Tiffany Bridal Shower Cake

A few weeks ago I got a referral from friend who couldn't make the cake herself. The client wanted me to make a cake for her sister's bridal shower. She emailed me a picture along the lines of what she wanted and I got to work. What she wanted was a Tiffany cake with red flowers, to match the wedding colors. The fun part is that the inside matched! It was a red velvet cake with the same Tiffany colored icing on the inside.

Instead of using gum paste and fondant for the flowers, I decided to try candy clay. You know from my earlier post The wonders of CANDY CLAY!!!! that I love candy clay. It's so easy to work with! The only problem is it doesn't do well in the heat. And it was already 95 when I delivered the cake at 9:30! Luckily the cake was being displayed inside.

Although I had a picture to work from and knew how the cake was supposed to turn out, I still went ahead and drew up a sketch anyway. After all, it is the reason I justified buying an iPad. That way all my cake and pop sketches would be in one centralized location that I wouldn't misplace as easily as the countless notebooks over the past few years.




Here's the sketch of how I hoped things would turn out. With flowers in the top tier of course. I debated whether or not to make it three tiers, but like it so much more with the third in the sketch that I went with it in the end.

Next up came the flowers. The candy clay was easy to shape by hand and with my gum paste cutters. I even used my veining tools to really make them pop. I went a little overboard on the flower making. It was fun. Plus I would rather be over prepared than under prepared. One thing I've found in cake decorating is that sometimes you know exactly how the cake is going to look, sometimes you don't know until you're in the moment and inspiration strikes, and more often than not, the cake turns out completely different than you expected in the most wonderful way possible.

Back to the flowers.....


This is about 2/3 of what I ended up making and about half of what I actually used in the cake.

As much as I love cake decorating, it is a lot of work to buy yourself. Idid as much ahead of time as possible; like making the flowers and icing beforehand. But I like my flakes to be as fresh as possible. So the day before it's delivered, I baked it, leveled it, filled it, crumb-coated it, iced it and decorated it with the icing comb before the icing set. All after working an 8-hour day. Needless to say, I was tired by the time I was done cleaning up my mess.

But, once I got passed the "I hate this cake!" stage, it was worth it.

Are you ready?


It's pretty spectacular.....






Yup... definitely in love with this one. I've got so many flowers left over I might have to make another one of these for Fourth of July this year. Just change the blue up a little bit ;)

Thanks for checking in. See you after my next cake or pop adventure!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

To catch you up

Ok... So it's kind of hard for me to actually blog since, even though it's 2012, the only Internet I have at home is dial-up. Aww the joys of country living! I am going to attempt to at least post pictures of what I make. I bought a fancy app for my iPad to see if that helps. Somehow being able to use my iPad to do something is extra incentive. With the amount of money I paid for it, I use it all I can.
Anyway.... to catch you up on the things I've made lately, here a few pictures.

Mark's ninja birthday cake!

iPhone's and hearts and tvs, oh my!

Cameo and Dennis's wedding cake.

Owl cake pops. (ignore the knife, I promise they were friendly)

Bowling cake pops for my lovely Aunt's birthday.

Followed by Wonder Woman cake pops the very next day for my cousin's birthday.

Captain Hook Cake Pops. Really loved these. Plus, they were chocolate raspberry! YUM!!!

Fun circle and dot cake for Kimmy's birthday (my sister).
AND........

...last, but not least, my cousin's 20th anniversary cake! Which, btw, is today. I'll be delivering it to their party after work. Then all the hand shaped flowers go on! I'll post an updated picture when they do :)
There have been many more creations, but these are the few that I have pictures of. I really need to buy a new camera so I can get you guys some good pictures.
Until next time....(and who knows when that will actually be :))

UPDATE: here is the anniversary cake all finished at the party!




Just how I hoped it would look. :) I'll have to make this one again. So pretty!

The wonders of CANDY CLAY!!!!

Have you ever had a moment when you simultaneously say "Why haven't I done this before?" and "I can't believe I made that!?!?!" Well that is what just happened to me.

Today I discovered candy clay!!!!!

Well, maybe not discovered, but actually got around to trying. I've always wanted to try modeling chocolate, but had no idea where to buy it or how to even make it. So I did what everybody does in that situation.... I googled it.

I found that both modeling chocolate and candy clay are made the same way. By melting the chocolate/candy and then adding corn syrup.

This weekend my mom, sister and I are putting on a baby shower for my cousin. I'm making her a cake and o e of the decorations I wanted to do was a little teddy bear figurine. So I decided to test out candy clay in place of fondant/gum paste I would normally use in this situation.

So I started by melting the candy melts until smooth and then stirred in the corn syrup. Once thoroughly mixed, I poured it out onto waxed paper to dry.

I have to say... It looked pretty weird. I then let it dry/harden overnight, wrapped in the waxed paper.

Then in the morning (after a few cups of coffee), I began the hardest part of the whole candy clay experience: kneading it to a workable consistency.

If you've ever worked with real clay, it's similar to working the clay to get the bubbles out. This was not an easy task and took a LOT of hand strength. But it was definitely worth it in the end.

Here is what I looked like once all kneaded and ready to go.

Then I started to shape the individual body parts.

The head.



The body.

And the arms and legs.

Once the basics were done, I started shaping the bear to how I actually wanted him to look. I used my veining tool (from my gum paste kit) to to seal the extremities to the body by working the seams together and then smoothing them out.

Here he is all put together the shape I wanted him.

Now the last step.

I took a fork and started scoring him, from the bottom up, to create a fur effect.

Then I used the thin end of my veining tool to make holes for the eyes.

I can't believe how cute he is!!!



Ok... so maybe that wasn't the last step.

For the eyes, I took some white nonpareils sprinkles (the color doesn't really matter) and covered them in black candy coating. I also used the black candy to make a nose on the waxed paper. I used a little bit of the candy to make the eyes and nose stick. Finally, I drew on a mouth.

Are you ready for this.......

Adorable! I still can't believe that I made him. And I have a bunch of candy clay left! Can't wait to play with it again. Its much more workable for figurines than gum paste/fondant and tastes so much better!

Here is the recipe if you want to give it a try.

 

Ingredients:

• One bag (14 oz) Candy Melts
• 1/3 cup corn syrup 

To Store
Prepared candy clay will last for several weeks at room temperature in an airtight container.

Thanks for visiting :)