically the right thing to do.
6. Remake a 2nd cake in a simpler, cleaner style more representative of your work
7. Deliver wedding cake II (after some last minute snafus about having the delivery site opened) and make a mental note to confirm and reconfirm dates and times with customers at least twice before making and delivering orders!
This was the initial Tiffany Blue wedding cake that the bride requested. Why blue? The original wedding cake topper had a blue ribbon in the base, and this blue was meant to match that design element. However, since the groom-to-be threw out the original cake topper before the wedding, and the replacement didn’t have the ribbon, I thought it was kind of odd for the cake to be blue, but that was what was promised … so blue it was. Little did I know how difficult it would be to get to that blue from white fondant!!! All I have to say is that the case can definitely be made for SweetElement to finally get it’s first airbrush.
Here’s how the cake flavors broke out: the bottom layer was chocolate devil’s food cake filled with raspberry jam, the middle tier was yellow butter cake filled with lemon curd and the top cake was almond cake filled with vanilla buttercream. All the layers were frosted in vanilla buttercream and decorated in rolled fondant and royal icing.
Here is the second, smaller wedding cake I delivered this past Saturday. The bride informed me that she actually had fewer guests than we initially thought, so I opted to change the cake tier sizes. Proportionally, I think these cake sizes (10″, 8″ & 6″ vs. 12″, 10″ & 8″ in wedding cake I) worked out much nicer with the topper.
I opted to make this cake white with pink accents since the topper had pink flowers in it. Although you can’t really tell in the photo, the cake was also dusted in pearl luster dust and was very glimmery. The pink pearls were also painted in a pink luster and were a nice tie in to the bride-dog’s veil in the topper. All layers were chocolate devil’s food cake filled with raspberry jam, frosted in vanilla buttercream and decorated in rolled fondant and royal icing.
Ducky Baby Shower Cake
Posted on: June 9, 2008
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It’s been harder and harder to find time to keep this blog updated … this SweetElement baby shower cake was made on May 22nd for my boss’s surprise baby shower here at work – and somehow it got to be June 9th before it got posted! The expecting couple opted not to know what the sex of the baby was, thus the yellow & green ducky theme.
The bottom cake layer was a chocolate devil’s food cake filled with pastry cream and frosted in buttercream. The top cake was my boss’s favorite – red velvet cake filled with cream cheese frosting and frosted in buttercream. All decorations were fondant.
I’m happy to report that baby Trevor was born on June 2nd & mom and baby are comfortably back at home!
Latest Cakes!
Posted on: March 28, 2008
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Here’s the latest SweetElement cakes made for a co-worker who will be bringing them to her friends’ surprise party this weekend.
Vanilla cake with a vanilla moussaline buttercream decorated with gold chocolate horseshoe
Chocolate cake with a chocolate moussaline buttercream decorated in chocolate
Wedding Cake
Posted on: March 23, 2008
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Here’s the latest wedding cake from SweetElement that was made for a coworker’s sister’s wedding last night. The wedding & reception were held at Battery Gardens in lower Manhattan, which I’m sure must have been gorgeous with the sunset as a backdrop right on the water.
This cake has taught me that I definitely need to practice my piping work!
The cake was all red velvet, filled with cream cheese frosting and iced in vanilla buttercream and fondant. Decorations were brown royal icing piping, brown ribbon and fresh rasberries as a topper.
Bridal Shower Brunch Cakes
Posted on: March 12, 2008
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And last but not least in the blog cake catch-up … here’s three 9″ cakes I made for a bride-to-be to serve at her bridal shower brunch. As a tasting preview, I made the three cake flavors that she’ll be having at her wedding:
Yellow cake filled with raspberry jam and frosted in vanilla buttercream
Almond cake filled and frosted in vanilla buttercream
Chocolate cake filled with chocolate ganache and frosted in chocolate buttercream
The decorations were a late night/early morning inspiration based on a modern china pattern that I found while browsing through a variety of sites.
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Here’s one of the latest SweetElement creations I made for my cousin’s wife’s baby shower. Growing up my cousin Greg’s favorite character was Winnie the Pooh, so I thought it might be a cute idea to replicate a pooh cookie jar I had seen with him digging into his favorite treat – Hunny! In addition to the cake, I also made some cupcakes decorated with hunny bees and blue buttercream since they know they are having a baby boy!
Winnie the Pooh Cake and bee cupcakes
Close-up of the cupcakes which were all devil’s food cake with blue buttercream and handmade fondant bees.
Winnie the Pooh was made of alternating layers of devil’s food cake and yellow cake filled with cookies and cream buttercream and frosted in vanilla buttercream and fondant.
