A December Wedding

Most of my customers are referrals from friends.
I have awesome friends.

A friend of a friend contacted me about her upcoming wedding.
She wanted an all buttercream cake and some egg-free cupcakes for some of her non egg-eating friends.

The cake was three tiers...
Red Velvet with Cream Cheese filling.
Chocolate with Fresh Strawberry Filling. (sorry, no picture.)
French Vanilla with Fresh Strawberry filling.

The entire cake was covered with Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream and decorated with black fabric ribbon.

The flowers were provided by the bride's florist.

The cupcakes were White Chocolate Chunk with Caramel Buttercream and Drizzle...ALL EGG FREE.

Congratulations Jyoti!

2012 is the Year of Weddings for my family...

...and I started the trend!

On July 21st, 2012...Richard (that's my baby daddy, for those of you who don't know), Ethan and I hopped in the car and drove to Reno, NV where we eloped in a small chapel on the strip.

See...

Then, on September 8th, 2012...my older brother, Ray married the love of his life, Ashley.
(Note: They were engaged before Richard and I got married, so maybe...technically they started the trend.)

Then, on September 22nd, 2012...my other older brother, Tony married his long time fiance and mother of his two beautiful daughters, Sara at the SAME chapel in Reno where Richard and I sealed the deal.

And on November 10th...my oldest brother, Ken will marry his fiance Julie!
(picture and post to follow)

Crazy, right? Totally.

So here's what I made for Ray and Ashley's beach wedding!

Flavors:
Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Buttercream topped with a mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cup
White Cupcakes with Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream
Chocolate Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Filling and Salted Caramel Buttercream with Drizzle

The cutting cake was also Chocolate/Salted Caramel.

One guest actually told me the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake was "life changing"...awesome.

Here's my niece, Emiley giving the camera her best frosting face.

Congratulations Ray & Ashley...you are absolutely perfect for each other and the flavors you wanted prove it!

My Cousin's Wedding

My cousin Sean got married!

He and his new bride asked me almost a year ago if I would be their wedding baker.
Yes!

Their wedding was a week after Ethan's 1st Birthday party, so these past few weeks I have been a busy little baker!

Back in May, I met with Sean and Cheryl for a tasting.
I whipped up different variations of the 3 flavors they liked most.
All winners.

The wedding colors were purple and sage.
The bride and groom requested a small cutting cake for them and cupcakes for the guests.
Cheryl wanted flower themed cupcakes, any and all kinds made with buttercream - no fondant.

There were 3 delicious flavors:

The cutting cake was Chocolate Mint

Here's the cake table:

The Bride & Groom cutting their cake:

Congratulations Sean & Cheryl!!!

Wedding Week

This past week has been INSANE.

Remember this post? Well, the wedding came and went...and I am still alive.

I was hired to bake a Groom's cake, a 5 tier wedding cake (mostly non-edible, partially edible) and four sheet cakes.

The Groom's cake was to be served at the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding.
Originally, the Bride and Groom wanted a Sharks themed Stanley Cup cake but this was when the season looked promising for the Sharks.

Well, we all know how that went....so the cake was changed to the Shark Tank.

The cake is white with fresh raspberry filling and LOTS of raspberry swiss meringue buttercream.

A few days prior I had made the nets and shark head out of gumpaste to ensure they were completely dry.

I covered the cake in white vanilla fondant and added the red and blue hockey rink accents.
I decided the cake needed something more to say that it was the Shark Tank so I added the water waves and shark fins around the base of the cake.

I delivered the cake to the rehearsal dinner at Jack London Square in Oakland.
It was great to see the Bride and Groom the day before their big day and also see my fourth sister, Rachel who flew in from Hawaii for the event.

Once the delivery was done, I headed back home to wrap things up with the wedding cakes.

I covered 4 styrofoam tiers in fondant and wrapped them with ribbon:

I baked, filled, frosted and covered 4 sheet cakes in fondant:

Each sheet cake was devils food chocolate cake with chocolate ganache.

I also made the top tier for the display cake for the bride and groom to cut and eat at the reception.

The morning of the wedding, I cut the sheet cakes so they were ready to serve.
I offered this service because I worried the catering staff may not take the time to clean the knife when it got covered in chocolate and that the white fondant would get smudged.

On the way to Oakland, I picked up my friend Amy Steinert who would be handling the flowers for the cake.

All the flowers were placed on the cake on site to ensure complete freshness.

Amy added pearls to the center of each flower which gave them such an elegant touch.

It was so much fun working with her on an order and I hope that we can do it again and again.

Amy arranges flowers for all occasions....holidays, parties, weddings...everything.

Remember, she did the flower centerpieces for our Baby Shower.

Give her a call if you have something coming up!

Congratulations to Tracilyn and Daniel Tegge!!!

Whoopie Pie Wedding 05/15/2011

I've seen them before...

I've collected recipes for them...

I've wanted to make them...
and now I finally have!

My buddy Brittany got married on the 15th and she wanted Whoopie Pies on all the tables as centerpieces.

She requested two different flavors:

Vanilla/Orange Creamsicle with Cream Cheese Filling

and

Chocolate with Banana Buttercream Filling

She wanted all the pies drizzled with chocolate as well.

And...she wanted two special Bride & Groom whoopie pies for their table.

Brittany is one of those dream customers...who provides you with a Whoopie Pie recipe book and cookie cutters...and a Baby Gift :)

Whoopie pies are a yummy treat somewhere in between a cookie and a cake sandwich.

Not hard and chewy but also not too soft and crumbly...right in the middle.

The recipes are very similar to those of cakes, except with less wet ingredients which allow you to roll the batter into balls and bake them like cookies. At least that's how I did it, I am sure there are other recipes that call for different techniques.

Then I baked....and baked....and baked.

The order called for 175 whoopie pies and it took some time.

Once all the pies were baked and cooled, it was time to add the whoopie!

I layed the pies on trays, piped the fillings and sandwiched them together before placing them in their boxes.

Once all the whoopie had been added, it was time for chocolate.

I used white melting chocolate on all the pies but colored half of the batch yellow to match the banana filling in the Chocolate pies. I was able to drizzle all the pies while they were in the boxes, saving me time on having to move them and rebox them.

Then came the Bride & Groom whoopie pies.

These guys were much larger compared to the ones for the guest's tables.

The Bride got an ivory sweetheart strapless wedding gown with a double strand pearl necklace and a bird cage veil.

The Groom got an ivory shirt, tie and vest underneath a black tuxedo with a ivory cowboy hat.

Each table had two platters with 7 Whoopie Pies each, 12 tables total.

Each pie had a white lace doilie to protect the guests from any messiness in case the chocolate drizzles got too soft...plus it looked pretty :)

Congratulations Brittany & Greg....may your life be full of WHOOPIE! ; )