Gardenias Cake

One of my girlfriend asked for a birthday cake for one of her friends.  She told me that the birthday girl loves gardenias because it reminded her of a warm childhood memory so I wanted to make sure I did a good job on them.  To be honest, I didn't even know what gardenias looked like so I had to look it up.  I was pretty pleased with how they turned out.

Starting from the top left clockwise, I created petals and thinned/ruffled the edges to give it a more realistic look.  I then overlapped 5 petals at a time on a flower forming cup and repeated this two more times, adding them on top of the petals I just arranged.  On a separate forming cup, I overlapped 6 larger petals and put the flower that I made from the first cup on top of it.  I did the whole process a couple more times so that I had the 3 flowers for the cake.

I added a silver dragee to the center of each gardenia just because they're pretty :)

I also set some individual petals to dry that I would scatter on the cake. 

I chose a lovely blue color to cover the cake in so that the white of the flowers and birthday message would pop.  I arranged the flower that was going on the side first.

Added the other two on top of the cake.

Then the birthday message.

Scattered a few individual petals.

Ball border.

And the cake was ready to be picked up for the party.

One Piece Pirate Ship Cake

This particular request was really unique as it would be the first time I made a cake with a really unusual shape.  Although some of my other cakes such as the castle or wedding dress wouldn't be considered a typical cake shape, they still had a cake foundation on a fundamental level.  This one so did not.  But it was definitely fun making a pirate ship cake.  This is from an anime called One Piece and the ship is called Going Merry. 

To begin, I baked the cake in a loaf pan since it gave me the closest dimensions that I needed for a ship.

Then I carved.

There are definite perks to making cakes, one of the biggest being that I get to eat cake scraps, yumo.

Iced the cake.

Covered it with fondant and added some of the ship details.

Made some cute little waves with a border pattern.

Sails and other pieces drying.

And the final product.  I wasn't completely happy with this one as the front and bottom of the cakes started drooping (definitely learned that support is super important for unique cakes like this) but I'm glad I got to try and learn from it.

Fall Wedding Cake

I was asked to make a wedding cake for this past weekend.  As the bride was using fall colors for her wedding, I thought that the brown satin ribbon and orange roses would complement her cake well.  Below is how it looked when I delivered it to the reception venue.

I don't have too much to say about this cake as it was fairly simple in terms of design.  Although I go pretty crazy on celebration cakes for kids and such, I usually love wedding cakes that are just clean and elegant. 

I first covered each tier in white fondant, stacked them all on top of each other and then added the ribbons.  There's several ways that ribbons are securely attached to the cake.  For this cake, I covered the back of each ribbon with tape and then used buttercream to "glue" the ribbon to the cake.  The tape was necessary so that when the back of the ribbon touched the cake, the color didn't bleed onto it and give the cake an unprofessional look.  

Just adding the ribbons on the cake makes it pop.

I then added the roses to it.  Before adding real flowers onto a cake, research to make sure the flowers you are using are safe as some are toxic.  Also make sure to use ones that were organically grown and not treated with pesticides. 

Flower Bouquet Cake

My next request was a birthday cake that was going to be celebrated during a Sunday brunch and I thought a flower bouquet cake would be very appropriate.  I actually saw this idea online before and thought it'll be fun to try since the execution is different from the typical cake...plus it's super pretty and girly!

I made some of the roses a day in advance to save me time.

I then baked, iced and covered the sides of the cake with a thin layer of fondant.  Some of the frosting could have oozed out if I just added the stems right onto the cake, hence the fondant layer.  

I then started adding the stems to the sides.  I made three different shades of green and alternated them on the cake to give it some variation. 

If you're wondering how I made such even looking stems, I used this new tool that I just bought.  It's typically called an extruder but the Wilton brand calls it a decorative press.  You put a small amount of fondant into a chamber and then squeeze the tool so that the fondant pushes out in the shape that you want (the Wilton brand came with 6 different shapes and I used the half circle for this particular project).

Then added the flowers on top and finishing details such as a ribbon and the lollipop stick with the birthday girl's name.