Cake Talk

More inspiration from Martha Stewart

Here's the inspiration.

According to Martha Stewart Weddings, these are romantic ruffles.

What makes a wedding gown special? Extraordinary embellishments, of course. Here, desserts get adorned with fabulous flounces, beautiful beading, and more. Playing dress-up just got delicious.

A David Fielden gown served as the inspiration for this cake. "To match the dress's airy feel, we formed dampened wafer paper into edible ruffles and pressed them into the buttercream," says contributing editor Wendy Kromer, owner of Wendy Kromer Confections in Sandusky, Ohio. Come reception time, they serve a ruffled rosette with each slice.

We were asked to re-create this cake as for a bridesmaids luncheon.

The bride liked the airy feel of the cake, but wanted it smaller, with a pale pink base. She also wanted it as a charm cake.

The charm cake dates back to the Victorian era. It is sometimes referred to as ribbon pulling, and often takes place at the bridesmaids’ luncheon (though traditionally it was done at the wedding reception, and the charms were in the bride's cake).

Basically a number of charms (equal to the number of bridesmaids or significant women in the bride's life) are placed in a cake with ribbons attached to them. The ribbon is visible and every lady takes a ribbon and pulls out the charm. Each charm has special meaning–i.e. an airplane means travel/adventure, a four-leaf clover means good luck, a wedding ring means you’ll be the next to be engaged.

So here's the cake we created.

Sure hope she likes it.

 

Two Weddings and a Birthday

It was a busy day for cake deliveries at the bakery today as we had two weddings and a birthday.

Luckily, the rain held off and we were able to scoot around town without breaking out the umbrellas.

The theme for our first wedding was "Rustic Chic" and if you ever wondered what that meant, you are not alone. When the bride first told us her wedding design was going to be rustic chic, she was met with a bakery full of semi-blank stares, followed by "so tell us more about what you mean."

For the rustic, the bride chose a tree stump groom's cake. Composed of chocolate cake filled with dark chocolate ganache, covered in chocolate buttercream and chocolate curls for bark.

And keeping with the love story that defines each wedding, their initials are *carved* inside a heart on the cross-section of the stump.

The "chic" part was described as elegant with a twist of sparkle.

Pulling that off was a bit more complicated than it sounds. The cake part was easy -- one of the bride's tiers was lemon, the other vanilla and chocolate. The hue of the ivory buttercream matched the tablecloths at the venue -- that is the cloths under the burlap overlays.

The hot pink ruffles along the side of the cake -- very chic and girly -- was a bit more complicated, requiring yards and yards of fondant ruffles.

The bling factor was there as well, on the wooden cake topper as well as around the base of each tier.

By comparison, our second wedding cake was understated elegance.

A simple three tier cake with piped lace, buttons and a pretty bow in soft pink.

And the birthday cake? It was for a black-and-white, black-tie-optional event.

Sporting a double-oh-seven theme for a 70th birthday, I'm sure the cocktails will be shaken, not stirred.

And there you have it, another Saturday at the bakery.

No, really, we insist. We'll carry the cake to your car.

When you buy a cake at Mary's Cakes and Pastries, we carry it to your car. Cupcakes too.

Always.

Every time.

We insist.

Really, it's our policy.

In fact, one of the first things we teach every new employee is HOW to carry a cake to your car. And where to put it. And what to tell you if you insist on doing it yourself. That is "Mary will fire me if I let you carry your own cake."

We'll suggest the floorboard or flat back area of an SUV or van, if it is available. It's never a good idea to put a cake on the seat -- front or back -- seats are not flat. We'll remind you that you have a cake in the car, and to avoid sharp turns and sudden stops.

You also don't want objects rolling around near the cake that could damage it.

Remember high school physics? "An object in motion tends to stay in motion..."

It's really an insurance policy of sorts. We'd rather not have to repair your cake, especially if the damage could have been avoided. The cake in the photo above was NOT one of our cakes, and I don't know if the damage could have been avoided, but we WERE asked to repair it (and we did).

Our cake formulas contain extra eggs, so our cakes are not too crumbly and soft, especially those we intend to stack.

And we generously support and "skewer" stacked cakes to lessen the probability of the tiers slipping.

Upon request, we will also refrigerate or freeze a cake for travel. When cold, buttercream hardens and resists bumps and vibrations of a car ride a bit better than a cake at room temperature.

And while some accidents are unavoidable, we do our best to ensure your cake reaches its destination looking as good as it did when it left our shop.

So the next time you get a cake at Mary's Cakes & Pastries, just let us carry it to your car. And drive safely.

