Cake Endeavours

I was apprehensive to do these shoe cupcakes before because I didn't really like the look of them myself.  However, I am a changed woman.  A friend of mine in our building wanted to do something special for one of her friends that was turning 50.  She loves shoes and wanted my help in making some sort of Louis Vuitton black shoe. I had some extra cupcakes from the previous order that I had set aside.  Guida brought up the Pirouline cookies for the heels and the ladyfingers for the soles of the shoes.  I pretty much took over from there.  Thankfully Guida had no issue with this.  First I added the red soles in red fondant to the back of the ladyfingers and set them aside.  I dyed the buttercream icing black and piped the icing on the cupcakes.  I also lightly covered two Pirouline cookies in icing then in black fondant and finally the red to finish off the classic design for LV. Putting them together I added a dab of icing to the bottom...

I was booked to do this cake and cupcakes months in advance.  I was so honoured to be asked as well.  They still had their original cake topper and wanted to use that as the topper for the 50th anniversary celebration. The original cake was square with the leaves and rosettes on the corners.  It was hard to tell the colours as the picture I had for reference was black and white!  I decided to add some gold accents, which actually looked more like copper in the end.  This was a 6" chocolate cake. It was a beautiful sunny day but difficult to take pictures when facing the windows!  I made 12 dozen cupcakes in four different flavours; chocolate, vanilla, carrot and lemon. Each flavour had a different coloured fondant heart and the guests could use the legend to decide on which cupcake to take.  Hopefully there were no surprises! The hall was decorated so beautifully.  Love the flower arrangements on the dessert table.  There ...

This cake was a last minute request that I was able to squeeze in for a surprise party. As this was a last minute cake, I had to work with what I had on hand.  The ask was that the cake be black and white with lots of silver bling.  This was a 10" and an 8" two tier brown butter and salted caramel cake. I only had the 2" black ribbon from the previous cake so I folded it in half and wrapped some silver beading around it.  This is the only part that is not edible. I was able to make the flowers the night before so that they had time to dry out.  I should have done the silver lettering too as it was still pretty flimsy.  Originally the "50" was supposed to be silver too but both numbers fell apart when I lifted them off the drying rack.  I went with black which I liked better in the end anyway. Normally I would have used a black or white board but only had silver on hand for this cake.

Saturday my cousins had a surprise anniversary party for their parents' 30th wedding anniversary.  Of course we arrive and are walking with the cake when the bride and groom pull up in their driveway.  We tried to discreetly turn around as if we would suddenly disappear but we were spotted; thankfully not before they saw the reserved parking sign for the bride and groom. The theme of the party was black and white.  Originally we had the brilliant idea of replicating their wedding cake but in looking at the picture we figured it was best to leave 1986 back in 1986.  Instead we went with the colour theme. For this cake I did three different flavours.  For the 10" base it was chocolate with chocolate filling, then lemon with cream cheese filling for the 8" tier and for the top brown butter cake with salted caramel filling. I used a two inch satin ribbon band around each tier with 3 big flowers I made the day before on the side.  I cut out the 30 by ha...

I mentioned in my previous post that I was going to make an anniversary cake for me and Mr. T but instead my coworker snuck in a request at the last minute and I couldn't refuse.  Thankfully she wanted the same flavour and size so I already had the batter ready to go. This was a 6" 2 layer chocolate cake with chocolate filling.  I need to practice adding a band of fondant around a cake.  It is very tedious and not good for a Type A personality to work on.  Good thing with the right lighting and the right camera angle I can make it look like the band is on fairly straight! While we didn't get our own anniversary cake we did enjoy the cutoffs. :)

A former coworker asked me to make this cake for a 60th birthday celebration.  I contemplated doing the cake in the shape of a can but then I'd lose a lot of the cake by rounding it out. Instead I went with the logo and painting the cake in silver. This was a 9 x 13 chocolate cake with chocolate filling.  I covered the cake in white fondant; next time I would dye the fondant grey first and then paint it over in edible silver paint.  While the "paint" was drying I dropped the logo on as centred as I could get it in one shot.  For the mountain in the background I took a clean brush and brushed away the silver paint.  The ampersand was supposed to be more centred but I only had one shot and missed! I doubled the recipe to make an anniversary cake for Mr T and I.  :)