10 posts tagged “artisan”

The second wedding cake of the weekend was much bigger and was at a semi posh local hotel.  There were only 250 guests planned, but we made a total of 600 servings of cake for them.  The bride’s cake served 255 people, the groom’s cake another 100 or so and then they ordered 250 cupcakes on top of all that.  They packaged the cupcakes in delightful little boxes for the guests to take home with them.  What a lovely idea.  (Unless you are the poor schlep making 250 identical cupcakes!)

 

 

 

The Bride’s cake was a lovely red velvet cake, iced with butter cream and decorated in black colored chocolate swirls.  (Red velvet is a pain to ice, it keeps wanting to "bleed" crumbs into the icing!)  It was a striking look, the contrast of the colors was very pleasing.  I think it would have been a lovely presentation once they started cutting all that red cake!  I don’t like red velvet myself, I just feel like I’m doing something horrible to my body by eating that much food color (and it really takes a lot!) but there is no doubt that it is a pretty and delicious cake! 

 

 

 

 

I got all five tiers set in place and all the details finished and then looked around for the flowers for the top of the cake.  The florist had cut all the little orchids off the stem and my heart sank.  What a stupid move that was, but they clearly didn’t know any better.  So I started scouting the centerpieces on the tables to find stems of stuff that I could borrow for the top of the cake.  I snipped a few twigs here and there and combined with the orchid blossoms, it turned out very pretty.

 

 

  

The Groom’s cake was his frat emblem on a full sheet cake that was marble white/chocolate inside.  It turned out nicely I thought.

 

 

 

And then there were the cupcakes.  The Loser cupcakes.  At every turn we screwed up this order!

 

The first screw up happened when the elves took the order.  The client wanted an “L” on each cupcake, and the order said they needed to be made out of fondant.  BL told me to use a cookie cutter to make them and it wouldn’t be a big deal.  I took a look at that cookie cutter and I wondered to myself… it would look better for a child’s event than for a ritzy wedding, but I knew it was the only way to do 250 fondant “L’s” without wanting to jump from the nearest bridge.  (Doing a bunch of “L’s” out of Icing would have been quicker and easier but someone up-sold the client fondant – so that’s what I was stuck making.)  And with the amount of cake orders I had in addition to the weddings, I was about to pull out my hair anyway.  So I started in making these infernal “L’s.”  The bride’s mother happened by and BL picked up one of the “L’s” to go show her.  I was about half way through making them and I stopped BL by simply saying… “Don’t ask a question I don’t want the answer to!”  She looked a little surprised, looked at the fondant “L” in her hand and looked at me, realizing what I was saying.  She laughed, put down the “L” and went back to work laughing.  I made about 275 of those stupid things the first time around and had to come back and make more because they were fragile and I broke quite a few of them. 

 

 

 

 

Boss Lady is the baker and she just couldn’t keep up this week.  (For good reason – because the bread elf is gone and the brownie/cookie elf was on vacation.)  So I didn’t start seeing those cup cakes until it had already become crunch time.  They were red velvet cake in silver cupcake liners.  I had decorated the first batch and as I moved them some went flying off the board, like penguins into the ocean.  Those little silver liners are slippery!  I lost quite a few with that stupid human trick but it turned out that only one was beyond fixing.  So I used some non-slip stuff (the same stuff that they use under rugs to keep them from sliding around) and worked late into the night finishing up the first round of cupcakes.  But that was the beginning.

 

 

 

When one of the elves came in the next morning and looked at the cupcakes with all those little “L’s” on them… she dubbed them “the loser cupcakes” complete with full tilt New Yorker attitude and sign language.  The name stuck.  BL passed an edict that the client must NOT know that we named them thus, so the name really stuck. 

 

 

 

 

I was stressing because the rest of the cupcakes weren’t even baked and they are time consuming.  So she started the first batch but forgot to add in the rising agent and she didn’t figure it out until they were in the oven so the next batch of cupcakes didn’t rise.  They tasted a little strange and they were very short and dense.  She didn’t have much time to bake replacement cupcakes but she finally decided that she would at least try.  It turned out that we still had to use some of the red hocky puck cupcakes to finish out the 250, but at least they were finished.

 

 

 

The bride’s Mom and Dad came in to package up the cupcakes.  Each cupcake got the royal treatment in a red box with tissue paper and a ribbon with the bride and groom’s names on it.  Only the Bride’s Mom wasn’t crazy about my little cookie cutter “L’s.”  I didn’t blame her, I didn’t think much of them by that point myself.  But it was the morning of the wedding and there they were, all 250 of them.  BL scoured the order to see if anyone had written “cursive L” anywhere but there was nothing.  It was sad because making cursive “L’s” out of icing would have been so much easier for me.  The Bride’s dad just shook his head and told his wife “It is what it is” and everyone decided to be happy about it.  (He was a freakin genius!) 

 

They wanted to move the cart that I had put all the cupcakes on.  But then they realized that there was no way to get the cart through that part of the bakery, it would just be easier to move them tray by tray.  So the Bride’s mom picked up the one tray with the extras on it (that didn’t have the non-slip plastic on it) and I had to catch cupcakes like I was Michael Jordan.  Loser cupcakes just kept trying to jump. 

