Cream and Blue Hydrangea Wedding Cake

I wrapped up my summer wedding season this year in South Port, NC with a wedding for some very dear friends of mine, Hannah and John. Their gorgeous and laid back wedding perfectly reflected their relationship, especially taking place in such a charming town as South Port, where the bride grew up going on beach vacations. We wanted to carry those vibes through to her cake and settled on a simple but classic three tiered cake adorned with cream and blue hydrangea blossoms and delicate cream filagree on the middle tier. 

The cake was a different flavor for each tier beginning with vanilla bean pound cake on the bottom filled with fresh berries and sweetened whipped cream. The middle tier was lemon chiffon cake filled with almond cream cheese filling and it was topped off by a white chocolate almond cake with milk chocolate ganache filling. Choosing a variety of flavors was definitely the way to go; Hannah and John's guests appreciated having so many options and from what I heard, had no problem returning for seconds and thirds to try all of the flavors.

The cake is sitting on a beaded glass cake plate from my personal collection that I offer for clients to "rent" free of charge to display their cakes.

The hydrangea blossoms are all handmade out of gum paste to custom match the blooms used to make Hannah's bouquet. They can be kept indefinitely after the wedding as a unique keepsake of the day!

I wish so much happiness to these two and I was so honored to be a part of their big day!

White Ruffle Wedding Cake

My approach when it comes to designing a wedding cake is that less is more (this is definitely not my philosophy when it comes to eating it...). My signature style is clean and elegant. I love designs that remain traditional but have a modern, fresh feel. This is one of the major advantages of using fondant in a wedding cake, because it makes the whole surface impeccably smooth and you can cut decorations to have a perfect straight edge. Fondant is a sugar dough that can be rolled out and used to cover cakes like you see on Food Network Challenge. It is an amazing decorating tool, but not so fancy on the taste buds. I generally advise brides to use fondant sparingly, but in some cases the cleaner finish just fits the wedding better. As a compromise I still put a thick, yummy layer of buttercream on the cake for the guests to enjoy after peeling back the chewy fondant. And that way, you may eat your cake but I can make it look like this too:

The inside of this cake is actually a styrofoam dummy cake that I made a few years ago and finally found the courage to demolish and re-do. Now it  is covered in a new coat of fondant with fondant bands around the base of the tiers to cover the seams. 

The ruffles are made from gumpaste, which is very similar to fondant but holds a shape better and dries much harder. You wouldn't use gumpaste to cover a cake, but it is perfect to make detailed objects like flowers, bows and figures. 

Gumpaste dries almost like porcelain and can be rolled out extremely thin to make for delicate ruffles.

I love how classy this cake looks all white, but I had a hard time deciding whether or not to leave it that way while in the process. There may be a ruffle cake part two at some point in the near future...what do you think?

Black and White Anniversary Cake

Yin and yang, chocolate and vanilla, Christian and Ally. Opposites attract! Check out this fun and classy black and white cake I made for my friend Christian to surprise his girlfriend on their two-year anniversary. The cake was split down the middle chocolate and vanilla, inside and out. It was dark chocolate cake layered with dark chocolate mousse on one side, and white cake layered with white chocolate mousse on the other. I iced it with vanilla and chocolate buttercream and then poured chocolate ganache on top so it was dripping down the sides. Hand piped white and dark chocolate hearts top it off. It turned out to be one of my favorite cakes, and as aesthetically pleasing and opposite as Christian and Ally themselves :-) Lots of pics because I liked it so much:

The naked cake

Hand piped chocolate hearts

Finished product!

A shot of the insides