Monday, March 22, 2010

Sugar Mama NYC's Giveaway: Wilton baking and decorating supplies

Every one loves getting free stuff and giving it away is even more fun! Sugar Mama NYC will host giveaways as often as possible featuring the coolest stuff we can find.
It's easy to enter: Just click on one of the links below. Enter your info, the name of the giveaway featured in the title above and your give away entry. Best of luck in Sugar Mama NYC's Giveaway!

Coming soon, Sugar Mama NYC will have an online store on our website selling Wilton baking and decorating products! To kickoff our upcoming store, we will be giving away an assortment of Wilton baking and decorating products.

Today's Giveaway:

Giveaway Name: Wilton baking and decorating supplies


Giveaway Entry: What baking/decorating tool can you NOT live without and why?

Giveaway Prize: Cake and pie server, Baker's blade, Decorating tip cover set, and 12 icing bag ties.
Retail Price: Over $25.00
Giveaway ends April 22, 2010!

Wilton Enterprises, based in Woodridge, Illinois, and founded in 1929, is the leading food crafting company in the industry, with the number one position in cake decorating, bakeware and tea kettles. Today, Wilton Enterprises offers the industry´s most comprehensive and innovative selection of baking, cake decorating, candy making, cookie making, wedding, baby, party, seasonal, kitchen and hydration products. These products are designed to make it easy for anyone to enjoy the thrill of serving something special and utilizing unique style and design while doing it. Consumers trust Wilton brands such as Performance Pans™, Candy Melts® brand confectionery coating, Cupcakes ´N More® dessert stands and Copco® Housewares to help make celebrations more exciting. Along with great products, Wilton classes and publications have helped hundreds of thousands of people around the world create impressive party desserts, served with flair. Celebrating its 80th year, The Wilton School of Cake Decorating and Confectionery Art still educates 1,400 students a year who have come from 88 countries and all 50 states while Educational Marketing with its almost 4,000 teachers across the US taught 262,000 people the art of cake decorating in 2008.

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Sunday, March 21, 2010

Cake of the Week: Back to the 80s



This week's beauty is a huge cake for a very nostalgic 16 year old. When I met with Kimberly and her mom, Kimberly was very clear that she wanted an amazing cake to compliment her 80's themed party. It just so happened that I had a sketch for an 80's themed wedding cake that never happened. Bad news for the couple, but good news for Kimberly. We modified the design to include Mr. & Mrs. Pac Man, finished off with a glittery microphone and 16 topper both in pink; the birthday girl's favorite color.

The cake is composed of 3 square tiers of cake. The bottom tier is chocolate with chocolate butter cream. The middle and top tiers are white cake with yummy strawberry fruit filling.
The bottom tier was a graffiti'd brick wall composed of fondant cut into panels pressed with a brick patterned impression mat, airbrushed with a combination of yellow, red, orange, then
finally brown, and "spray painted" with tags.

The middle tier is something I'm sure the birthday girl has no experience with, but everybody remembers... the cassette boom box! As I was putting this cake together I became flooded with memories of me taping songs from the radio and winding a cassette with a pencil. And the best was when your Walkman ( your what?!) would run out of batteries and your music would play sloower and sloooower. Those were the days...

The top tier is adorned with a name buckle and decorated with the theme of every child of the 80's pixelated partners, Pac Man & Ms. Pac Man complete with pellets and the ever coveted power pellets. I noticed as I was decorating the top tier that Ms. Pac Man had to have one crazy morning routine. She wears lipstick, eyeliner, mascara, a fake mole and even takes the time to put a bow in her hair! Pac Man however, just rolls out of bed and starts chasing ghosts. I guess it's another example of art imitating life.


The cake was topped with a rice krispy treat microphone and gumpaste 16. After a quick coat of pearlescent shimmer for some extra zazz it was ready to go! This deceptively heavy cake, about 50 -60 lbs, was loaded up, delivered and once set up fit in perfectly with the old school hip hop decor.



Happy Birthday Kimberly! I hope it was funky fresh! :o)
Well, it's bake to work for me!
Thanks for tuning in!

