A short breather...

You know, I thought I was out of work for a while, that I could relax, possibly stress because I didn't have any cakes to keep me busy. Apparently the Lord was listening and laughing...

My best friend, Amy (my maid of honor), is getting married!!! Guess who is doing the cake? You guessed right. For her wedding cake, she's asked me to do another rendition of the Washington D.C. Temple cake, this time with the Annex and bridge. I learned my lesson on the last cake, so this time should go a lot better, less stressful, etc.

In the mean time, I'll be busy with other cakes. Stay tuned! (and be careful what you wish for. :-)

Something borrowed, something blue!

My friend from church asked me to make a cake for her oldest son's wedding. Doug and Amy met at WVU and were married in the Washington D.C. Temple on Tuesday. They had a reception in WV on Wednesday for his family, and one on Saturday for her family. This was their cake... The quilt in the background was a wedding gift made for them by my friend's sister-in-law in their chosen wedding colors.I started the week prior making flowers out of gum paste. The irises and violets started out as the same shade of light blue, then I painted the irises for the variance in color as I've seen the real thing. I didn't have, and couldn't find anywhere, the flower nails needed to make the irises, so I improvised and made a strip of wood with 12 nails of alternating heights topped with cotton balls. Once the petal sections were formed, rolled, and veined, I draped the sections over the cotton balls to dry.I tinted the gum paste a darker shade of blue for the blue bells and did those after the other flowers were done. There were 80 violets, 12 irises, and 80 bluebells on the cake.

The cake itself was tasty. Unsure of what flavors Doug and Amy wanted, JaNae opted for a variety. The top two tiers were yellow cake with strawberry flavored butter cream, the third tier was lemon with lemon flavored butter cream, and the bottom tier was chocolate with raspberry flavored butter cream.

I got to do some new things on this cake... 1. ribbon on the tiers, 2. gum paste flowers, 3. flavored icing besides chocolate and white chocolate, 4. a little flower arranging.

Lessons I learned on this cake: 1. Even if you think you have enough ribbon for the cake, get an extra roll just to be safe. 2. If you live on a bumpy road, don't stack the tiers but take them separately and stack them on location (my cakes shifted a little on the trip there). 3. Leave a little earlier on rainy days so you have time to be careful driving. 4. Allow for extra time to make gum paste flowers (they never go as quickly as you'd think they would). 5. Raspberry flavoring oil will tint your icing pink no matter how much sugar you add to avoid it. 6. Lemon butter cream is surprisingly good.

Teacher of the Year

Do you remember the Heritage High School thank you cake? Same wonderful friends, this time to congratulate Coach K (what she goes by). Coach K coaches tennis, volley ball, and basketball at Heritage High School, and was voted this year's teacher of the year. This was a 1/4 sheet yellow cake with regular butter cream icing on it. I rolled out a thin sheet of fondant and painted the wood grain and court lines. The balls (if you can say that without blushing) were made from tinted fondant and the lines added with a food-safe marker.

I'm told she thoroughly enjoyed her cake, which never fails to put a smile on my face!