Spring 2012 Press!

I thought I’d take a moment to share some of the latest Sweet Element cakes that have found their way onto the pages of a variety of spring bridal magazines!

Here’s our pleated cake (on the right) in a Designer Desserts feature in the Spring 2012 issue of The Knot.  All cakes in the feature pulled details from fashion to adorn cakes – one of my favorite things to do!

Sweet Element definitely made a splash in our first appearances in both Contemporary Bride New Jersey & Contemporary Bride New York with a total of 9 cakes featured in their Spring 2012 issues!

In the inspire me: Jet Setters spread, our Par Avion Wedding cake was featured.

Here’s a close up shot of the Par Avion Wedding Cake.

In the inspire me: Groom’s Cakes spread, we had our Miller Lite Beer Bucket and our Lego Star Wars & Guinness groom’s cakes featured.

Close up of the Miller Lite Beer Bucket Groom’s Cake.

Close up of the Lego Star Wars & Guinness Cake.

I was thrilled to see our set of five Monique Lhuiller Inspired Wedding Cakes opened up the Cakes to Feast Your Eyes On feature!

Last but not least, we had one of our fresh flower wedding cakes, a square fondant wedding cake decorated in orchids in the subsequent pages of the Cakes to Feast Your Eyes On feature.

Close up shot of the Cascading Orchid Wedding Cake.

Brown & White Square Wedding Cake with Fuschia Moth Orchids

This wedding cake, a perfect example of a very elegant, modern cake for a couple on a budget, was delivered to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in the Time Warner Center in NYC a few weeks ago.  Using fresh flowers, a custom clay topper and satin ribbon as decor is a very cost effective way to get a very big design impact!

All tiers of this cake were red velvet cake, filled with cream cheese frosting, frosted in vanilla buttercream and decorated in fondant, satin ribbon and gigantic fresh fuschia moth orchids.  The super cute topper was made by Bitter Sweetz.

Close up of the bull dog bride & groom topper.  These are just beyond adorable!

Shawn & Doug’s Wedding Cake!

I was honored when our friends Shawn & Doug came to me to create their wedding cake for their wedding at People Lounge in the Lower East Side of Manhattan a few weeks back.

After a few design sketches back and forth, we came up with a very modern buttercream design, with a round quilted bottom tier highlighted with dragees, a round center tier decorated with the grooms’ initials and an hourglass shaped top tier with scattered multi-sized dragees that was topped with lavender sugar moth orchids.  Each tier was banded with purple satin ribbon.

The cake was comprised of a combination of almond and devil’s food cake and was filled and frosted in almond buttercream.  We also brought along a red velvet sheet cake with cream cheese frosting as a third flavor option since the number of wedding guests ballooned quite a bit a few days before the wedding!

Setting up this wedding cake was a very interesting challenge – as this was the first wedding cake I’ve assembled on an active bar!  Luckily, Jay is very comfortable behind a bar as he was a bartender many years ago.  With his help on the working side of the bar, and gaining a little height myself by standing on a bar stool we were able to set this up fairly quickly and then enjoy the wedding as guests.

I can’t emphasize enough how wonderful it was to be able to witness such a beautiful, loving, and funny ceremony for these two guys.  While I always think of them as already married, since they had a civil ceremony in NJ years ago, this official wedding ceremony in NYC just cemented how perfect these two are for each other.  There was definitely a lot of happy tears and laughter during the vows.

I just love this close up of the grooms holding hands.

The grooms with their cake!

Having the cake on an active bar and being a wedding guest was making me crazy as all I could picture was someone elbowing the cake before the cake cutting ceremony.  Luckily that never happened, but I can tell you that I literally had to force myself to stop looking at the bar!

The cake cutting!

I love this picture from the cake cutting ceremony!  That man wants CAKE! 😀

Here’s one last close up shot of the sugar moth orchids topper.

Resurfacing!

Hrm, I could say that I was taking a 33 day blog hiatus to reflect on the last bit of my 33rd year, but the truth is that I haven’t been able to get much time to blog, catch up on twitter or tend to my website as much as I wanted in the past month!  When you’re running a one-woman cake shop and have a slew of unexpected last-minute orders on top of a relatively full calendar, kitchen activities & deliveries take over everything else.  Fingers are crossed that I’ll be able to find an intern or two to help out in the Sweet Element kitchen SOON!

