Wedding Cakes - I'm Topsy Turvy

Metallic & Turquoise wedding cake & cupcakes

November 14, 2012 by Ashlee · 5 Comments

My cousin got married this month! I love family weddings, spending time with my family is one of the most fun anyone could EVER have. I laughed more in the few days we spent together then I have in years. I laughed until I cried, couldn’t breath, the back of my jaw hurt and I almost peed (still have bladder control after 5 kid- TAKE THAT!).

Another fun part of my family getting married is getting to make a wonderful creation for them! I was hoping for a huge grand cake, but she wanted cupcakes… Well the bride is always right, and in the end, while I’m STILL not a cupcake fan, I do think it turned out VERY pretty! And I’m really happy with the whole set up!

My favorite part is the Gold Leaf Cake. GORGEOUS! I love that I got to learn a new technique for this cake!

We went with 5 flavors of cupcakes, almost 3 dozen of each flavor. We used a menu board to help people figure out which flavor each cupcake was. We still had a few people grab the wrong flavor, but we did our best!

My cousin originally was wanting a cupcake tower, but neither of us loved it, then I was struck with GENIUS! Different sizes, heights and colors of cake stands! She totally ran with it, and painted them different metallic shades to match her color scheme.

I’m sure you noticed my new hair color… it didn’t turn out QUITE the way I wanted, but it’s been a fun change!

I got a new extra EXTRA large star tip for these, it made frosting the 14 dozen cupcakes super fast and I love the way it looks! Big, fat ad fluffy! Don’t forget to click on the pictures/links below to see the cake tutorial, cupcake and frosting recipes. YES, I’m sharing recipes!

And the cutting of the cake! Isn’t her lace dress lovely? My second choice in wedding dress would have been something like this. And the grooms silver suit, everything matches so nicely, I love how it all came together!

The cake was 7 layers of my dark Chocolate cake with chocolate ganache frosting. Mmmmm After the bride was done cutting the cake and they left on their honeymoon we took the cake with us to the family party that night! So we all got to enjoy it!

Metallic & Turquoise Wedding Cake and cupcakes
Gold Leaf Cake tutorial
Five Wedding cupcakes and recipes
Dye your own sprinkles and sugar crystals

Filed Under: Cakes, Parties, wedding, Wedding Cakes ·

Gold Leaf Wedding Cake

November 14, 2012 by Ashlee · 17 Comments

When my cousin came over for her wedding cake consultation we spent most of the time talking about what she wanted for her cupcakes! Once we got the the small cake for the bride and groom to cut it was easy. Sticking with the metallic theme she was looking at gold and silver painted cakes, then I showed her a silver leafed cake and she fell in love! We decided to go with GOLD and I LOVE how it turned out!

We added lace to match her dress and offset it with a super large flower! It turned out SO lovely, I can’t wait to try it again.

Start with a fondant covered cake… Now we want to make it tacky. I considered spray painting the whole thing with spirits (clear vanilla or vodka) but in the end I decided to use my travel steamer (best steamer EVER). I usually use it to make a cake shiny (like the lego blocks cake and the 13th birthday cake)when it’s all finished, but it does that by getting it barely damp. if you leave it it will dry a bit and end up slightly tacky, perfect!

The first one I tried to grab the edible gold leaf foil out of the booklet and place it on the cake… FAIL, do NOT do this. it crinkled all up, stuck to my fingers, etc… It just sticks to itself like static cling, it’s worse than plastic wrap!

Instead leave the leaf in the booklet. Carefully open it up to the first gold leaf. I say carefully because the thin leaf is easily destroyed, it doesn’t take much of a breeze for it to fold and crinkle. So CAREFULLY open up the booklet, first hold the bottom of the leaf against the bottom of the cake and SLOWLY roll up the booklet softly pressing the leaf to the cake.

Here you can see how I hold it against the bottom (as well as the messed up first leaf). Once the leaf is stuck on pull the booklet away (careful not to flip the pages and ruin the rest of the sheets) and use a soft brush (this is one of my CAKE ONLY brushes) and softly run it over the sheet, making sure it is all stuck down.

Now for the second layer… This is also a bit tricky, once the leaf is on it’s still delicate. you can see where my knuckle touched the bottom layer and pulled small pieces away… grrrr So hold the bottom of the leaf to the top of the last layer and roll up the page- trying not to touch any of the finished leafing. Mine was taller than the cake itself so I folded it over to start covering the top!

