March Madness!

It’s been a flurry of activity at Sweet Element this March, but I’ve finally been able to catch a little bit of computer time to share what we’ve been up to here in the land of sweets!

We started the month off with a very tall, very chocolate wedding cake for a wonderful couple who had their wedding at Battery Gardens in lower Manhattan.  Ilona & Allen were having a black & white NYC themed wedding, and loved the concept of having a unique chocolate buttercream cake decorated with a stunning silver NYC skyline, some graphic red fondant hearts and the iconic “I ♥ NY” logo in the center of the cake.  This cake was all red velvet, filled with cream cheese filling, and stood around 27″ tall!

Keeping in the NYC theme, we created this fun Jets jersey groom’s cake for another wedding at ‘Cesca, on the upper west side of Manhattan the following weekend.  The jersey was customized with the groom’s name and the couple’s wedding date in place of the player’s number.  The cake was a rich vanilla cake, filled with dark chocolate ganache, frosted in vanilla buttercream and decorated in a combination of fondant and gum paste decor.

We also created a fun Baby Einstein themed cake for a 1st birthday party in NJ.  This cake was a devil’s food cake, filled and frosted in vanilla buttercream.  The baby blocks on top were decorated rice cereal treats made with white chocolate in lieu of marshmallows in order to get nice edges.  All decor was made of fondant & gum paste.

Next up was prep for the 19th GLBT Expo at the Javits Center in NYC – which involved a LOT of baking: 6000+ mini cupcakes!  I am happy to say that I definitely had help this year in the baking department: BIG thanks to Mr. Sweet Element, fellow pastry chef LP & Remo – our newest intern!  I don’t know how I would have gotten through it all without you!

The GLBT Expo took place on St. Patrick’s Day weekend … which meant that Mr. Sweet Element and I celebrated our 1st date anniversary working the booth!  After last year, we realized that we definitely couldn’t do it alone, so this year we enlisted the help of some fabulous family and friends.  I don’t think I could give a big enough *THANK YOU* to Kim & Susan for all their help!  We were also very happy to share our booth with Nancy Swiezy Events, who created a gorgeous floral display for the table.  If you are ever looking for a fabulous florist or wedding planner – definitely give Nancy a call!

Here are a few snapshots from the show (last two courtesy of my cousin Kim, as most of my photos were STOLEN!***)

Kim, me & Susan all set up and waiting for the crowd to head in on Saturday.  Pistachio, Almond, Red Velvet, Confetti, Coconut & Vegan Chocolate mini cupcake samples, a few display cakes, a gorgeous floral display and little moo cards filled up our table!

Mr. Sweet Element, me & Kim ready to take on the onslaught of tasters!
Mini cupcake closeups and a shot of our back rack filled with boxes of cupcakes and display cakes.

***The weekend was fabulous … until I realized that someone swiped my phone!!! Definitely a downer to a great weekend, but luckily I was able to get a new phone late on Sunday at the AT&T Times Square store, who had reps at the Expo and were extremely helpful.  I’ll definitely be going back there for any phone needs in the future, as I’ve never received better service at any other store.  I thought it was incredibly sweet that the rep who I talked to at the Expo personally called me later that night just to check in to see if I was ok and had everything squared away.

So, new iPhone acquired, but many contacts and photos lost as I hadn’t synced it in a small eternity.  Needless to say I’ve already set up my new one and all my other devices on iCloud with “Find my iPhone/iPad/etc.” installed!

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.

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.

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.

Burgundy Filagree Wedding Cake

This wedding cake was definitely one of my recent favorites both in design & flavor selection!  All hexagon tiers were pistachio cake, filled with lemon zest cannoli cream, frosted in pistachio buttercream and decorated in fondant and gum paste.  The top dusty rose calla lilies were handmade to match one of the wedding colors.

 

View of one of the side panels.

Close up of the calla lilies.

This was our first delivery to Rat’s Restaurant within the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ.  I was overwhelmed with how absolutely magical and enchanting the venue was & cannot wait to go back for dinner myself with some friends and dine at the chef’s table!  If you ever find yourself looking for a special venue for a small dinner or a larger catered event ~ definitely check them out!

Just in case you were wondering … the design was heavily inspired by this one element from my clients’ wedding invitations.  Yet another example of how valuable an “design inspiration” package of all other event elements can be to your cake designer!

Bluebird & Cherry Blossom Buttercream Wedding Cake

We delivered this bluebird & cherry blossom buttercream wedding cake to the stunning Desmond Tutu Center in NYC this past Saturday (seriously, if you are looking for a unique & gorgeous gothic venue in NYC – check it out!). The cake design was inspired by the couple’s wedding invitation & wedding website, both of which were nature inspired and incorporated bird silhouettes.

The cake flavor was very spring: lemon cake, filled with lemon curd, and frosted in lemon italian moussaline buttercream.  The decor was a created out of a combination of modeling chocolate &  gum paste.

Here’s a detail shot of one of my favorite parts of this cake – the little branch pergola topper with gum paste cherry blossoms and a hanging heart pendant.

As with many wedding cake deliveries, we brought the cake up to the venue sans decoration and then came back with the decor to finish up the cake after we parked the car.  To our shock, when we came back with the decorations we found a man standing in front of the cake & when we asked him to move, we saw blue blossoms from the centerpieces all over the cake!  Luckily, the buttercream was still chilled enough and the florist’s flowers did not have stems, so they were easily removed without much damage ~ but I have now learned to never leave a cake unguarded before it’s finished!  Now why a florist with NO INSTRUCTION to put any flowers anywhere near the cake felt the need to step in and decorate the cake I will never have any idea.  I just hope that once we left the decorated cake he stayed away from it!

Here’s one last quick shot of the cake at a distance with a view of those pesky blue blossoms that nearly gave me a heart attack!