Thursday, March 18, 2010

SUGAR MAMA NYC CELEBRATES WEDNESDAY EVENING PERFORMANCES AT WITH COMPLIMENTARY GOURMET CUPCAKES FOR AUDIENCE MEMBERS


For Immediate Release: Contact:
Glenna Freedman/Keith Sherman & Associates (212) 764-7900 Glenna@ksa-pr.com


SUGAR MAMA NYC CELEBRATES WEDNESDAY EVENING PERFORMANCES AT WITH COMPLIMENTARY GOURMET CUPCAKES FOR AUDIENCE MEMBERS

at The Black Box Theatre at The Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre 111 West 46th Street

“You wont find a more entertaining 90 minutes of first-rate country music.” – Associated Press-

“The cast could hardly be better! Lauren Kennedy, Sally Mayes, Teri Ralston, Gina Stewart & Liza Vann are first-rate singers and actors!” – Backstage, Critic’s Pick-

PHOTO EDITORS PLEASE LOG ON TO: http://www.goodolgirls.com/press/pressphotos

The hit Off-Broadway show, GOOD OL’ GIRLS, is pleased to announce that audience members will receive a complimentary gourmet cupcake from Sugar Mama NYC at 8 p.m. performances on Wednesday from March 17 through April 7th.

Customers who call Sugar Mama NYC will receive 10% off their order if they mention, The Secret Discount Code in every cupcakes box.

The musical which opened February 14th, will now play Wednesday evening performances, beginning March 17th.

Two of Nashville’s leading singer/songwriters redefine the modern Southern woman in GOOD OL’ GIRLS, a musical about love, loss and laughter. Through the language of five unique southerners, GOOD OL’ GIRLS celebrates childhood through old age with big hair and bigger hearts. Featured in the cast are: Lauren Kennedy (Spamalot), Sally Mayes (She Loves Me), Teri Ralston (Company), Gina Stewart (“Dawson’s Creek”) and Liza Vann (Machiavelli). Adapted by Paul Ferguson, the musical, written by two prominent Southern authors, Lee Smith (The Last Girls) and Jill McCorkle (Going Away Shoes), has songs by Nashville hit-makers Matraca Berg (Reba McEntire, Dixie Chicks, Faith Hill) and Marshall Chapman (Jimmy Buffett, Wynonna, Olivia Newton-John). GOOD OL’ GIRLS is directed by Randal Myler (It Ain’t Nothin’ But The Blues; Hank Williams: The Lost Highway; Love, Janis).

In three short years Sugar Mama NYC has produced hundreds of cakes, cookies, cupcakes and brownies; and can boast such clients as Virgin Atlantic Airlines, Paul Frank Industries, Thompson Hotels, J.P. Morgan Chase, John Legend and The Stephen Colbert Show, The Colbert Report. Sugar Mama NYC has also designed cakes for CitiBabes in SoHo and NBC’s Saturday Night Live. For more information, visit www.sugarmamatreats.com or call 718-953-0025.

The playing schedule for GOOD OL’ GIRLS is Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., with matinees Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 3 p.m. Tickets are $70. For tickets call (212) 352-3101 or 866-811-4111 or visit www.theatermania.com. For group sales call (212) 265-8500 or log on to www.theatre4groups.com www.goodolgirls.com

Monday, March 15, 2010

Cake of the Week: Downhill skier


This week's mountain of a cake was actually a hold over from last week. Ironically,we experience a nor'easter (that’s a big *ss snow storm for you warmer climate dwellers) this snow capped master piece had to wait for better weather to make it's debut. This Alpine beauty was cooked up, at the last minute; which seems to be the rule rather than the exception with Cake of the Weeks, by a friend of the birthday girl. The theme of the party was that after 25 it all goes downhill. This hasn't been my experience, thank you very much, but it did make for an awesome cake idea!

The mountain is actually 3 tiers of cake: Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Butter Cream, Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Buttercream and Butter Cake with Vanilla Butter Cream. Once the tiers were stacked and before it was crumb coated, they were sculpted into a rugged mountain shape and S curved ski trail was carved into the face.

The cake was covered in white fondant and airbrushed with an icy blue shimmer to give the look of a snowy peak. The trees were made from gumpaste and frosted with royal icing. The flags were made from gumpaste and secured with toothpicks (or cocktail stick, if you prefer).

Our guest of honor was made of white modeling chocolate and is sculpted wearing a green, her favorite color, ski suit and unfortunately headed towards a tree.

A special birthday message was added with an edible marker and the downhill skier was delivered to her final destination. Let's hope all of her downhill battles are limited to the ski slope.

Well it's bake to work for me!
Thanks for tuning in! Until Next Time...

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Sugar Mama NYC News: There's...Something...on....SNL!!


