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.

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 😀

Star Wars Characters Groom’s Cake

One of the latest Sweet Element groom’s cakes, delivered to Boulevard Five72 in Kenilworth, NJ was a Star Wars themed cake that incorporated the Star Wars logo on one tier & some of the most popular characters on another tier.

The cake was comprised of our double chocolate chip cake, filled with peanut butter mousse and frosted in blue vanilla buttercream.  The decor was made of a combination of hand painted gumpaste & fondant.

Here’s a few additional detail shots of the fondant Star Wars characters before they went on the cake.

Star Wars Lightsaber Fight Scene Groom’s Cake

This past Friday, we had the opportunity to unveil the first “extreme“, *lighted*, Sweet Element cake!  We delivered this surprise Star Wars Lightsaber Fight Scene groom’s cake to Pavinici’s Italian Grill in Hopatcong, NJ.

Both cakes were comprised of a Raspberry Wheat Beer Vanilla Cake (special request from the bride to be, as raspberry wheat beer is the groom’s favorite), filled with raspberry preserves, frosted in vanilla moussaline buttercream & decorated with a combination of fondant & modeling chocolate.

Here’s a closeup of the Darth Vader cake.
And a closeup of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Here are are a few more bonus shots for the blog only!

It just cracked me up that the Darth Vader cake just happened to be in the light & the Obi-Wan Kenobi cake in the dark when we put them in the van for delivery!

Even closer detail shot of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s face, lit by his blue lightsaber.

A view of the cake from the restaurant entrance.

How these cakes began … Obi-Wan Kenobi & Darth Vader’s modeling chocolate heads.

Shot of Darth Vader cake at the studio pre-lightsaber.
Shot of Obi-Wan Kenobi at the studio pre-lightsaber.

Jay working on the cake structure.

The box of magic … (i.e. what made the lightsabers light up!) Note … that LARGE Dunkin Donuts coffee is definitely part of the magic 😉

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!