Guam: Where America’s Day Begins

September 9, 2014 By 7 Comments

Cake Masters Magazine bestowed upon me the honor of being included in the Around The World In 40 Cakes project. 40 cake artists each highlighting a destination using the medium of sugar.

I was thrilled to not only be included with a stellar list of artists from around the world but to also get my pick for the assignment; the island of Guam. What made this especially meaningful to me, was the fact that this is the 70th anniversary of Guam’s liberation by US troops from the Japanese occupation of Guam during WWII. Many islanders were slaughtered during the Japanese occupation and I considered this cake a way for me to pay tribute to those who lost their lives on the island.

Fondant Flinger Guam Cake for Cake Masters Magazine - Photography by Lee Lopez

Fondant Flinger Guam Cake for Cake Masters Magazine - Photography by Lee Lopez

Guam cake inspired by the culture, tradition, art, and beauty of the island. Bottom tier is inspired by the undersea beauty of Guam’s coral reefs done in cocoa butter painting. Adorning each tier is a “lei” of plumeria. Guam is an incredibly welcoming island and guests arriving are given plumeria leis as a symbol of hospitality.

Fondant Flinger Wood Carving Detail - Photography by Lee Lopez

Fondant Flinger Wood Carving Detail - Photography by Lee Lopez

The middle tier was done to imitate Guam’s ifit (tree on Guam) wood carvings on storyboards. This one in particular tells the story of Two Lover’s Point, a story of two lovers forbidden to marry that tied their hair together and jumped from a cliff so they could spend eternity together. The original carving was completed by master carver Robert Taitano, a local artist. This tier was carved into the fondant with a needle and painted over with cocoa powder and cocoa butter to achieve the wood effect.

Fondant Flinger Latte Stone Hut Detail - Photography by Lee Lopez

Fondant Flinger Latte Stone Hut Detail - Photography by Lee Lopez

The top piece is a replica of the traditional huts on Guam used by the natives. Set high atop carved stones (called Latte Stones) these woven palm huts were homes to the natives back before the Spanish arrived on Guam. The thatch roof is made from wafer paper colored with cocoa butter and food gel.

Fondant Flinger Guam Cake Close Up - Photography by Lee Lopez

Fondant Flinger Guam Cake Close Up - Photography by Lee Lopez

The top tier was inspired by the water color paintings/ and island shirts seen depicting the beautiful flora and fauna of the island. Torch ginger, bamboo and bird of paradise paintings done in cocoa butter.

 

Guam will always hold a special place in my heart since I had the privilege of calling it home for almost a decade throughout my life and it is also the place where I met my wonderful husband (ladies, seriously….you need a good man? Head to Guam! The men there are handsome AND they can all BBQ like no one’s business). :) Guam is an incredibly unique destination and I hope that I did her beauty justice.

 

 

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For Jessica

May 29, 2014 By 4 Comments

*sigh* Love and romance are in the air and my newsfeed is bursting with gorgeous bouquets, detailed gowns, and shimmering linens. Its wedding season for sure! I adore weddings. If I could get married every weekend (to my same handsome groom of these past 12 years) I would! Its just such an enchanting event and I cannot get enough of them. My love of weddings is one of the reason I decorate cakes. If I can’t get married every weekend, then at least I get to participate in the wedding by designing THE wedding cake for these lovely couples. I love hearing all the plans and details that the bride and groom have chosen and then taking the different design elements of her dress, the invitations, the venue and trying to create something uniquely them.

Jessica contacted me around the time I had completed my Gold Sequins Cake for a collaboration with Sarah’s Stands (you can read the post by Sarah here) in which I used Erin Gardner of Wild Orchid Baking Co‘s gold confetti techniques from her new Craftsy class. Jessica had loved the gold sequined tiers and asked if I could create a cake for her incorporating those sequins.


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I was thrilled at the opportunity and ultimately came up with this design for Jessica’s big day. Using a pattern like the one from her invitations, I added the cascading metallic shattered chevrons to the tiers surrounding the shorter sequin covered tier. My hope was that they would appear to be almost bursting out of the gold sequin covered tier. I then used a diagonal line to separate the top tier into two portions; one left white and one covered with the gold sequins that I knew Jessica loved.

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Jessica had sent over some photos of the flower arrangements that she had chosen which included pink and peach roses. I had been playing with making gum paste roses but had never been happy with their final look. I knew I had to pull off some seriously gorgeous flowers for this cake so I turned to my expert and friend, Kara Andretta of Kara’s Couture Cakes. Thankfully, Kara had created an amazing tutorial for making these more natural looking roses. I spent hours pouring over her Youtube tutorial (found here) and even more time harassing her via FB messages until I was content with the look of my roses. I used a variety of filler flowers including buds, carnations (learned those from the fabulous Miso Bakes in her post on The Cake Blog, and those cute little finger flowers that I learned from Jacqueline Butler of Petalsweet Cakes.