 

Martha Stewart Inspiration

This is the photo the bride sent us... It is from MarthaStewartWeddings.com and I'll assume a professional photographer took this picture. Along with some highly paid artistic designers to set up the table, find the pretty china, the matching tablecloth, and all that...And this is what we made. An iPhone took this photo. And there were no professional *artistic designers* involved. Just Becca (who cut out the cake parts), Erin (who iced some of them), Sarah (who iced more of them), and Pat (who made the roses). And here is a photo of the cake on a plate at the Cypress Inn. Again, iPhone, and standard restaurant-issue salad plate. Not bad, huh?

Wine at Mary's -- Part II

Here it is... The German Chocolate wine bottle and cheeses set up on the groom's table. Gary at Jester's Flowers made the tablecloths and other decorations.

The biscuits were made in-house using a variation of the cabin biscuits from the Titanic Tribute. The grapes are from Sam's Club.

And here is a close-up of the back of the bottle.

We couldn't resist adding this final detail.

The best part? When asked how to cut the cake, and which pieces to cut first, we grinned and said... "just cut the cheese."

The bride's cake, by comparison, was simple and elegant.

Three tiers of strawberry cake. Each tier has four layers, alternating vanilla buttercream and sliced fresh strawberries.

The outside of the cake is done in a simple linen textured finish and garnished with more fresh strawberries from Snow's Bend Farm.

It's going to taste at least as good as it looks.

 

Wine at Mary's -- Part I

We've been looking forward to this cake for a very long time.

A 3-D wine bottle and a plate of cheeses.

The groom likes German Chocolate cake.

So we started today, cause we knew these cakes would take some time. And we made the cheeses first, putting the gravity-defying bottle off as long as possible.

He picked the cheese and we were sent photos of the ones he wanted. Swiss. Cheddar wrapped in red wax. Shredded mozzarella. We'll cut the cheese off the cake boards at the reception venue.

Then the wine bottle. First we had to go borrow a wine bottle from Opus (the restaurant across the alley).

Then we started with four layers of rice krispy treats as the base, and to have something to skewer the cake into.

To that were added three layers of german chocolate cake, each on it's own board.

And finally an extra layer of cake (without the filling), a strong wooden dowel, and a snake of rice krispy treats for the neck.

The entire "cake-like object" was base coated in buttercream and put in the freezer for an hour or so to harden while Sarah mixed up some wine-bottle-green fondant (whiite chocolate fondant with leaf green and pine green gel color, plus a little dark chocolate fondant to darken it).

It only took two takes to cover the bottle with fondant (sideways, with a seam down the back that had to be smoothed).

The cork wrap was made with burgundy and chocolate fondant, and the entire "glass" part of the cake was painted with edible laquer with a tad of antique green luster dust added.

There you go.

Tomorrow we'll take step-by-step photos of the assembly and final products. We even made some crackers for the table.

The bride's cake will be equally lovely, three tiers of strawberry cake with fresh local strawberries between the layers. It will be covered in textured vanilla buttercream and garnished with more strawberries. Then we will pipe some pretty green vines around the berries.

You won't want to miss the final product!

 

Regarding Refrigeration

Somewhere out there is a bride with an Aunt Joelene. She thinks her aunt has her wedding cake under control.

But she doesn't know what I know.

Hi Mary, I'm Joelene, I have a few questions, if I make a wedding cake with buttercream frosting how many days will it stay fresh in the fridge. And the same if its a fondant cake how long will it stay fresh in fridge.

And a second email...

Hi mary, the situation is I'm makin my neices wedding cake and groom. She gets married on a sat. I also am a nail artist and I'm doing the bridal parties nails on thurs. so I was hoping it would be ok to make cakes tue and wed and refrigerate. Do you think it will not be good do do that. 

Also is there a website to figure out all the cake sizing, measurements, how much frosting I'll need for the sizes of cakes I'm making ect. 

I'm not a professional but it's passion of mine to make cakes so I'm always guessing. And I'm trying to figure out all needs for the cake because I need to pack n bring everything caus I'll be driving 8 hours to my neices. Does that make sense?

Ok Joelene, let's talk about refrigeration...

Catching Up

Truly, the best place to see timely photos of our cakes and cookies is on Facebook. I can upload them from my phone without thinking too much or or having to put sentences together. That being said, here's  a photo recap of what we've been up to since Valentines Day.

First I accidentally deleted EVERY SINGLE PHOTO on the website by changing one little field in the database that contains the photos and their pertinent facts. About one-third have been (painstakenly) re-submittted. Yipee! Only 400 more to go...

Mardi Gras was February 21. But if you think we are done with those delicious King Cakes until next January, you'd be wrong.

Everyone (including us) liked them so much that we decided to keep them around.

But without the colored sugars and plastic babies.

Plus, we get to experiment with new flavors. This one is almond, but we make a killer cinnamon, strawberry and apricot, in addition to the traditional cream cheese.