Yes! And it's our cake!! The prop department at SNL rocks and evidently they feel the same about us, because they called us again to do a couple of cakes for last week's episode hosted by Jude Law.

There are a couple of things that make this SNL job awesome.

The first, of course, is being called to have a cake appear on SNL. Also, instead of having to make 3 or 4 gigantic actual cakes, which would mean 3 days of no sleep, around the clock baking and schlepping cakes that weigh 60-80 lbs., they asked for 2 large dummy cakes colorfully decorated in any way I saw fit! Yay! And because the skit would be shot in black and white, the colors themselves weren't an issue. No caring about mixing cool and warm colors, wondering if it's too bright or too muted or any of that mess. Just easy to carry and colorful. Sure, I can do that, I thought as the tears of joy rolled down my cheeks.

Surely what has to be my favorite part of this experience was the skit itself. "Terror at 20,000 Feet" has to be one of the all time best classic Twilight Zone episodes, and definitely one of my faves. The original starred the incomparable Willie Shatz as a passenger that sees a gremlin, who I always thought looked like weird stuffed animal, on wing of the plane he's a passenger in. In this take, Capt. Kirk is replaced by Jude Law and the gremlin who is played to perfection by Bobby Moynahan, is engaging in different activity every time Jude Law sneaks a glance out of the window; from exercising, smoking, hanging out with the members of Pearl Jam & my favorite; moving his cake to the judges table, he truly made this skit hilarious. But don't take my word for it. See for yourself!



Well it's bake to work for me!
Thanks for tuning in...until next time!

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Sugar Mama explains why you should just pay for delivery

This is a photo from getmarried.com
This is a photo of an actual cake transport mishap!


How do I transport my cake safely?
don't skip to the bottom for the answer!

Here are three things you can say to your cake designer to scare the frosting out of them when you come to pick up your cake.
  1. I can just hold the cake on my lap.
  2. We can just stick it in the backseat.
  3. Where's the nearest subway/bus stop?
Why, you wonder, would these seemingly innocuous statements scare a cake designer. It's because we know, which the average specialty cake consumer doesn't, that these are the top three worst ways to transport a cake. Let's examine...

Your lap is not a good place to hang out if you're a cake during a car ride because whether you feel it or not, you are always in motion. Your knees move up and down. Your stomach and chest move in and out. In your noble try to keep your confectionary treasure safe, you may clutch the box with every turn or stop. You may shift the box to make yourself more comfortable and put the box in a better position. All this motion and shifting isn't good for a moist spongy food, with a soft creamy filling covered with a solid frosting susceptible to cracking.

The backseat sounds safe, right? Wrong. You may have never noticed this before but the backseat of your car is on an angle. When you place some thing meant to be stored flat on an incline for and extended period of time and things start to shift and or slide. If you add in a the bumps and turns of an average car ride then you have a recipe for disaster. This is also assuming your cake won't slide from one side of the seat to the other; which happens time to time.

Mass Transit is the absolutely worst place to take your cake for a ride because it's so unpredictable. You can't control the climate, speed or the amount of people. Is it the middle of Summer and the subway car you're in has no A/C and your going from the Brooklyn Bridge to Yankee Stadium (that's an over an hour train ride for you non NYers)? Oh well. Has the bus driver stopped short unexpectedly and a kid's book bag swings off of his shoulder and onto your cake box? Oh well. Did you get on the bus/subway and there are no seats, so you have to stand and hold the cake? Oh well. And even if you get lucky an get and air conditioned vehicle that's mostly empty, you're still holding the cake on your lap!

So now you're saying, "Ok, brainiac, you made your point. So what's the best way to transport a cake?

Let me do it!

