Baseball Groom's Cake

Here's the groom's cake I decorated for my niece's wedding.

The groom, Brett Mooneyham, is a baseball player, a pitcher, actually. My sister found these cute figurines online and they were perfect!!

The cake was chocolate with chocolate buttercream frosting and green tinted buttercream for the grass. I used white fondant for the base lines.

Congrats, Brett & Ashley!!

Elegant Diamond Wedding Cake

Here's what I did while in California this week!!

Kind of.

It was actually a joint effort. Because my niece's wedding was two hours away from where she lives, my sister opted to go with a "fake" cake. Except for the bottom tier, which another of my nieces made and delivered.

My sister purchased 8", 10", 12" and 14" Styrofoam cake forms, which we then covered with Wilton fondant. When the bottom 16" arrived, I stacked the fake tiers on the real tier, added the ribbon and "diamonds" and that was it.

Simple elegance!!

Here's a sheet cake I put together, continuing the "diamond" theme.

Congratulations, Mr.& Mrs. Brett Mooneyham!! Love you both!

Music Themed Wedding Cake

Ruth and I made this wedding cake for a friend she used to work with. Ruth was also in the wedding, so it's been a stressful week!



Both the bride and groom are music majors, so the cake was fitting. They had a bride and groom topper they planned on putting on top of the cake, but it was wobbly and top-heavy, so they didn't use it.

Again, congratulations, Carrie and Tim!

Microphone Groom's Cake

I guess there's a first for everything. Here's my first Microphone Cake!!




Congratulations, Carrie & Tim!!

Pink & Black Western Theme Wedding Cake

My daughter, Ruth, and I made this wedding cake for a girl from our church this past weekend.

The wedding was gorgeous! A bit warm, but gorgeous! The forecast called for thunderstorms, but all we had was heat. The cake actually started drooping! Didn't get a shot of that though. I actually stayed back by the cake during the wedding so I could prop it up or something if it decided to let go.

All's well that ends well, although we did get them to do the cake pics a b

it earlier than planned!

I thought I'd throw in a picture of the bride getting out of the buggy that delivered her to her wedding. Shows the theme.

I put my Cricut Cake to good use for this cake! I'm really loving that little machine.

The bride wanted this pic on the cake. I had several ideas of what to do, none of which worked out. First, I was going to try to cut it out of rolled gum paste, but decided that would be too difficult. Then, I tried to have it printed onto edible paper, but the place that tried to do it couldn't do the size I needed so that was out. So in the end I printed it, then covered it with clear contact paper. Not the best way I'm sure, but it worked!!

It was an absolutely beautiful wedding! Congratulations, Charity & Bretley!!

Tiffany Blue & Brown Wedding Cake

My daughter, Ruth, and I made this wedding cake this past weekend.




The top and bottom layers are Classic White with my dulce de leche filling. The middle layer is Devil's Food chocolate with my chocolate hazelnut filling. It's frosted with buttercream with fondant add-ons.

I made this sheet cake to get the amount of servings they wanted and maintain the size of wedding cake they asked for. It's a good way to stretch the cake and it's also less expensive than adding layers to the wedding cake.




This sheet cake was Strawberry filled with strawberry syrup.

Tuxedo Cake Update

This is an update to the Tuxedo Cake post I did last November.





When I did this cake, we couldn't get the large strawberries like the bride wanted. So she took delivery without the strawberries. A friend of mine who was at the wedding dipped small strawberries in chocolate and did this arrangement.

I thought it turned out great!! Thanks, Becky!!

Black & Red Wedding Cake

I made this cake for Jordan, a neighbor of ours for 14 years. She and my daughter, Ruth, are good friends.

There's actually a story behind this cake. The night I was to make it, my 12 year old nephew decided to try an Evel Knievel stunt and ended up in ICU with a ruptured spleen and a concussion! So I spent the time I meant to be working on this cake in the hospital waiting room!! I finally got home and started working on it at about one-thirty in the morning. I had to have it delivered at nine the next morning.

Fortunately, I had the frosting and fillings made, so all I had to do was stack and frost it. But I was extremely tired and I kept making stupid mistakes, so I had to quit and finish when I delivered it. Talk about stressful!! Wedding cakes tend to be stressful for me in the best of circumstances, but this was a little over the top!

But, all's well that ends well, as the saying goes. Jordan was happy with her cake (although I don't feel it was my best work). I ran off and forgot my camera, so my husband took this pic with his I-phone. And my nephew is pretty much out of the woods, thank God!

Anyway, congrats, Jordan and Austin!

Heart Wedding Cake

Last weekend I did this wedding cake for a couple from church. It is a four tier square cake frosted with buttercream with fondant addons.

The top 6" tier was white with a dulce de leche filling. The next tier, 8", was strawberry with a basic strawberry filling. The next was 10", chocolate with a chocolate hazelnut mousse filling. And the bottom 12" tier was white again, with the same filling as the top tier.

I made the monogram out of fondant then painted it silver. It was actually a lot easier to do than I thought it would be!!



A lot of the time, if my customer thinks they might run short on cake, I'll make a sheet cake since it costs less than adding another layer to the wedding cake. This 12" x 18" sheet cake was divided into individual pieces by a shell border. Each piece had a paper heart on it. It was frosted with a whipped icing from Sam's. The shell border was buttercream.



Congratulations, Kayla and Tyler!!

Tuxedo Cake

Check out this Tuxedo Groom's Cake! I make this for a wedding Thanksgiving weekend. Not a great time to make a cake, but I wasn't going shopping anyway. I don't have finished pics of it. They were adding flowers or ribbon or something to the top.

