Wow!  I wish I could have been a wall flower at the ball tonight!  More to come when I hear back how it went, but for now, a couple photos will have to do.

This tuxedo (chocolate and white layers with fillings of chocolate, vanilla, and mocha buttercream) is to be partially *yes, partially* auctioned off tonight at the ball.  I’ll be back with a report when I have one.  I for one can not wait to hear the results!  The comedy and tragedy masks were shaped over corn starch by hand, dried and then painted.  The dancer silhouettes were done using the pin prick and cut method.  Very tedious.  But…worth it!  I love this cake!  And, I’m proud to say that the red fondant is my home made fondant, and we all know what that means!

Have a great night!

Ok, so you love our cupcakes…they are so yummy and cute.  Well, now you can dress them up in fashionable cupcake couture!  We’ve added these fabulous cupcake wrappers to our line at the showroom, you can purchase them with your order of cupcakes, or separately.  We’re so excited to be the first to carry them in Syracuse.  Jen has her favorite wrapper style, but there are so many to choose from.  Check out how beautifully they compliment cake decor…perfect for those cool couples that want cake AND cupcakes at their event!

These wrappers can be purchased in packs of 12 for 12$ and stand at nearly 2″tall, perfect size for any baked standard, or slightly larger like Jen’s, cupcake.  Stop in today to see the styles available!  And of course we can order for you!  One of Jen’s favorites:

Isn’t this just the cutest?  We love it for place card/dessert dual use.  Just have Jen beautifully write the guest’s name on the wrapper and you can serve it boxed with ribbon or by itself at the table setting!  So cute.  Here are some of the other options.

Just say no to naked cupcakes! We’ll see you soon at the showroom.

all photos except Jen’s cake are courtesy of Bella Cupcake Couture.tm

Have a peek at a couple of the cakes we did this weekend.  A onesie for a baby shower, and a mermaid for a very sweet 8 year old.  I did a rainbow unicorn for young Teresa a few years ago, and I’m told she requested that I make this year’s cake as well.  She chose rainbow cake again.  The mermaid is all edible and the cute little fish was made by my very talented young assistant - my 11 year old.  Great touch!  Enjoy!

So I got a call from a lovely young lady who wanted a special cake for her boyfriend. He loves technology, especially computers.  She was getting him a new Alienware Aurora ALX and wanted a cake to go with it but not real sure at first what the possibilities would be.  You know what happens next around here, “well, how about a cake to look like it?” She was all over the idea, and was very helpful with researching which computer and color, model, etc.  The client gave me creative freedom to just get it done, and I love that. Thanks so much for ordering Tashera!  It was a pleasure, and I’m so glad you loved it so much!  Enjoy!

You may or may not know me well enough by now to know that I typically go for all edible with my cakes.  This cake was an exception, the keyboard and monitor are not edible; they have foam core guts.  The tower is red velvet cake though, and delicious!  Not sure what the scale would be, but the tower was about 10″ high and the monitor screen was 6×8.  Those little keys were all cut and placed by hand, so there is a little human variation in size and shape there ;).  I had fun making this one!  Bring on the next cake!

On Monday, I was happy to visit Bridge Street (www.9wsyr.com) again to show off some wedding cake ideas.  Below is the clip from the show, followed by some photos of the cakes I took. Follow the link and enjoy!

Wedding Cakes Galore

Don’t forget, the inspiration for your wedding cakes can come from anywhere!  The brown and blue was inspired by some simple s-scroll work and I added the vertical stripes to modernize it a bit.  It went perfectly with the brown and blue Bella Cupcake Couture wrappers we now carry at the showroom.  I’ll talk about those in my next post.  The peacock cake was inspired by a very popular invitation done by Bride Design, you can purchase it on her site.  And the last cake was inspired by a linen I borrowed from The Events Company a couple months ago.  I’ll be visiting TEC in March for one of their Mimosa Saturdays.  More info on that soon as well.  Be creative with your cakes! Or, come see me, and I’ll help you be as creative as possible!

Thanks so much to Lisa  and Tim Walsh for inviting us over for a little Super Bowl Sunday action.  We had a great time.  I took along a cake of course that Lisa had requested and I was pleased to say the least when she reacted with a little amazement.  I guess her expectations were a little less than 3D.