The number one, fool proof method to transport your cake is to pay your cake designer to deliver it. "But I just paid four hundred dollars for this cake," you say. "Why would I pay another 75 bucks for delivery?" The answer is: because you paid hundreds of dollars for your cake! Consider these factors when deciding whether to pay your designer to deliver your cake:
  • They made it! They know what's in it and what's on it. So, if anything falls off, cracks or who knows what else; they can fix it. Most cake designers travel with a delivery kit filled with royal icing, extra fondant, skewers, extra flowers and etc. and pray they don't have to use it.
  • They've probably delivered so many cakes that transporting a cake safely is second nature. Sometimes if I'm driving and I have to brake suddenly, my heart will stop for a few seconds before I realize that there isn't even a cake in the car!
  • Delivery is assumed until the client tells us otherwise. It's part of job. We'd rather deliver and get it there safely than risk something happening.
  • Delivery gives you more time on the day of the event. Have you ever been planning a party for weeks, but on the day of your party your to do list is three pages long and you're running around like a chicken without a head? I've packed more cakes than I care to think about into a car crammed with balloons, gifts, napkins, streamers, people, dogs, kitchen sinks... kidding about the sinks, but not the dogs. Or how about having to ask your less than reliable cousin to pick up the cake because you realized you won't have enough time? Stress much?!
  • Possession is nine tenths of the law and cake disasters can happen to us too! But the difference is while we possess the cake were responsible. If that means repairing, remaking or refunding... if we break it, we bought it. It's like buying an insurance policy for your cake. Having a cake damaged beyond repair is not a fun thought, but imagine having no cake, no money and no one to blame...

  • This cake (right) was made for a really great client. I spent hours working on this cake and was very proud of the results. Instead of paying for delivery, he had a friend pick it up and transport it over an hour to it's destination. This (left) was the result. While I have absolutely no idea why this happened, because I wasn't certain of the cake's traveling conditions, I provided him with a partial refund because I felt bad but if I had delivered the cake and this happened, I might have been able to fix it or at the very least provided a full refund.

Picking up the cake yourself
did you skip straight to the bottom after I asked you not to? Back to the top, you!

Now after I've made this long winded explanation on why delivery is the best option, I still get many client who'll reply, "Yeah, but we'll still pick it up." For that reason, I've put this guide together for picking up and transporting your cake effectively for the novice cake courier.

  • Communicate with your designer. Ask him/her the best way to remove the cake from the box and the best place to store your cake when you get to your destination. Also, check to make sure the cake doesn't slide around in the box. The cake board will either be the same size as the box or secured to the bottom.
  • The cake is best kept cool. For fondant cakes 65- 75 f. is fine. Buttercream cakes should be kept cooler. Please reduce the heat in your car or for best results: no heat in winter & a/c on high in the summer
  • Always hold the cake from the bottom, not the sides and close to your body.
  • The best vehicles for transporting cake are station wagons, vans, hatchbacks or SUV's. Any vehicle with a large flat surface. If you do not have access to one of these (depending on the size of your cake) the trunk or the floor can be used as long as they are clean and cool , but only as last resorts. DO NOT attempt to hold the cake on your lap, and you know why!

  • Please drive carefully. Sharp turns & short stops are your cakes arch nemeses. Ask your designer if they can provide a non slip mat to keep your cake from doing even more traveling than it already has to. If not, you can find it at any housewares store. It's the stuff you put under rugs to keep them from sliding.

  • Depending on your design, you may be required to do some assembly when you reach your destination. Again, communicate with your designer and the best part is you won't be lying if you decide to tell your friends that you decorated the cake yourself.
Don't let this happen to you...

This is a youtube.com video about a woman with the worst wedding cake disaster I've ever seen. Also, be sure to check out the way she's transporting the cake and see if you can spot any mistakes.

Well it's bake to work for me.

Thanks for tuning in. Until next time....

Monday, March 1, 2010

Cake of the Week: Disney & Pixar's Wall-E Cake

I've notice a trend with rush cakes. They usually end up being the coolest ones. This is in no way and encouragement for clients to wait until the last minute to order thinking they'll get better cakes. This is just an observation & rush fees do apply.

This weeks last minute beauty is everyone's favorite trash collecting robot, Wall-E.

Wall-E's body is two tiers of lemon cake with lemon buttercream. His head, arms and wheels are rice krispy treats and his hands are modeling chocolate.

To create the effect the Wall-E was being supported by his wheels. I build a wooden platform added the wheels which took forever to decorate and airbrushed the entire structure black. I next stacked the tiers of cake, covered them with fondant and airbrushed it and orange/yellow. I subsequently sculpted the arms, eyes with RKTs and covered/painted them as well.

The hands were a little trickier as the more you handle the modeling chocolate the softer it becomes. Once the pieces of the hand were set I "glued" the hands together with melting modeling chocolate which kept hardening when I didn't want it to.

Once the pieces were completed and dried; I assembled Wall-E and added the final details, such as the buttons, "hard ware" and writing.

When the cake was picked up, the client, who was initially skeptical about the price was very pleased with the result and so was I.


Well, it's bake to work for me.
Thanks for tuning in.
Until next time...
 
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