This is a Devil's Food cake, with a chocolate pudding filling, and chocolate syrup added to both layers. Standard buttercream with almond flavoring. The tuxedos and bow ties are made of craft foam since my customers didn't want to use fondant. The buttons are black buttercream.

Black and White Wedding Cake

I did this wedding cake for a couple in our church this past weekend. This one just about finished me off!! It sure looks pretty though.

The cake the bride showed me, the one I used as a model, was covered with fondant. But since cost was an issue, we went with buttercream. When you're using fondant on fondant, it sticks better, especially when the add-ons are heavier, like roses. So to make sure they didn't fall off, I left the roses on the toothpicks that I formed them on, and just stuck them into the cake. It worked well.

I made the roses and leaves three or four days ahead of when I needed them, so they could harden. I also added Gum Tex to the fondant to make it more workable and so it would dry quicker.

I purchased velvet ribbon instead of using fondant. Fondant ribbon looses it's shape so easily, and I didn't need the added stress! And, once again I cheated with craft foam - I made the swags out if when I started having issues with the fondant.

The design, with the smaller tier being underneath larger tier, created havoc with my normal support system, so I had to improvise to overcome that as well.

The figurine on top in the first picture was provided by the bride. It was too tall and heavy and actually make the cake top-heavy, so I didn't put it on until the bride and groom were taking pictures and cutting the cake. I was afraid it would fall. I would have chosen a smaller topper, possibly even spray painting it black - wouldn't that have looked cool?

Anyway, congrats, Rachel and Brad!

Franklin/Pogue Wedding

Congratulations, Paige & Codi!!

I made this wedding cake for a couple from our church this weekend. The frosting was buttercream with almond flavoring - yummmm! The ribbon around the bottom of each layer (which doesn't show up very well in this picture) is fondant. The flowers and petals were provided by the bride and were silk.

Can you tell the groom is really into Ford Racing? I made the emblems from color flow several days ahead to give it time to completely dry.

And the flower girl just happened to be my six year old granddaughter. I told her I wanted to take her picture and she struck the pose! You can definitely tell her mom is a photographer.

Nate & Jen's Wedding

Here are some pictures of Nathan & Jennifer's wedding cakes.



Jennifer wanted her cake to resemble a stack of gifts. Here's a more close up view:



Nathan's groom's cake is a depiction of an island. The couple will be living on the island of Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu, for two years after they raise their support. They hope to leave by October, or at the latest January 2010.



The bottom layer is the ocean and sky. The middle layer is the beach and the top layer is the island, complete with coconut trees and a grass hut. Hopefully, their living conditions won't be quite so rustic!

On the groom's cake, I used craft foam instead of fondant since I didn't know what kind of kitchen facilities I would be working in. Smart move!!

I used pre-made whipped frosting on both cakes. This was the first time I used it on such a large scale, and again, I used it because I didn't know what my working conditions would be. If I had it to do over again, I would probably use the traditional buttercream since I had some problems working with the pre-made frosting, mainly because I'm not accustomed to it.

But the bride and groom were happy, and that's what matters most to me.

Congratulations, Nathan & Jennifer!!

Edwards/Jaeger Wedding

Over the weekend a couple who grew up with my children were married and I did their wedding cakes. I was just a wee bit nervous about it, since this was my first big wedding. But all went well and the bride and groom were happy. That's what matters to me!

The wedding cake was five tiers and three different flavors. I used a classic buttercream icing, smooth finish, then added dots. The bride didn't want a shell border so I hand-rolled fondant pearls. Loads of fun!! The roses are real.

The groom's cake was chocolate (buried under all those noodles!!). I used a real butter buttercream icing for the noodles. The "sauce" is strawberry jam, to which I added a very small amount of yellow gel and white coloring. The meatballs are truffles. The cake itself was chocolate iced smooth with a chocolate fudge frosting.

(The spaghetti cake was featured in a previous blog)

Simple Groom Cake

I also made this Groom Cake for my daughter's wedding. It was very simple. I made a two layer cake using 14" pans which I covered it with buttercream as well as a single layer 6" cake. I used a sheet of black foam to make the tuxedo. I cut each top edge to make the "V" when it was put on the cake. I then attached it with buttercream, added black fondant buttons and a bow.

I cringe when I look at the top of the cake! I do a much better job of smoothing the icing now. This cake and the wedding cake in the previous cake were made just a few months after I completed the Wilton cake decorating course.

Sparkly Blue & Silver Wedding Cake

This cake was made for my daughter's wedding by my sister-in-law and myself. It was my first attempt at a wedding cake and I was overwhelmed!! I would not recommend the mother of the bride doing the wedding cake if she is also coordinating the wedding! I had previously arranged for help if I needed it and I did! I baked the cake, made the decorative arrangements, and iced the bottom two layers. My sister-in-law then took over and iced the rest of the cake, put it together and added the arrangements and ribbon. A real joint effort!

The bottom layer was a home-made marble cake recipe that wanted to fall apart. The other layers were made from box cake mixes, and all were frozen beforehand. The wedding was blue and silver and we had some trouble getting the right shade of blue but it turned out pretty close. The arrangements were made out of floral picks which I picked up on chearance at Michael's and Hobby Lobby after Christmas. I made these well ahead of time.

I used 16", 14", 12" and6" inch pans. I had intended to use smaller plates for the two top layers so they wouldn't show, but I failed to explain what I wanted to do to my sister-in-law, so the plates were showing. However, using smaller plates may have created a balance problem, so that may be the only way it would work.

As I said, I was overwhelmed by this experience, and it scared me off making any more wedding cakes - until now, two and a half years later! I'll let you know how my next experience goes.