Brides White Hot Style Shop!

I usually wait on blogging about cakes created for publication, and as this lavender sequined wedding cake was created for the January 2012 issue of Brides magazine, I decided to wait until the issue hit newsstands to share this post!

Sweet Element was fortunate enough to be included in last year’s Brides White Hot Style Shop in NYC.  I was super excited to see my lavender sequined cake with purple fantasy flower was showcased on the cake table right at the front of the shop!

Here’s a photo of me with my cake taken by a fellow female entrepreneur & friend, Susan Ng (go check out her beauty products @ Naturally Susan’s) that came to visit during the Sweet Element cupcake tasting (both pistachio and red velvet went over extremely well)!

A few beautiful orchids from the florist …

And lastly … a lovely portrait of Jay & I being silly at the wrap party from The Booth!

Happy New Year!

The first of anything is always a little daunting, don’t you think?  It’s taken me a few days to figure out how I wanted to start off this year on the blog, and I finally thought that I couldn’t think of a more fitting first post for 2012 than a little look back through our favorite 2011 moments in cake!

On the media side, last year started out with a bang as I discovered that Sweet Element had been chosen as a 2011 Pick for The Knot’s Best of Weddings!  I was also thrilled to have two cakes featured in Brides Magazine in 2011 and participate in two Brides events as well: one with Lord & Taylor and the Brides White Hot Style Shop! (belated post to come very soon on the Brides White Hot Style Shop!)  Sweet Element was also fortunate enough to be featured in Get Married Magazine, The Knot, and New York Weddings as well as a number of blogs.

The most popular blog post *by far* last year was an educational post that I wrote about why sculpted cakes are so expensive. My initial thought process behind the post was to educate clients on what goes into making 3D cakes, but I think I struck a chord with many other cake designers who feel the same frustration every time a client asks for a sculpted cake at a ridiculously low price. While I’m not big into how-to tutorials, I definitely think that there is a need for more posts “behind the scenes” in the world of real cake (and not overly dramatized for TV cake) – so I’ll be working on some more for 2012!

While we scaled back on the number of events we participated in overall, we went BIG with Sweet Element’s participation in the GLBT Expo at the Javitz Center in NYC, which was our first experience with a huge show and was definitely a highlight of the year for us.  Not only did we get to hand out over 6,000 samples in two days and meet a slew of great people, we also met some totally awesome guys, who I’m happy to say have turned into very dear friends, Shawn & Doug.  A few months later, when NYC legalized same-sex marriage, they asked me to make their wedding cake!

And since it seems like everyone is always curious to know what my personal favorite cakes are …. here are my picks for 2011!

Favorite 2011 Wedding Cake for the Media


Favorite 2011 Groom’s Cake

Favorite 2011 Special Occasion/Birthday Cake

Favorite 2011 Real Wedding Cake (Traditional)

Favorite 2011 Wedding Cake (Non-Traditional)

This last cake has extra special meaning for me, as the clients who I made it for loved it so much that they made their topper into their first holiday card! I was beyond touched when I received the card below last month.  Believe it or not, it’s the smallest little things like this that make all the late nights, cake conundrums, and all the incredibly difficult work worth every minute.

I look forward to another year of fun, fabulous and festive cakes in 2012!

Sweet Element Holiday Pop-Up Shop in SoHo!

We’re switching gears from cakes to chocolates & cookies for our pop-up shop in SoHo this Saturday, December 10th at Ruia NYC (65 Mercer St.) from 12pm-6pm!

As with all of our Sweet Element cakes, we believe that you should be able to try before you buy, so we’ll have free samples of chocolate bark, rocky road and a variety of cookies out for you to taste!

We will also be joined by these fabulous vendors selling excellent gifts for the holidays including: unique children’s clothing & accessories, hand-sculpted porcelain, natural & organic skin care, healthy chocolates & handmade jewelry.

I hope to see you there in support of small & *local* businesses!

M.B. Jewelry

City Skyline Wedding Cake

Yet another last minute wedding cake this year … the city skyline cake!

We delivered this almond cake, filled with strawberry preserves, frosted in almond moussaline buttercream and decorated with gum paste skylines to Attic Studios in Long Island City, NY.

During our tasting & design consultation, the couple decided that they wanted to tell their long distance love story in cake.  With the groom being from Copenhagen, the bride from San Francisco, and the couple currently living in New York City, the skyline idea fit perfectly.  The stick figures on top were colored copper figurines with a gum paste heart that were taken from the couple’s wedding invitation design.

Here are a few more shots of the skylines that wrap completely around this 360º design.

Gun Case Groom’s Cake

This rather interesting groom’s cake request came from a Virginia based bride who was planning a wedding at the Tappan Hill Mansion in Tarrytown, NY.  While we never actually met in person, I did receive a number of photographs of the groom’s gun & gun case from the bride to work off of.  While a number of people at the venue thought it was a rather unusual groom’s cake when I was delivering the cake, it made much more sense once I explained that the groom was a military weapon’s specialist!

