Saturday, October 17, 2009

Ladybug Cake



Today I made a very special cake... The 1st birthday cake for a little girl, shaped like a ladybug. As a mom of two, I get very sentimental about the importance of a first birthday party. Its a celebration on so many levels; for parents for making it through all the highs and lows, and for the babies now being official toddlers.

For the first birthday, simplicity and chocolate rule. She had a dark chocolate cake, frosted and filled with whipped vanilla buttercream. The "grass" is dyed coconut with some sugar sculpted flowers scattered for a true garden feel.

Happy Birthday Sylvie! Hope 1 is a great year for you!
xo

Monday, October 12, 2009

Kate and Avi's wedding



Kate and Avi were married today, and I loved working with them, because they were the essential Brooklyn couple. They were married at the Brooklyn Historical Society, had the reception at Frankie's in Carroll Gardens, had Sarah from Saipua do the flowers, and Mast Brothers chocolates as place settings. Kind of all the greatest hits in one...

They were unusual in the fact that they wanted a different cake flavor, suggesting hazelnut or rose as an option. We narrowed it down to something more crowd pleasing, coconut white cake with lime curd and whipped coconut buttercream. The cake uses 7 egg whites, and the curd uses 8 egg yolks, so after making endless batches of cake, it was really easy to make the curd.

For the decoration, they wanted a soft sage green color base, and sugar flowers with colors inspired by their real flowers they had at the wedding; ochre, sage, pumpkin, mauve. Beautiful fall colors.

placing larger flowers on cake first...

first stage of sugar flowers, drying them upside down so they look open when dry.

the sugar flower garden in bloom

I started the sugar flowers mid-week, wanting to give them a few days to harden. I dusted each center with a mixture of three petal dusts, to give the flowers a watercolor type feeling. I think when you use just one color it feels more mod and pop, but when you mix colors and can see bits of erratic shading, it feels more like something you might see in a garden.



After frosting the cake, I placed the flowers in a cascade effect, starting with the larger sizes. I placed smaller ones around them, and piped white centers on some of the flowers. I like the look of the hand dusting, but wanted to also ground the flowers a bit.

Kate and Avi bought this handmade cake topper that looked like them. With a sage green base, it fit perfectly on top of the cake.



Happy Wedding!
xo