Draped in love..
It seems like ages since I’ve done a wedding cake, lately all my orders have been for children’s cakes – which I love doing – but I’ve missed the towering tiers of a wedding cake!
Electric Guitar
Blue Blossoms
This christening cake was designed with the soft hues of blue for a baby boy in mind, something simple and elegant but suitable for an infant at the same time.
The blossoms were hand made and individually painted / dusted with lustre dust to achieve the graduated colours on top.
The height of the tiers was kind of un-intentional (!!) I didn’t realise how ridiculously high they were until it came time to cover them with fondant. Luckily I was quick and it all went well (phew!). Kind of ironic as many times I wish I had those extra few ever elusive centimeters!!
Handle With Care!
I was recently invited to submit a cake for a children’s party feature in Shop 4 Kids Magazine. After digesting the invitation ( I was shocked, amazed, elated, humbled) I got to work on a suitable design. The theme was “Under the Sea” – without mermaids… Oh, and it has to be in Sydney in 5 days. No problem!
I loved the idea of some fishies seemingly swimming around the base of the cake with an oyster shell crowning the top. I enjoyed making this cake immensely, especially the oyster shell and pearls which feature on the top of the cake.
So, the cake was made, photographed and I was really pleased with it. Time to air freight it to Sydney – it’s only a 1 hour (or so) flight from Melbourne.(..she says with a nervous smile whilst fidgeting with her packing tape) I packed it according to various instructions found on several different online cake forums, labeled it so that a blind person could tell it was fragile and had to be kept upright (inc arrows) photographs of it on the outside and speaking to the freight company, making sure I had done everything I could to ensure the safe delivery of my precious cargo.
Hmmmm. It didn’t make it. Correction, it made it but it was damaged. It couldn’t be used and I was devastated. Having said that I learnt some valuable lessons and hopefully will have the opportunity to have my work featured in print in the future.
In the meantime, I have some pics for my folio and a bit more cake experience under my belt! It can’t always go smoothly eh!
If you have any tips on air freight vs cake, please share!!
Planet Cake Course – 2 Tier Magnolia
This is a cake I completed at a Planet Cake course held in Melbourne – a 2 tier wedding cake which features a spectacular magnolia and bamboo stems. Skills covered in this course included covering a square cake with rolled fondant, stacking the cakes, the coloured wrap,and making the flower and bamboo.
Everyone experimented with their colours in making the wrap around detail and as you can see we had a fantastic result from all the students!
Ava’s Christening Cake
From start to finish this job was an absolute pleasure … my client liked what I had done with the China Doll, so I adapted the flowers to suit a pink christening cake for a gorgeous little girl. This design was based on a beautiful invitation which featured birds and a featured hand written message on the front.
The dove was made from modelling paste. I didn’t quite know what to expect with the figurine as I haven’t made anything as large as this for a topper. I made it well ahead of time so it had plenty of time to dry. I did have visions of wings falling off but tried to push them out of my mind!!
Chocolate fudge cake soaked with Cointreau and filled with dark chocolate ganache.
Twice As Nice
My twin sister Fotini had twins late last year (yes, its a dangerous business falling pregnant in my family!!) and for their christening cake I told my her that she would have no say in the cake and I would surprise her…. I know, its cheeky but I did because I can!!
The colours of each tier reflect the colour scheme used on the day. Fotini arranged an amazing rose wreath to decorate the church and we used that to dress the cake table at the reception afterwards. It was such a beautiful day – a busy one too as I was also Godmother to my neice – it was an honour to provide the sweet for these sweet babies!
We have kept the twin figurines as a momento… they are almost as cute as the twins themselves – but not quite!
Bottom and top tiers chocolate fudge cake filled with dark choc0late ganache, middle tier white chocolate mud cake filled with white chocolate ganache.
Lulu’s Fairy
This cake was created for a gorgeous little girl, Lulu. Her christening theme was rainbows and fairies and so this design was born! The bottom tier is chocolate fudge cake with dark chocolate ganache filling. The top tier is hummingbird cake with a white chocolate ganache filling.
China Doll
There is a gorgeous special occassion gift and bomboniere business in Melbourne called “Annabella Bomboniere” that has a fantastic selection of modern peices – not your usual crystal figurine kind of stuff. I designed this cake around one of the wooden china dolls they offer as a christening favour and owners Anna and Theo were kind enough to display it in their store…
She comes in all sorts of colours but I was particularly taken by the blue one and so created a cake around her. They loved it and I hope their clients love it too!
The flowers around the bottom tier are another version of the whimsical blossoms that feature on a few of my christening designs.. this time a little more sophisticated with pearl lustre dust giving them depth of colour and some stamens in the middle – just for something different!
www.annabella.net.au
Ellie
Chocolate fudge cake soaked in Contreau syrup and filled with a luxury chocolate ganache was the basis for this little number…
My dear friend Georgia christened her youngest and I wanted to create something soft and pretty, just like scrumptious little Ellie! Hand sculpted flowers and a full sugar bow finish off this design.
The teddy has a styrofoam core – her limbs and clothes are made from sugar. The trickiest part about dressing her was , believe it or not, the bow on her head! It was teeny beeny!
Electric Guitar
This was my first large sculpted cake. It is actually to scale.
I have a red Fender Strat (from my wild, rocking youth… um well, not quite) and I traced the shape out on baking paper and went from there. Cut the guitar out and ganached the body and neck separately, let them set and then joined them on a large board and put another thin layer of ganache over the entire guitar so that it was all uniform and the same height. The frets, knobs and tuning keys are all made of fondant. Read more