The top was actually the trickiest part, cause I couldn’t flip the booklet upside down so I had to jiggle the booklet sliding part of the leaf off. Once it stuck to the cake I SLOWLY pulled the booklet away letting the leaf come to rest on the fondant., brush it down… once I was done I want back through carefully covered up gaps, holes and mistakes!

TA-DA! do you love it? I love it! How amazing would this look on a full 3 or 4 tier wedding cake???? I used 24 of the 25 sheets the booklet came with to cover this 8 inch cake. It took me about 20 mins to cover the whole thing, so it’s a pretty fast way to go once you get your groove. BUT expensive.

Then the finishing details! The lace and flower! It was actually supposed to be a different flower, but the florist apparently didn’t understand the SCALE we wanted the flower. the one he left was this puny 2 inch bud… so I raided the centerpieces to get this big fluffy hydrangea instead! The cake was a lovely centerpiece for all the cupcakes and most important the bride was happy with it!

Metallic & Turquoise Wedding Cake and cupcakes
Gold Leaf Cake tutorial
Five Wedding cupcakes and recipes
Dye your own sprinkles and sugar crystals

Filed Under: cake tutorial, Cakes, Wedding Cakes · Tagged With: fondant, tutorial

Ruffled Rose Wedding Cake- paint your flower edges

July 25, 2012 by Ashlee · 13 Comments

This is actually a repeat of the wedding cake I did a few months ago! I usually don’t agree to do repeats, BUT the bride was a relative of a relative and I didn’t want to say no. Happily this reception was outside and earlier in the day so I got much better pictures!

She even wanted the same bronze edging on the roses. The good news is that the cake came together much faster the second time around!

This was actually a smaller cake so the roses look even LARGER than they did before!

I was afraid the ones on the side would look TOO large this time around, but I think they ended up looking really pretty.

The bride had a topper on a dowel she wanted to stick in the top so I left the center empty, but it ended up breaking just before the reception, so I filled the space with extra ruffled petals.

I thought I’d share more details on the extra large roses! First you create the large roses, because of drying time you want to start them a few days early, and every few hours you can add another petal!

Now to create the paint! I like to use vodka, but if you have a problem with vodka use clear vanilla (I make my homemade vanilla by soaking vanilla beans in vodka for 6 months, and since vodka is cheaper than clear vanilla I’m happy to use it). Now take the edible luster dust in the color of your choice and mix them together to create an edible paint!

Using a small thin brush I paint all the edges to bring out the details… I like the roses both way, pure white and edged… Which way do you like it better?

Filed Under: Cakes, Wedding Cakes · Tagged With: fondant, tutorial

Vintage Rose Ruffled Wedding Cake

May 24, 2012 by Ashlee · 11 Comments

I love making wedding cakes! One of the nice things about living here in UT is both my husband and I have a lot of family in the area! So when one of our cousins, or in this case Second Cousins, gets engaged I offer to make their cake!

This one was super fun, I love getting asked to make a cake with a technique I haven’t tried before, cause then I get to figure it out! I love the casual and yet elegant look of her wedding plans, decor and colors! Peach with a rustic look using mason jars, yet lots of ruffles! (I should’ve taken a picture of the centerpieces!)

I made these gumpaste roses a few days before so they had time to dry. I used a foam egg shape for the center and a 3 inch rose petal cutter. I wish I’d had a 4 inch cutter… But they turned out lovely. Then I mixed some spirits (vodka or clear vanilla work great) with some bronze luster dust and hand painted all the edges of the roses so they would stand out!

For the fondant ruffles first I frosted and covered each cake with fondant. Then I rolled out a long strip of fondant very thin, cut the length into a few 1 1/2 inch strips, then thinned and ruffled the top edge using a ball tool! Starting at the top of the cake and using vodka or clear vanilla I attached the stip (ruffled side up) around the cake. Then repeat moving your way down!

I left the roses on skewers and cut them short and stuck them into the cake where I wanted them. The roses were pretty big and left some big gaps so once I had them where I wanted them I took the extra fondant I always bring with me to set up, rolled it thin, cut out extra petals. And just like making a rose I thinned the edge to create ruffles, then painted the edge and used the petals to fill in the gaps.

You can’t even tell! I rolled some, gathered some, just placed them in the gaps until everything was filled in nicely! I love the way it turned out, and since the bride is family I got to see many of my extended family that night and enjoy great company! Seriously the best part!