 FondantFlingerJessica5I was nothing short of ecstatic to see the outcome of this cake. It came out exactly as I had pictured in my mind and the bride loved it! It was delivered to the lovely Palmettos on the Bayou in Slidell, Louisiana and looked gorgeous with the backdrop of oaks and palmettos scattered along the bayou. Oh the charm of the bayou with the moss covered trees dripping into the bayou waters….so scenic…makes me wish I could get married again….

 

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For Tom and Heidi

March 7, 2014 By 1 Comment

 

Grey, white and yellow buttercream covered cake with chevron and polka dots, fondant rose petals and topped with a wafer paper rose for Tom and Heidi’s wedding!

I was so excited when this destination wedding couple asked me to recreate this design first made by the talented One Sweet Slice. Generally, I don’t agree to recreate designs by others, but this design was perfect for their wedding. I love the design that One Sweet Slice created including the different patterns and the texture of the petal covered tier. A gorgeous design and so much fun to recreate for my happy couple. Congratulations, Tom and Heidi!

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Pale Green and Purple wedding cake

November 1, 2013 By Leave a Comment

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Peony Wedding Cake

April 8, 2013 By 1 Comment

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Welcoming Spring Cake and Grass Ruffle Tutorial

April 5, 2013 By 13 Comments

As featured on Half Baked - the Cake Blog ( www.thecakeblog.com), its the “Welcoming Spring Cake”! Maybe you could have guessed but I LOVE color and texture and a chance to combine the two? WOO! I get excited just thinking about it. I don’t often get the chance to play with buttercream textures but when I do, I am reminded of how easy it is to create a gorgeous ruffle, shell or other pattern with a simple squeeze of a pastry bag. Here is my recap on this Welcoming Spring Cake:


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We moved from Alaska to Louisiana last fall so we know all to well the difficulties in starting over in a new place. It can be intimidating and emotionally difficult adjusting to a new area, making new friends and helping your family adapt to their new surroundings. We were incredibly blessed as a family to find a church that embraced our family and helped ease our transition. This same church was in the midst of finding a new pastor. Several months went by and the pastoral committee felt that God was calling one particular man to this position at our church. The congregation had the opportunity to meet him and the church unanimously felt the same way.

 

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Within a matter of weeks, we were welcoming he and his family to our church. Part of that welcome included a ladies luncheon welcoming the new pastor’s wife, Kristy. The Ladies Committee asked me to make a cake for the event and match it to the bright spring napkins that they had bought for the occasion.

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I worked directly from the napkins to recreate the style and feel of the flowers depicted on the napkin. Using gumpaste, I created different version of the flowers and highlighted the petals with white food coloring. Since the cake was going to be buttecream, I used wires to provide more stability when placing them on the cake.

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Using an extruder, I created the “stems” of green fondant and cut them to create a diagonal line down the center of the cake to achieve the “cascading” appearance of the flowers.

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Using a plaque cutter from coppergifts.com and gumpaste, I created Kristy’s name plate for the bottom tier.

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And finally to create the bottom leaf ruffle tier, here’s a mini tutorial for you!

 

Piped Grass Ruffle Tutorial

Piping bag with Wilton 68

Necessary tools:

  • Cake filled, buttercream covered and ready for final piping. I’ll be doing this little tutorial on wax paper instead of a cake since, well, I’m tired and need a break from the oven. :)
  • Buttercream tinted to your preferred shade of green
  • Piping bag fitted with Wilton tip number 68

 

Starting at the top of a cake, create a row of leaves:

Row of Piped Leaves Once this row has been completed around the top of the cake, start a staggered second row of leaves, slightly overlapping the top row:

 

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Continue adding row of leaves until you reach the base of the cake and you did it! You have your very own grassy ruffle tier!
2 rows of piped leaves

 

 

 

 

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Grace

March 28, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Pink Girl Dress Back

I was so thrilled to make this ultra girly pink birthday cake for Grace.

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Grace celebrated her birthday by going to a very special tea party and the family surprised her with this cake that evening.

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Grace’s Mommy had purchased a pink dress with rosettes for the birthday girl and I designed the figurine’s dress based on that image.

Grace Pink Dress Cake

Grace also had spent some time in Okinawa and had seen the cherry blossoms in bloom. I replicated them for her teensy tiny birthday cake. Happy Birthday, Grace!

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London’s Cake

March 18, 2013 By Leave a Comment

 

For London

 

I had the honor of making a baby shower cake for my dear friend, Erika. It was only fitting that I designed something very British since her and her husband decided on the name, London for their little girl.

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I was thrilled when I saw that Anne Heap of The Pink Cake Box has just recently launched a new class on Craftsy.com with fantastic tutorials for figurines.

 

 

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Even better was that Anne had included a tutorial to make a sitting pregnant lady! How perfect!!!

