The Girliest Cake In The World

I’m sort of kidding although it can’t really be a coincidence that the two boards that I had to do ended up being pastel-y pink and blue. I’ll post the picture of the Fondant & Gum Paste board tomorrow when it’s finished (there’s still some painting to do on it).

Okay, it’s completely uncharitable of me but I’m seriously hoping to blow Bobbi Sue’s boards out of the water. The (not-so) secret fantasy is that they look at mine, then look at hers.. then look at each other (it’s my fantasy and in my fantasy, the manager and assistant manager are both making the decision).

“We can’t put these on the same display, they’re on completely different levels!” (That’s the manager)

“I know. The Level 1 and 2 boards look shabby compared to the Level 3 and Fondant.” (I warned you that it was completely uncharitable).

“Why don’t we ask Jody to do a set of Level 1 and 2 boards and just use hers?”

“Well, Bobbi Sue would probably be upset.”

“Hmmm. Why don’t we get Bobbi Sue to do 3 and Fondant boards, we’ll put her display in the classroom and Jody’s out in the aisle.” (The aisle is significantly better, the people in the classroom are there because they’ve already signed up. Preaching to the choir, dontcha know.)

There you have it. The gritty underside of competitive cake decorating where a normally lovely young woman (that’s me) is reduced to saying mildly bitchy things about a co-worker that she actually doesn’t mind talking to occasionally (when the co-worker isn’t calling to lay down a bunch of rules about how to do boards). Oh no, apparently this is all a childish retaliation for a minor slight!

Oh well. ;D

My Work”space”

It’s sort of a running joke for people that have seen my desk (those rare times when I’ve had a job that afforded me my own desk). It just seems that the busier I am, the smaller my actual space becomes. I do have that usual cluttered defense though in that I am very aware of the geography of my desk and can usually put my hands on whatever I might need within seconds.

In this case, the lack of actual surface area is offset by the fact that the sugar paste flowers that I’m working on are usually less than an inch across so don’t really take up that much space.  I’ll post some of the detail pictures of those over the next couple of days maybe.

I had a lot of fun getting lost in it though.  I’d forgotten how much I like working with finicky stuff.  The little tiny details… yummy.

Calla Cakes

I’m helping one of my students with a wedding cake. She’s make the cakes for each of her children and this is the last grandchild that she will have to make a cake for The problem being that she had surgery on her hands and, as she puts it, they “completely forget how to do this”.

So originally it was a wedding for about 30 people and the bride “didn’t care” what the cake looked like. We were just going to sit together and do the sugar paste flowers for the cake.

Now it’s a wedding for 300 and the bride wants calla lilies and the colour aubergine. Nancy’s hands are still really weak from the surgery and she figures that she’ll be able to cover the cakes with fondant and not much more.

Personally, I think she’s nuts (not that I don’t plan on making Meag’s wedding cake if she’ll let me).  She’s going to have a lot of cake to cover and I’m not 100% certain that she’s up to it  I think I’m going to look for an aubergine ribbon for her to use as a shortcut  .  Yay, I get to play with ribbon!  I’m also going to make a few callas in advance that she can hang on to should she like them.  I’m more intrigued by the different shades that these flowers come in.  I mean, isn’t that gorgeous?

Beautiful Novia

This cake had a little bit of everything.  Four towers of speckled mocha cake with hazelnut fulling.  Royal icing marigolds. Chocolate skulls and her.  I love her, she is easily the most beautiful thing I’ve ever sculpted in sugar.

The Zombie James

Does anyone remember that spy doll from the 70s? You could glue different disguises on his bald head? This guy reminded me of him throughout the day.  Chocolate tombstones. Rice Krispie head (I’m not even going to show you the gaping head wound in the back, worms and everything.)

Clawing his way out of the chocolate cake ground with graveyard rats gnawing at the exposed bones on his arms.  Plus, it was black forest cake and delicious.

I lied, I really like it but, yes, I checked that their kids would be in bed before it was unveiled.

Colin’s Messy Bedroom

Again with the cake recreations for Colin.  This was ridiculously simple and fun.  Meag and her friend helped with all of the scraps for cloths (oh, the fifty gym socks).

Meag is nitpicky about details like I am so she sculpted the mini Playboy magazine tucked under the covers.  I don’t actually know that he has one of course.

The First Short Notice Wedding Cake

I got the call for this one on Tuesday.  The wedding was on Saturday.  The hotel was providing a sheet cake and neither of the grooms had given any thought to the pictures.  This is where Jim’s sister came to the rescue and pointed out that, if they wanted to have nice pictures taken cutting a cake (they did), they should probably get a nice cake.

It’s got speckled mocha cake with hazelnut filling on the bottom layer and white cake with an orange cream filling on the top.

Oh, those roses.  They were having Black Magic roses in the arrangements and corsages.  Do you know how difficult it is to find Black Magic roses on short notice in October? Very.  Finally, the guy at the regional Academy Florist distributor was able to point me to the ONE florist that had ordered them for a wedding (not this one) and she was able to sell me two flowers after they were finished picking them through for the best ones. Even the not best ones though… wow, were they lush.  I could seriously see the appeal of filling your bed with rose petals.

Me being me, they weren’t quite dark enough so I soaked the stems in watered down black gel colour over night and they darkened beautifully (not just for cheap carnations anymore!).

I only ended up using the petals from one of the flowers.  Any guesses as to what I did with the second?

Colin’s Birthday Chess Match

It’s a cake recreation of move 38, Game 6 of the Chess Match of the Century (Spassky vs. Fischer in 1972 doncha know).