If you absolutely MUST have a baby in your coffee cake, we have new plastic ones. They look a little like mummies (and I am NOT referring to the British version of "mommies"). Our new supplier stocks them, but I had to buy 1000, so we're trying to get used to them. Wonder if there is such as thing as a spray tan for babies?

We take holidays at the bakery very seriously, especially when they can be celebrated with cookies. Dr. Seuss' Birthday on Friday, March 2 was a perfect example.

Green Eggs and Ham (we did eventually make green hams but I didn't get a picture), Horton Hears a Who, The Cat in the Hat, and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. It was so much fun making these we plan to do it again next year.

Coincidentally, we also made a Dr. Seuss themed baby shower cake on Saturday. Those figures that look like cut-outs? They are HAND PAINTED by Sarah and Erin on fondant.

Fortuitous

for·tu·i·tous. Adjective -- Happening by accident or chance rather than design, happening by a lucky chance; fortunate.

It wasn't my idea.

I wish it was, but it was a request from an event planner for an entirely different event. That's the way it always starts in the bakery business. Someone calls and asks us to make a cake.

She was interested in a cake to resemble the BCS Trophy.

I knew what it looked like.  But not what it REALLY looked like. When you want to turn something like that into cake, you've got to pay a whole lot more attention to the details.

According to Wikipedia,

The trophy consists of a Waterford Crystal football affixed to an ebony base... The winning school retains permanent possession of the trophy, as a new one is awarded every year. The football portion of the trophy weighs approximately 8 pounds and together with the stand, it weights about 45 pounds and stands 34 inches tall...

 In bakery talk, the *base* translates to stacked square cakes, which is pretty straight forward. The tricky part is getting the moulding details on the base right. And, of course, the crystal football.

We had a meeting about it and came up with some ideas.

Then nothing. They would get back to us.

So about a week later, when we got an entirely different call, it was all still very fresh on my mind.

This time we were asked simply to make a chocolate cake for a luncheon. To serve about 75 people. At the Mal Moore Athletic Facility. For the Alabama Football Program. About five days out, on February 1st.

Oh no, you don't want JUST  a chocolate cake. We're gonna make something special.

And a few days, a full chocolate sheet cake, lots of ganache and buttercream, rice krispy treats, white modeling chocolate, lots of wooden dowels, and some glitter dust later... we had a most impressive cake.

It wasn't quite big enough to make the entire trophy. And it certainly wasn't going to be 34 inches tall. The finished product was about 12-inches square. The football standing on end (and on dowels) added about 10 more inches. And we took liberties with the details, simplifying the moulding and other details.

Getting to deliver the cake to the athletic facility was priceless. It's an impressive place, and I am not even a hard core fan.

Everyone was so nice, introducing themselves. I had my picture made with the real trophy (from 2009).

Our cake was set up in front of the HUGE multi screen television in the Football Recruiting Room. We surrounded it with Alabama-themed shortbread cookies, petit fours and lemon squares.

Photos were taken and tweeted by The Tuscaloosa News. It even made ESPN.

So, fortuitous (that means lucky) it certainly was. 

I'm hoping we'll still get a chance to make the full size version. But this one can be made over and over, and would be affordable to the average customer wanting to serve 80 of his closest friends.

Roll Tide!

The Bridal Show -- Part 1

I love a good bridal show. All those gorgeous gowns, florals, and cakes in one place.

Plus event planners and designers, photographers, caterers, musicians, and jewelers. Even lingerie and linens.

On this day everything is possible, and it's all here. The room is full of dreams waiting to come true.

As a baker, I'm awed by the possibilities. I can bring what ever I want. Bake any flavor, decorate in any color.

Everyday at the bakery, we make YOUR dream cake. Today we make OUR dream cake.

Starting with this bouquet of roses cake. It was inspired by these miniature bridal shower cakes by Peggy Porschen in her book "Beautiful Cakes." I could never justify just making these for the shop, but this was the next best thing.

A simple 4-layer 8-inch round vanilla cake forms the base, with multicolored fondant stems.

Then a two-layer 6-inch round of chocolate cake, carved into a semi-circle forms a platform for the flowers. If I were a glutton for punishment, I'd roll, cut, and form the hundreds of small Stephanotis (I do have the cutter), but I opt for larger white chocolate fondant fantasy roses instead. It's a business decision... It still takes me over an hour, and I'm pretty fast at this.

Slight variations in color from off-white to ivory create a realistic sense of depth. After all, in nature, no two blooms are exactly alike.

This would be beautiful as individual cakes or a centerpiece. Or for a bridal luncheon.

Or for the bridal show today. 

It's gonna pain me to cut it.

-------------------------------------

The Hotel Capstone's Bridal Show
Once Upon a Bride... A Fairytale Wedding
January 29, 2012
1-5 pm