I named my blog "Cake Smash" because that is the term photographer's give for a photo shoot with a baby, usually celebrating their First Birthday. You give them a cake, and take pictures as the child demolishes the cake, hence the term "Cake Smash."
I have been working with a local photographer, Melinda Gombert (www.melindagombert.com) making the cakes she uses for her cake smash photo shoots. Our most recent collaboration, we decided to try a different kind of cake to see what the results would yield. This type of cake had been demonstrated on an online forum we are both a part of, and we thought it would be an interesting idea to try for a photo shoot.
It starts off with a regular cake batter, but you divide it into separate bowls, and color each bowl with food coloring.
Then you layer each color individually into your cake pan.
And bake as you normally would. The result turns out like this:
Thankfully the bottom layer of one of these kind of fell apart, otherwise I wouldn't be able to show you what it looked like!
Then you just decorate your cake as normal. If this were to be served to normal guests, once you cut into it, each piece would have a nice rainbow of colors. Below are a few images from Melinda from her photo shoot with the lucky birthday boy. His parents apparently loved the cake, and the birthday boy had a great time destroying all my hard work!
Kind of hard to believe I make cakes just for the sole purpose of destruction, but it is so much fun to see!
So Happy Birthday! And if anyone in the Calgary area would like to let their child partake in this kind of fun activity for their birthday, please visit www.melindagombert.com
So, apparently after 15 years, Wilton has decided to "refresh" their course curriculum and make some changes to the classes. I must say I am looking forward to these changes as it makes the courses "flow" a lot better than before.
So because I teach these classes, I have to know what I'm teaching. And since I was not an instructor when they did their conferences, Wilton sent me all of the course packages, plus training videos to watch in order to become familiar with the courses.
Wow.
You gotta love a company that sends you free stuff! Now I took all of the previous courses, and I teach them, so I have probably 80% of the products needed already. But Wilton still sent me the brand new kits with all of the new fun tips and cutters. So I got to work and had some fun with the new material!
Now I am still working my way through the new flowers and ideas, so over the course of my next few weeks, I will update with the new things I am now teaching. I'm in love with a few of these new decorations already!
Anyways, to begin we have a new "first cake" for our beginners. Previously the cake was this:
A simple rainbow cake, teaching the "star" technique. Minus the horrid Writing. I swear I do know how to write on cakes now!
Anyways, the new "first cake" is now:
Pretty cute right?
I think it's a fresh new technique and better looking cake to teach beginners. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the students like this one!
Next, Wilton has finally clued in that not everyone enjoys decorating on cakes. There are many other yummy goodies out there that can be decorated, and finally we can teach cupcake decorations. Not only decorating, but Wilton has a new tip that allows you to FILL your cupcakes with a nice tasty center!
Mmmm... I already want a cupcake!
Anyways, one of the new cupcake decorations:
These are called "Shaggy Mums". I'm still not completely sold on these, but I think I might come around. This was a first attempt at them, so I do see where I need to work on them a bit.
Anyways, these are the first attempts I have made at some of the new materials. This weekend I will be demo'ing the new Ribbon Rose which is also a part of our beginners course at my Michael's store. I will post pics of that when I have finished.
Until then, I better get back to practicing!
My oldest girlfriend got married this weekend.
And she asked me to make her wedding cake.
So I happily obliged!
The bride wanted something very simple, elegant and small. Nothing fancy, just something they could cut and tasted good.
So I decided to base the design on the flowers of her bouquet. Originally it was supposed to be a solid bouquet of Gerbera Daisies, so I felt this would be the best way to keep with the "theme".
In the end, the Gerberas were omitted for a different type of flower, but the colors at least, were a match.
The cake itself was a lot of fun to do. I knew basically what I wanted to create, and just had to wait on the time in order to do it as close to last minute as possible. I decided to try a new recipe for the cake itself, something I don't normally recommend doing last minute, but thankfully the cake turned out surprisingly well. It was a "Basic White Cake", but to be honest, both my husband and I thought it has a shortbread-y type of taste to it. The filling was a lemon "pie" filling, and iced in a lemon buttercream. It was covered in fondant, decorated with a simple black ribbon, and my Gerbera Daisies.
I was very pleased with my work.
The bride was also very pleased.
I love weddings:)
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