So, before the onslaught of July orders pulls me into the kitchen again, I thought I would share just a few of my favorite June cakes.

This first cake was one of the most unique wedding cakes we’ve made.  The bride & groom wanted to recreate their proposal story with their wedding cake, changing just a few details to make it special for their wedding day.

I love this inspiration photo that shows the pumpkin proposal that the groom arranged to be seen from the top of a mountain hike with his bride-to-be!

Here’s a close-up of the sugar bride and groom that were sitting atop the mountain of cake!  I adore the mini wire-rim glasses on the groom.

The bride also secretly ordered a NYC subway map groom’s cake as a surprise for the groom.  I couldn’t think of a better way to showcase both city & country than with these two cakes!

The mountain & barn cakes were comprised of red velvet cake, filled with cream cheese frosting, frosted in vanilla buttercream and decorated in a combination of fondant, modeling chocolate & gumpaste.  The subway cake was a devil’s food cake, filled with peanut butter mousse, frosted in vanilla buttercream and decorated in fondant.  Both cakes were delivered to the beautiful Round Hill House in Washingtonville, NY.

This next offset square wedding cake for a wedding in Edison, NJ was a fun challenge to take on, especially as our first gig with Pure Ambiance Events!  The bottom three tiers were banana cake, filled with peanut butter mousse & milk chocolate ganache and the top tier was vanilla cake filled with milk chocolate ganache.  All tiers were frosted in vanilla buttercream and decorated in fondant.  The manzanita branches were made of modeling chocolate and the orchids and delphiniums were handmade of gumpaste.

You might be able to tell where much of the cake inspiration came from by taking a peek at the beautiful room set-up by the Pure Ambiance team below!

This next wedding cake is a perfect example of how beautiful a cake with real flowers can be ~ great for the bride on a budget!  The cake was comprised of red velvet cake, filled with cream cheese frosting, frosted in vanilla buttercream and decorated in fondant with satin ribbon and fresh orchids.  We delivered this tropical cake to the stunning Le Club Avenue in Long Branch, NJ.  I really just wanted to go and hang out at the beach after setting this up ~ but alas, there were other orders waiting to be finished back at the studio!

This groom’s cake that we delivered to The Madison Hotel in Morristown, NJ, is definitely one of my most favorite cakes of June.  A last minute order, I was so happy I was able to fit this order into the books!  The bride had seen a photo online with Lego stormtroopers hoisting up a Lego Darth Vader into a pint of Guinness (concept originally from Kevin Pulton) and wanted that recreated into cake.  Keeping in the Guinness theme, the cake was our Guinness Chocolate Cake, filled and frosted with Guinness buttercream and decorated in fondant.  As this was a *very* last minute order, I had to make certain inner structures of the Lego guys from foam as all gum paste bodies would not have time to dry, but all the exterior portions are made from modeling chocolate, gum paste & fondant.

Here’s a side-view shot of the lil’ Lego guys 🙂

It’s unusual that I actually get to see my clients’ reactions at weddings as I usually set up before they get into the room, but in this particular case, when the bride slipped and mentioned that there was a surprise groom’s cake waiting in the ballroom, the groom just HAD to see the cake before the reception!  It was definitely a pleasure to grab this quick picture of very happy bride & groom with their pints of Guinness & their Guinness cake!

And last but not least, we made this chocolate plate Chicago Blackhawks birthday cake as a surprise for a huge Blackhawks fan in Hoboken, NJ.  The cake was devil’s food cake, filled with banana cream filling and frosted in vanilla buttercream.  The top decoration was all chocolate and the inscription was in fondant.

I always wonder how surprise clients react to their cakes, so as you might imagine, I love getting emails from clients with photos of happy cake recipients ~ especially when the cakes are a surprise!

Well, that wraps it up for now …  it’s back to the kitchen to get started on some very fun cakes for July!  Hopefully I’ll be able to get to blog more often this month 😀