As you might imagine, I felt just a *little* bit of pressure to get the gun “just right” since that was the highlight of the cake!  While my first attempt was a bit off, I knew I had created a rather good replica the second time around when I posted pictures of the hand sculpted modeling chocolate gun on twitter and I had a few cops message me back with compliments on the gun by model name and a few other cake artists asking where I purchased a gun mold!

This gun case cake was created of one of the most popular groom’s cake combinations: devil’s food cake, filled with peanut butter mousse, frosted in vanilla buttercream and decorated in a combination of fondant and modeling chocolate.  The gun is created of modeling chocolate and the clip and bullets are a combination of gum paste & fondant.

It was a pleasure to find this review of the cake on WeddingWire from the bride while on vacation a few weeks after the wedding!

Fall Cascading Squares Wedding Cake

Earlier this fall I worked on a wedding cake for a lovely couple who had a very intimate wedding of about 30 people at The Peninsula Hotel in New York City.  While discussing design at my cake studio during our initial tasting & design consultation, the groom fell in love with the design below that I had created for New York Weddings magazine back in the summer of 2010.  Given the theme of fashion oriented cakes, I designed a cake inspired by one of my favorite Monique Lhuillier‘s wedding dresses.  As you can see by their final cake above, the design was altered slightly, changing the tiers to hexagons from octagons, switching up the color palette to fall colors & adding on a few orange calla lilies as a topper.

This cake was comprised of a delicious combination of vanilla cake, soaked with Grand Marnier, filled with lemon moussaline buttercream and fresh strawberries,  frosted in lemon buttercream, and decorated in a combination of fondant and gumpaste.

Making Mini Wedding Cakes Big!

I recently had the opportunity to work with a bride who had fallen in love with the Monique Lhuillier inspired mini-cakes featured in The Knot’s spring 2011 issue.  There was just one little catch – she wanted them made big enough to feed 100+ guests!

Close up of the original mini-cakes:

And here are the replicas made a lot bigger!

It took a little bit of math to figure out how much cake would be needed in order to replicate these five lil’ cakes into their larger counterparts & a little bit of carpentry to make a few custom cake stands, but I have to say, I think I like the larger versions a bit better!

All five cakes, delivered to the Garden City Country Club in Garden City, LI,  were vanilla cake, filled & frosted in vanilla moussaline buttercream, and decorated in a combination of gum paste & fondant.

Here’s a quick shot I got to showcase the size difference before heading out for delivery.

And lastly, here are close ups of the individual cakes.

Back from Blog Hiatus!

Hi everyone! I can’t believe it’s been over TWO months since I’ve posted an update here. So are you wondering what has been going on in the land of Sweet Element(s) in the past two months?

Well, let’s see … I had a bunch of last minute wedding cake orders, made a few fun birthday cakes and one very unique groom’s cake, had a cake featured in the Brides White Hot Style Shop in NYC, worked on a few upcoming press projects, had my Modern Love Wedding cake featured in New York Weddings, had *two* peony cakes featured in The Knot’s national winter 2011 issue, interviewed intern candidates, networked with some other fabulous wedding professionals, designed the Sweet Element holiday cards … oh yea … and Mr. Sweet Element & I went on a 2 week ROAD TRIP for our 10th anniversary!

So, as you can see … even though I haven’t posted … it’s not because I haven’t been BUSY!

Here’s a photo montage of many of the cake projects that I’ve worked on over the past few months.  I will definitely be posting additional details on all the projects below and new updates soon!

And here’s a montage of some of my favorite photos from our 10th anniversary road trip!  We drove through NJ, PA, WV, KY, TN, MI, AK, LA, AL, GA, SC, NC, VA, MD, and DE ~ so as you might imagine we spent A LOT of time on the road!  Of course, even while on vacation I still had cake on my mind (and pie apparently, as you can see by the photos below ). I was lucky enough to get to meet with Minette Rushing & her staff at Custom Cakes in Savannah, GA (and am just realizing I took *no* pictures there – drat!).  I hope that I can build just as awesome a team as hers soon!

Lemony Buttercream & Orange Orchid Wedding Cake

We delivered this cake to a small home wedding in nearby Maplewood, NJ last weekend.  The cake was super lemony – made of lemon cake, filled with lemon curd and frosted in lemon curd buttercream.  Fresh orange orchids gave a pop of color to top off the cake.

Yo Gabba Gabba Birthday Cake

This Yo Gabba Gabba themed birthday cake was delivered to a birthday party at The Learning Center in Manhattan this past weekend.  The cake was comprised of vanilla cake, filled with milk chocolate ganache and decorated in fondant and gum paste.  The characters were made of rice cereal treats and decorated in fondant.

Here are a few close ups of the characters individually.