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!
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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!
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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.
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Until next time...

Cake of the Week: 7 eleven Slurpee Cookies!

So as you may have guessed by reading my blog, I march to the beat of a slight different drummer. So this week's cake of week is actually a cookie. Thirty cookies to be exact.

Last week I got a call from two of the best daughters a father could ask for. Their father was turning 60 and he loves owning and operating several 7 eleven stores. So, as the perfect treat for his celebration they ordered a 7 eleven logo cake with a sugar figurine of their dad holding a coffee cup and as favors, 7 eleven slurpee cookies!

The cake turned out amazingly well and the sugar figurine was one of the best I've created but the cookies were the real star of show.

First, I had to make the cookies and wouldn't you know it; there are no 7 eleven slurpee cookie cutters, so I had to make a cardboard template. Once the cookies were hand cut and baked. It was time to make the Slurpees come alive.

The cup and straw are fondant. The "slurpee" is royal icing. The details are hand painted, fondant and royal icing.

The cookies to for-ever to finish, but I loved every minute of making them because I wasn't sure I even could when I said yes to doing them.



Well it's bake to work for me...

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Cake of the Week: Winter Snowflake Cake

This week's beauty was created for very lucky 16 year old celebrating her sweetest birthday in Queens. The theme of the cake was so appropriate because we just had a major snow storm and it was still piled high wherever you went.

This cake marked the tail end of my busiest weeks to date: 11 orders! This may not sound like much but I have just these two hands and sometimes my office manager jumps in to make royal icing or help paint. It was also one of my biggest, not counting the behemoths I'm sometimes called upon to make for SNL. She was 12" around the bottom tier and about 20" high, not including the 16 and the snowflakes.

This cake could also be the most delicious. The bottom tier was Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Buttercream, the middle was Butter Cake with Vanilla Buttercream and the top was Chocolate with Chocolate Buttercream; all Swiss Meringue, of course.

The construction and design was fairly straight forward. The hardest part was keeping the cake white while covering and stacking. Once the cake was covered and stacked, I finally got bust out my shiny new snowflake cutters that I ordered from Lindy Smith.

After the fondant design was complete, I finished the look by airbrushing a pearlescent shimmer on every snowflake, stripe and snowball. I then followed up with a mixture of pearlescent shimmer and a hint of blue to match the party decor.

After discovering to my delight that my new boxes fit this giant cake perfectly. We packed her into the car and took off. After passing the venue twice, clearing a huge snowbank and navigating some tricky stairs we delivered the cake safe and sound to a very excited and beautiful 16 year old.






Well it's bake to work for me!
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Cake of the Week: Empire State Building Cupcakes

Well technically this week's cake of the week are actually cupcakes, but these were really cool cupcakes so I thought they deserved some recognition.

The client who ordered these cupcakes was having a New York City themed fete and wanted cupcakes depicted an iconic Big Apple structure. Naturally, The Empire State Building was a perfect choice.

A few days in advance I made outlines of the famous landmark in gumpaste. After a few days of drying I sketched the building itself, by hand, on every single piece. It took me forever, but on the bright side, I finally got to see District 9. Good movie, by the way!

After I baked the cupcakes, I frosted them with some yummy vanilla butter cream and airbrushed each cupcake half gray and half blue, the colors of the party. I stuck a building in each one, snapped some photos, boxed them up and went to bed. It was four in the morning!

Well it bake to work for me!

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Cake of the Week: Sleeping Baby Bassinet Cake

This week was apparently baby shower week at Sugar Mama NYC! Clearly, the leader of the bunch was this adorable baby shower cake starring Peaches, the sleeping baby. Yes, I named the rice krispy treat and fondant baby. Thank goodness, I wasn't there when they ate her!
The client that ordered this beauty was very adamant about the cake being very cute, making a statement and incorporating all of the baby shower colors...pink, yellow, blue and brown. Pro-ject!!!

I started by making the cake, with two flavors I know would work together; moist butter cake with a creamy chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream.


I decide to make the bottom tier a pale pastel yellow and the top tier I sculpted into the oval bassinet shape; topped it with a layer of white fondant and covered the sides with soft pastel pink ruffles.So far so good. You can't see the clock in the background but at this time it was 6:27 in the morning. The cakes need to be fresh; the baker doesn't.


Then in was time to make Peaches! Her head and body are made from rice krispy treats and her arms and legs are fondant. I finished her look with a pink hair bow, pink and yellow binky and fondant diaper with pink flower.It's what all the fondant babies in Paris are wearing.


I then set to work make millions and millions of tiny pink accent flowers. Okay, it was like 50, but still. After I attached the hood of the bassinet with royal icing and the brown, pink and yellow polka dots with water, I attached the flowers around the edges of the hood around the base of the cake and any where else I thought could use a spring touch.

Well, it was 9:30 and the cake was finished. I was pleasantly surprised with the way the colors looked. I took tons of photos and place Peaches in a nice sturdy box where she would be safe. Then at about 10:00 a nice gentleman came and took her away. I have yet to find out what became of her, but I hope she was happy... and delicious.

Well, it's bake to work for me.

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Cake of the Week: Sassy Circus Cake!

Last Thursday I got the call every cake designer loves, not! Yup, that just happened. hello 1992.
It was a desperate husband looking for a spectacular cake for his wife's birthday...that weekend.
I would've immediately said no while staring at the wall full of clipboards listing things that had yet to be molded, sculpted or crumb-coated but this guy was a total sweetheart and convinced me that a few hours less sleep this week was definitely worth making this cake. The rush fee I tacked on didn't hurt either.

His wife wanted a Topsy-turvy cake similar to the style they had at their wedding and was celebrating her 30th birthday with a Circus themed party. How fun is that?! I was in.
The goal was to capture the colorful, whimsical spirit of the circus while creating a cake that was sophisticated enough for 30 year old.

The flavor for the top tier was Old Fashioned Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Swiss Meringue Butter cream; the birthday girl's favorite, and the bottom tier was Very Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Swiss Meringue Butter cream.

To create the Topsy-turvy effect I used two Styrofoam wedges slightly smaller that the tiers they were supporting. Once the cake was together it was time to paint.

I painted the tiers of cake with patterns of warm colors and the supports with patterns of cool colors. I accented the patterns with royal icing painted with silver luster dust. For an added touch of fun I trimmed the bottom for the support tiers with gold gum paste ropes and tassels.
I finished the cake with cool colored fondant "balloons" and a silver 30!

I was having so much fun with cake and the hours flew by; when I finally delivered the cake to the venue I had moments to spare. The birthday girl, who was dressed as a ringmaster, loved the cake; as did all her guests and I, as is usually the case with my favorite cakes, was sad to see it go but was glad it found a good home.

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

Clams on the Half Shell .... & Roller Skates!

This cake was made for a rollerskate aficionado who wanted to be the envy of her party guests! Apparently, it worked I got a call the next day asking about the cake!

GOOD TIMES!!

This IS the dawning of the age of Aquarius!

Aquarius Cake

Princess Morgan!

Morgan's Princess Castle Cake