CakeCentral Magazine - A Second Time!!

Hello! Welcome back! Many of you already know that one of my cakes made it (again!) into CakeCentral Magazine. I was so honored to have cakes in back-to-back issues!

This second cake was for the October issue. CakeCentral sent me a picture by the illustrator Arthur Rackham from the Grimm Brother's story, The Seven Ravens. It is an amazing illustration! I was lucky to get to work with it.

Most of all, I wanted to capture the eerie feel of the illustration. It is a little dark, but not overly so, and cool in tone. I wanted to make sure my cake design reflected all of that. I focused on the pattern and colors of the waters in the picture and used that as the main element of my cake.

I painted the waves onto the cake using a watercolor technique with vodka and food coloring, going from darker at the bottom to lighter moving up the tiers. I left the very top tier unpainted.

This painting actually went a lot better than I had anticipated. I thought I would have trouble with it, but it was actually really simple. I used a very "watery" paint, using more vodka than I normally would to paint with food coloring on the fondant. I then put the tier onto my turntable and spun it slowly while moving my brush up and down against the side. Does that make sense? It all went on really well and I was so pleased with the effect!

To bring in more of the Ravens story, I covered the very bottom tier in jet black fondant and made some fondant feathers, which I dried on a curve and set around the entire tier. I used a leaf cutter to make it easier and make sure the feathers were more uniform. Then I took my knife tool (you could also use the dull side of a butter knife) and gently scored a line in the middle of each feather and all along the edges to create the feather look.

As the finishing touch, I decided to do sugar pieces to reflect the ice mountain, against which the girl is standing. I ended up using Isomalt to make my sugar pieces because it dries clear and that is the look that I needed. Real sugar is cloudy when it dries and opaque and it just didn't look right. After the Isomalt was heated to the right temperature (per package instructions), I added a drop or two of blue and black food coloring, gently swirled it, then poured it onto a parchment-covered sheet pan. After it was completely cool and hardened, I cracked it into large and small pieces. I then took the pieces and attached them to the finished cake.

I really loved these sugar pieces! They were just as I had hoped they would be! The only problem was that they don't photograph super well. It is difficult to photograph a clear piece of sugar! But my photographer for this cake, Lisa Vargo, did such a fantastic job with it. By the way, Lisa is an amazing photographer! Check her out here!

I had so much fun doing this cake. I hope that CakeCentral Magazine continues to call on me to make cakes for their awesome publication! If you would like to check out all of the amazing cakes in the October issue, or any other issue, visit CakeCentral.com and click on the "Magazine" link. You can also buy individual issues for download from iTunes.

I am so, so thankful that I get to make cakes and hopefully bring smiles to those who see, and often eat, my creations. During this holiday season, this week at Thanksgiving and through the end of the year, I hope that you all take the time to think about all of the gifts and blessings you have been given and to give thanks for them! I am also so thankful for all of you! Happy Thanksgiving!

Fashion-Inspired Cake

Many of you may already know that I had the awesome privilege of being featured in an online magazine that came out last week. I am so very excited about this! And I've been waiting an awfully long time to tell you all about it.

I actually made this cake back in April. Remember when I said I had something exciting coming up? Well, this was it. I just didn't know that "coming up" meant waiting five months! I was ready to accept the rejection when the magazine finally came out and there was my cake, on pages 75 and 76. I jumped up and down when I saw it, then emailed a bunch of people and posted it all on FB. It is really incredible to see one of my creations in print!

Don't you all just love the pictures? Aren't they amazing? I could not have done this without my friend, Heather Foy, who came over and took pictures for me. She overcame some bad lighting and a rough set-up to capture the very best of my cake creation. Thank you Heather! All of you should go over and check out her FB page, Heather Foy Photography. If you are in the Geneva, Illinois area and want some fabulous family photos, give her a call!

The cake was inspired by a photo sent to me by CakeCentral. This is the fashion issue, so the photo they sent was from this spring's fashion week. The dress that inspired my cake was done by Valentino and is just incredible. I really loved the details and the pattern on the dress. This picture came from the Vogue website and is the exact picture sent to me by CakeCentral.

I started this project by making a sketch. I do this with all of my cakes. Here is my sketch for this cake. You can also see it in this article on CakeCentral.com.

To make the cake, I covered styrofoam cake dummies with tan fondant. You may be asking yourself now, why didn't I use real cake? Well, there are two main reasons. First, I don't have to worry about styrofoam staying fresh and tasty. That means I don't have to do all the decorating work the day before or the day of the event. This gave me a little more time to make sure everything was perfect. Second, I used styrofoam because I want to keep this cake on display and I can't do that with real cake. I now have the cake in my living room for all to see. Well, all who come over to my house, that is!

I painted the tan fondant with gold dust mixed with a little vodka and water. This created the gold, somewhat shiny background for the red design, just like in the dress. I then used extruded fondant and a lined template to make the design. I placed waxed paper greased with a little bit of shortening on top of my template and extruded the fondant onto the waxed paper. I then used the waxed paper to place the design onto the side of the cake. It was tricky to get it all on straight! And, after awhile, my fingers were aching from the extruder! It was worth it! I really love how it all came together! Simple and dramatic all at the same time.

I wanted the pattern on the very bottom of the cake to hang down below the cake for a dramatic effect and to highlight that pattern, just like on the bottom of the dress. To do this, I raised the cake with a small "riser" made from styrofoam and covered with black ribbon. I then extruded more fondant and draped it to create the design. All of the extruded fondant is attached to the cake with a little vodka brushed onto the fondant with a very small paint brush. This bottom part is my favorite part of the cake!

The finishing touch was the two flowers made from fondant. They are fantasy flowers, meaning they aren't really reflective of any real flower. I wanted to put a softer touch on the cake as an accent, so that the overall feel of the cake was softened but the pattern could still take center stage.

The most amazing thing about this cake is that the request to do it came at the exact perfect time. I could not have planned it. The night before I got the request to do the cake, I had committed to doing something that was very difficult for me. I wasn't sure how I was going to keep that commitment and then the next morning, the needed distraction was waiting for me in my inbox! I kept my commitment because I had something else to focus on. I absolutely believe, 100 percent, that this opportunity was a gift from God. You see, my commitment was to something He required of me and I know that He helped me by giving me this opportunity. There was really no reason for CakeCentral to notice my work or ask me to be in the magazine. I didn't apply for the opportunity or do anything to get their attention at all. What a blessing and joy it was to be able to do this!

Thank you all for your support and for sharing in my excitement about all of this! YOU are a blessing to me!!