Can You Spot the Difference?

Have you ever played thise games where there are two pictures side-by-side, and there are small differences between the two? Well this post is sort of like that. The picture on the left was taken of the finished cake before delivery. The picture on the right was taken at the clients house after the cake was set-up. Can you see the differences? Well hopefully the differences are subtle and hard to notice.   

Sometimes deliveries do not always go as planned and smooth rides almost never happen. In reality deliveries can be pretty stressful especially with a fragile cake in the back. During this particular delivery we had to hit the brakes rather hard, and the tiers slide into the side of the box, that was meant to keep them safe. I had to do some patchwork on the cake to hide the damage. In the end though the cake looked beautiful, and the client never noticed (unless she reads this blog).

Here is the close-up of the cake stacked before delivery.

Finally, here are the changes that need to be made to the cake. See the difference?

Well this gives you a little insight into the how the cake gets from us to you. It does not always go as planned, but we must learn to role with the punches and deliver what was promised.

Pool Parties and Cookies!

This past weekend I had the pleasure of making a cake for a woman that was turning 70! It was a surprise pool party at a friends house and the daughter gave me free reign of the design. I immediately thought that I wanted to do sugar tiles because I love the way they look and are a different element to add to a cake. I was stuck however, I didn't know what design to put on the tiers to match the modern look of the sugar tiles. I was inspired by a cake I saw online that looked like ocean waves with bubbles, which was perfect for my theme.

I designed a three tiered cake with sugar tile separators in between the tiers. I think the cake turned out wonderfully and matched the pool party theme. The flavors were vanilla cake with chocolate ganache, and banana cheesecake filling with peanut butter buttercream. YUM! 

The sugar tiles were a bit difficult to work with in the humid Maryland summer, but they turned out great!

Also, this week I made sugar cookies to match the Willow House logo. if you have never seen WH products you must go check them out. They have great stuff for the home and garden. I love their stuff!

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer, and trying to stay cool!

Game of Life

So, I have been seriously slacking on my blogging this week, but I hope everyone had a wonderful relaxing holiday weekend. I wanted to share with all of you a fun cake I made for someone having a milestone birthday.

Tom was turning sixty and was having a party to celebrate and wanted a fabulous cake as well. Tom had no idea what theme he wanted for the cake, but gave me some details about his life, and what he had accomplished thus far. I must say when someone has no idea what they want for the cake it can be very challenging coming up with a design to suit that person. for some reason the Game of Life came into my mind, so I decided to run with that for the theme. Tom gave me some important milestones in his life, and picked up a game board, and the cake was born.  

I hand painted all of the scenes from the game directly onto the cake. Then I laid out the game tiles around the board adding all the details from Tom's life.

I think the spinner turned out great, and it actually spun!

I added some fun cards and saying from the real game as well.

In the end, I was really happy with how the cake came out, I think it was unique, and captured Tom's sixty year very well. I hope you enjoyed this cake! Stay tuned for next weekend because I am working on a cake with some beautiful sugar tiles!