Fall 2011 Press!

Whew … where did the summer go?!  I can’t believe fall is right around the corner, but I will definitely be welcoming it with open arms.  Between the heat waves, power outages and ridiculous humidity, I can’t say that summer is my  season of choice.  Fall is definitely my favorite season of the year though: crisp autumn days, chilly nights, the brilliant colors of fall foliage, warm apple cider and Halloween!

And what better way to start off the fall than with showing off some of the latest Sweet Element press! 😀

It’s always nice when your first cake in a publication is one of the biggest 😀 Here’s Sweet Element’s debut in Brides New Jersey.

Close up of the lavender and blue lace and blossom wedding cake.

Also featured in Brides New Jersey (as well as Brides New York & Brides Pennsylvania), was one of my favorite styles of wedding cakes, The Sequin Cake, that seems to be becoming a Sweet Element signature.  These cakes are extremely time consuming & definitely labors of love, but the end result is always stunning (even more so in person than in print!).
Close up of the metallic sequin wedding cake.

As all my friends know, I *love* shiny things … so I was super excited when the editors at The Knot asked if I would make a silver cake for one of their color report pieces.  I couldn’t have asked for a better shot of the cake … and I totally LOVE the shoe on the bottom of the page as well!

Here’s a close up of the silver cherry blossom wedding cake.

And last but not least, my first published groom’s cake!  I don’t know why they didn’t choose the front shot of the AT-AT cake, but I’m still psyched that one of my sculpted cakes has finally garnered some attention from the press.  The other nice thing about this cake, is that since it was a real cake created for a client a few years back, I was able to reach out to my client and let her know that her groom’s cake was in the press!

Close up view of the AT-AT cake from the rear.

AT-AT Groom’s Cake … update!

It’s always nice to get feedback from my clients – especially those that I have only spoken with over email & never get to meet in person.  Here are some photos from the couple I made the surprise AT-AT groom’s cake for a while back. Congrats Steve & Christina!

The Best Man & the groom (both big Star Wars fans!)

AT-AT Groom’s Cake

I’ve seen some pretty impressive Star Wars cakes out on the web, but I have never been asked to make one until I received a request for this AT-AT groom’s cake.  While definitely a challenge, I really enjoyed the whole process of making this cake – and learned a whole lot about construction & what a difference an air brush can make!  Gotta admit it was a little strange taking my airbrush out for the very first time to make a cake look “dirty”, but that is precisely what it needed to do, and I am pretty happy with the results.

The cake was a yellow pound cake filled with peanut butter buttercream (one of my new favorites) & iced in vanilla buttercream.  The deco on the cake was done in a combination of fondant & gum paste.  In case you’re wondering, the actual cake part of this piece was the body & the head.  I try to make everything I can edible … but this one definitely needed some serious support!  I had debated creating one of the AT-ATs fallen over on its side, which could have probably been made all edible with sugar legs, but I think the overall appearance of one of these standing up is far more impressive looking.  My client also requested that there be something on the board to show the size of the AT-AT, so with the help of a few Star Wars buff friends, we decided to take a scene from the movie and add a crashed out snowspeeder.  I hope I did it justice!

Big thanks to Jay, my carpenter & all around handyman in the kitchen & workshop!  Couldn’t have gotten this done without you!

Without further adieu …. here’s photos of the latest Sweet Element AT-AT cake!