This weekend Connie and Lucas got married, congrats! I loved her idea of an afternoon reception. In Italy it is actually not an uncommon thing to get married first thing in the morning and have a late lunch/early dinner reception. Especially if you want to throw in a fun after party! Any excuse for more than one party. Two themes? Two dresses? Amazing, right?
They know how to do it over there.
Connie is a certified wedding planner and a very talented (I think certified?) floral designer. She had a beautiful vision with her DIY's 'love bird' theme for her wedding. Connie is the owner of
Much Ado About Weddings, visit her site for more info and inspiration. Check out her gorgeous bird cage centerpieces:
She sent me a photo of them to use for inspiration for the cake as well as
this birdcage cake I did for my nonno. And to throw a little Italy love in, the cake had Nutella in it. Her taste keeps getting better.
The cupcake tower you see below I made myself in order to be customizable to any event. You can change up the ribbon, add colour to the tiers with nice wrapping paper, or in this case I came up with the idea to decorate with twigs to symbolize a birds nest. Putting those twigs on one-by-one actually made me feel like I was building a nest. I love how everything tied in together so nicely.
I'm going to estimate 105 little birds will be able to fit on this stand.
This past weekend I worked on two weddings.
I'll post one today, and one tomorrow so check back. For this rose petal cake, the bride sent me the photo below for inspiration of what she wanted.
Click here for the source, look around the site too while your at it! There are many variations of this cake, I am not sure how to source them all. Congrats to Miranda and her new hubby!
The petals were made from gumpaste and 'glued' on the cake using royal icing. Tip, let the royal icing dry for a few hours and it will stick just fine. We came up with the idea to personalize it with the brides wedding colour, peach, and had peach petals faded to white. To achieve the perfect look of a gradient, I dyed a decent amount of gumpaste to get the right peach colour for the middle, made 10 petals with the colour and then added white gumpaste to the left over batch. Made 5-6 petals with that colour, then added white. Repeat this process until your left with white petals.
How did I know how many petals to make? I didn't. But it worked out perfectly.
The only thing that scared the crap out of me was the 40 degree weather we've been having lately. Mother nature, if your listening, next time I am doing a fondant-covered buttercream cake lay off the heat. Thank youpe.
I have a confession. I do not like working with fondant and I hate how it tastes, BUT I love how it looks so I'll never give it up. Fondant can be really fussy, I don't attempt to make it from scratch because I can't see the benefit. Fondant hates the heat wave we are having lately, it gets too soft and melty, so keep your house cool.
Here are some tips that I find helps when working with fondant:
• I buy both Mccalls and Wilton fondant and mix them together. Mccalls is too soft, Wilton is too stiff but together they are perfect.
• It is very important to knead your fondant. You have to take sections, sit there and knead and knead. If you take fondant right out of the box and stretch it is will crumble and break. If you knead, it will stretch just fine.
• Use shortening when fondant is to sticky to knead.
• Use gum tex to stiffen fondant when you want to shape it into decor. It can be cut into shapes easily. Now it really shouldn't be eaten but no one eats decor anyway.
• Coat your surface with icing sugar before rolling out fondant. I hate using corn starch because I hate the squeaky feel of it. Go feel it and you'll see what I mean.
• Use icing sugar to also help you smooth the fondant out easier, sans the stickiness.
If fondant breaks after putting it on: you skipped the kneading step for sure.
See, fussy.
There are a million videos on you tube to help you with your fondant. Here is one with literally 1 million hits...
PS. If you want a discount on baking supplies, Michaels offers coupons EVERY week, most of the time 40% off one item, sometimes 50%. Sales rule! Click to visit the
site here for their weekly ad. Always make sure to print these babies out before going.
Bikini cookies via
Cakes Haute Couture...
and great recipes found around the web:
Have a great weekend!
I love themes. Naturally I had a great time participating in this engagement party planning! I designed the invitation postcard for paul and christina with the guidance of the bride's vision and created a logo for the occasion. The logo then became inspiration for the cake, with the stripes, hearts and white dots. Rose petals surrounded the cake, which gives a sweet romantic feel.
Their favours were candy apples from
Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, tagged with their logo.
A new alliance has formed...
Superhero mini cakes! These five cakes were all chocolate cake based with five different buttercream fillings - cappuccino, strawberry, banana cream, peanut butter and chocolate. Happy birthday Jan!