I also had another order for a football cake, so both Lisa and that client got a cake like this one pictured below.  I was really happy with the texture I achieved on the chocolate fondant “leather” and wow does Lisa’s shot of the cake show it off!

Enjoy, and I hope you enjoyed your Super Bowl Sunday too!

Lisa blogged the cake on her site too, you can check it out here.  Thanks Lisa!

We all love to watch Food Network, right?  Meet Jacob, he loves it too. He also is a big fan of mine, I love it that he is inspired by my cakes.  So, Jacob’s mom purchased an afternoon of baking for him as a gift.  By the time we finally had our date in the kitchen, it was just about Christmas so we made some yummy mini cream puffs and a Christmas Stocking cake.  I took a few photos for Jacob and thought I’d share them with you.  There was a lot of activity in the kitchen that day, I think Jacob enjoyed it, I know I did!

the puffs are already in the oven when we started photos.

With all the activity, we realized we hadn’t been taking photos from the start! Here, the puffs are already in the oven while we turned our attention to the pastry cream.

yolks and sugar with starch ready to be tempered in.

Jacob stirring the half and half with sugar, don't get distracted Jake!

that's better Jake, constant stir now.

Jacob stirs the tempered yolks into the half and half, paying close attention now, till thick and with bubbles just starting to come up from bottom of pan…almost done.  Then we strained out any little clumps that were missed and added chilled butter and vanilla.  We took a break from the puffs while the cream set and worked on his cake.  Jacob loves my fondant!  He did a great job with rolling it out and with some help laying it on the cake, it came out terrifically!  Check out his candy canes!

so proud!

When the cream was chilled and the puffs were dry, we moved back into the kitchen to fill the puffs!  Always fun, and sometimes messy, it’s the perfect time to sample his work.

do they pass inspection Jacob?

The first one is always the best, but who can stop?

Oh, just one more? Riiiight.

I think we were able to save at least a few for the rest of the family! Hopefully Jacob will make these for their next party, I know everyone will be impressed!  Thank you Jacob for inviting me to your kitchen, bake it a great day!

Thank you so much to everyone who made 2009 a year to truly remember!  I’m blessed and honored to be part of your lives through cake and the memories built with each and every celebration you include us in.

I’m wishing you all a truly fantastic 2010!!

~Jen

Today marked my first true fall cake for the year.  I love Autumn, the smells, the colors, the leaves.  Who doesn’t love the leaves?  I have a feeling fall will pass quickly this year with all the rain we’ve been having.  Before we know it, snow will be upon us and I may have to resort to hanging a photo of today’s cake on the wall to remind me of all the rich and scrumptious hues of fall.

The bride and groom chose chocolate espresso cake for the bottom tier, and in true fall fashion they chose caramel apple cake for the top two tiers.  Fondant leaves and gerberas adorned the sides of the rough, natural icing in 3 shades of chocolate toned butter cream.  Looked and smelled delicious…just like fall in Upstate!

The ceremony and reception took place at Highland Forest in Fabius, NY.  I love the views from the lodge, no matter what season it’s gorgeous!

My thanks and best wishes go out to the happy couple for including me in their special day!

The photos are awesome, but part of this post is sad.  I still don’t know the whole story, I may never, but one of these cakes was taken down very early in the reception for fear of it falling.  As you can see, there is not an indication of a fear for that when I left it.  As gorgeous as it is, not a good memory for the client or the artist.

That sort of thing happens sometimes.  Rarely, but it does happen.  Cake is cake to some, to others it is a major focal point.  Those are my clients.  The ones who want the major focal point.  So in a nutshell, it stinks pretty bad when something happens like a leaning or falling cake.  I’m not one to stay at every reception, I don’t belong there so I don’t stay.  I have to wonder sometimes if I should stay, perhaps I may now and then after this particular mishap.  It would seem to be the only way to really know how things go along.  I thought about not posting this part of the cake story, but it is a story that can happen to anyone.  And there are multiple ways for it to be handled.  Each story is different, so there is no one way to remedy the situation.  The best I can do is to make my clients happy in the end.  Hopefully, they are, even if I’m not.  It is afterall…all about the bride.

On to the photos!

Coming up next post…some more awesome cakes, without the drama!  Well, at least not this kind of drama.  It’s been super busy here at She Takes The Cake, some new adventures, some new limits.  But as always, some great cakes for awesome clients.  Thanks so much!!