 

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Anne’s steps were completely easy to follow, involved many tips and techniques to ease the process and she made it fun! Her casual teaching style and engaging personality made the videos incredibly enjoyable.

 

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The figure took several days to fully assemble and dry so, if you do decide to purchase her class in preparation for a topper, make sure to allow your self plenty of preparation time. And before I forget, here’s a link to 25% off her class! http://www.craftsy.com/caketoppers25

 

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OK, and here’s my thinking behind the rest of the cake. I knew I wanted to incorporate the Union Jack flag for the bottom tier. To make it a bit more fluid and flag like, I decided to continue the striping down the sides of the cake and onto the cake board below. I think it gave the whole thing a bit more “BAM”!

 

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I wanted the cake to have a lot of oomph so I designed the cake to include the large rose between the 1st and 2nd tiers. After I drew up the design, I went back to my figurine and added the small red ruffle rose on her waistline to coordinate. Jamie at Yuma Couture Cakes kept posting photos of cakes with beautiful swags so I created these two toned swags for the top tier, set off with a small bow on the front. I used an awesome plaque cutter (from coppergifts.com, as well as alphabet cutters for London’s name and etched the side designs with a needle.

 

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The bottom tier was chocolate rum with dark chocolate ganache and peanut butter swiss meringue buttercream and the top tier was a lemon cake with lemon curd and vanilla swiss meringue buttercream and in case you were wondering, Erika loved it!

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Cascading Puzzle Pieces Cake

October 23, 2012 By 6 Comments

 

This was the first wedding cake that I worked on in which I had no contact with the bride. A bridesmaid took care of all the arrangements. I wish I had gotten the opportunity to meet this bride. Maybe then I’d have an awesome story to share about the meaning behind a wedding cake devoted to puzzle pieces.

 

 

 

But since I don’t, I’ll just assume that the Bride and Groom finally found each other and the fit was perfect.

 

 

The design of this cake had to be simple. The tiers were naked swiss meringue buttercream with the basic flavors of chocolate, vanilla and marble.

 

Originally, the bridesmaid had requested a simple border of joined puzzle pieces lining the bottom of each tier. However, this idea popped into my head and I sketched it out for her so I could present the idea to her. She loved it and gave the bride her opinion on changing the design to something more dramatic. Thankfully, the bride agreed since once I have an idea in my head, its really all I can think about!

 

 

We were keeping to a tight budget so I kept all the decorations simple. I purchased a mini puzzle cutter from Copper Gifts and cut out puzzle pieces from gumpaste. I cut some of them in half, some diagonally and kept some whole to add some variation to the design. The pieces that were cut in half worked perfectly for those pieces that seem to be coming out of the cake. I painted them all with silver luster dust diluted with vodka, let them dry and arranged them on the buttercream covered, stacked tiers.

I added some random silver dragees to add another element to the cake. The puzzle pieces dried a bit “flat” color-wise and the dragees had a sheen similar to the initials. I think that their addition made the cake more cohesive.

The couple had provided the initials to be used so I added these just as the bridesmaid arrived to pick up the cake. They were pretty heavy and I was worried about having them so close to the edge of this tier but thankfully, they stayed put!

 

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Blue Poppy Cake

October 19, 2012 By 20 Comments

 

This is by far my FAVORITE cake. When I started the design process, this EXACT design is what was in my head and I couldn’t have been more excited that it came out exactly as I had hoped.

 

 

I love designs including textured layers of cake and my hope was that this cake would maintain its elegance after the grass layer was completed. In my head, the concept seemed *amazing* but I was a bit concerned that it would look a bit childish when it was completed.

 

 

It didn’t. :)

 

As soon as I started assembling the cake, I started getting excited…….

 

Like REALLY excited! So excited in fact that I emailed Carrie at Half Baked, the Cake Blog to see if perhaps she was interested in featuring it on her awesome site.

 

 

She said yes, by the way. :) You can see the write up here.

 

I think the painted poppies are what make this cake “pop”. I made them from gumpaste, let them completely dry and hand-painted them using various blue food colorings diluted with vodka. After they dried, I came back and did a bit of highlighting with white food coloring. A little yellow gumpaste, a bunch of stamen and a toothpick were all I used for the centers. Again, I was going for a painting so I didn’t bother with trying to make them look real.

 

The grass was incredibly tedious. I used a lily flower cutter and cut off the bottom portion so that I had a strip of leaves. Using a ball tool, I lengthened each leaf and softened the edges. I did this for hours and hours (6) with multiple shades of green to achieve the ombre look.

 

The final step I did on this cake was to dust the yellow tier with gold luster dust. I didn’t think that it really showed up until I saw these fabulous photos from Sylwia Ok Photography.

 

All in all, I could not have been more pleased with the outcome of this cake! It makes me happy and since it was Mother’s Day and there were 8 inches of snow on the ground in Alaska, I could have used all the “happy” I could find! :)

 

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