 

 

 

 

It is done and over.  I imagine that most of the cupcakes in their pretty boxes have been devoured.  It was a beautiful wedding and I’m certain that the new Mr. and Mrs. “L” are enjoying a lovely honeymoon somewhere marvelous.  On the other hand, I don’t want to see another red velvet cake for a very long time.  And 250 cupcakes?  Never again! 

 

And just for the record, it's the cupcakes that were losers, not the people.  The people were great.  And if you happen to know the lovely couple, remember that I was sworn to secrecy.  :)  (for all the good that did!)  LOL!

This little bitty wedding cake that turned out so cute.  This wedding party had about 15 guests and was in a local restaurant.  The cake icing was tinted a ginger color to match a paint chip (yes a paint chip from the paint department) that the bride gave us.  Then swirls of ivory butter cream finished off the look.  It was a cute little thing, it almost looked like it hadn’t quite grown up yet.  There was a medallion with a monogram on it that also went on the cake but I forgot to take it with me on the delivery, and then when I went back to deliver that element I forgot to take the camera.  Oh well, it was cute without it.  The whole cake wasn't much taller than 12 inches, plus the topper.  It's an 8 inch, 6 inch and a 4 inch.  I'm pleased with it.  I think the folks at the restaurant were going to move it, so I hope they didn't destroy it doing that.  Oh well, I have to keep reminding myself that it isn't my problem if something happens after I leave.

We’ll, time for a little update I suppose.

 

Tonight we enjoyed watching a stage production of Peter Pan.  A friend of ours played “Mr. Darling” and it was very cute.  This is not a story I grew up with and I knew it only in a peripheral sort of way.  I was surprised with how chauvinistic the roles were, the girl being a mom to all the boys, making the meal, and doing the annual Spring cleaning.  Peter Pan pretending to be the father with his chair and pipe.  And I was also surprised with how the Indian characters were coreographed in the most stereotypical way possible.  I know I’m an uncommon woman, but as I child I never pretended I was a mother or that I was cooking or spring cleaning for anyone – ever!  It wouldn’t have occurred to me.  Now I did pretend I was on stage singing or playing piano for thousands, hosting a cooking show or designing doll clothing or designing the interior of a shoe box with blocks for furniture.  You know, all the normal stuff.  J  (for an artist.)

 

I’ve started making my own mineral makeup.  It’s an interesting process and I’m learning a lot as I go along.  I managed to get a really good match to my own skin tone, that was surprisingly easy.  Most mineral makeup is far too yellow for my skin but I was able to work it out by adding pigments and then using the back of my hand to match the color.  I’ve got a good eye for color so it wasn’t that hard to get it right.  It seems to me that I should be able to get pretty close for other people’s coloring as well.  And now that I’ve got all the stuff, I might as well make it available to my friends.  I’ve worn the product a couple days and it covers more than any other mineral makeup I’ve worn and that’s kind of interesting.  I guess this formula is a bit more like a concealor than a foundation.  So I’ll keep messing around with the formula for the light coverage and good for your skin qualities that are so cool about mineral makeup.  I refuse to use that Bismuth stuff that is in cheap mineral makeup that is actually an “inorganic” (not a mineral at all) that is just cheap filler and actually known to cause issues for some people.  So I’m fascinated by this for the moment.  We’ll see where it takes me.

 

I’m laptop computer shopping.  Yeah, it’s time to purchase a computer that will be able to handle the next round of software I’m going to try to get for my business.  I’d love Adobe Photoshop and Dreamweaver, we’ll see if I can pull together that kind of cash.  It’s a big investment and I’m not a professional designer (well, I used to draw logos for a marketing firm but I haven’t done that for a while) so it’s a bit difficult to justify.  However, buying Dreamweaver is certainly cheaper than hiring a web designer who knows dhtml so as long as I can continue to put together all my own websites, then that’s good for me.  I wish I could figure out a way to learn how to code dynamic html websites without having to put out the big bucks!  I’ll keep researching it, it is still possible that some of the features I need are already in the Frontpage software that I already have.  I don’t think Frontpage uses CSS though, so I’ll keep researching that.  I’ve also put in some time researching shopping carts and setting up a website to sell products using PayPal.com.  I’ve giving some thought to a commerce website and exploring some of the other options with that as well.  The wheels, they are a-turning!  If you've been there, done that - pass along any pointers!  (I had a yahoo store for a while and that just isn't what I want.)

 

I’ve made lots of different kinds of soap lately.  Some of it really turned out beautifully.  (And some of it had to be completely melted down and rebatched.)  I’ve got about ten different kinds now and I’m especially happy with the colors and fragrances and my favorite of the moment is a Milk and Honey bar that I think is especially cute.  I’ll try to take photos and post them one of these days.  I’m really happy with how that adventure is going.  And my soap has been accepted in a local gallery, so that’s kind of cool.  I have tentative word that my alphabet photography has also been accepted there.  So I just need to pack up a bunch of stuff and take it to them and see what happens.

 

I need to spend a little time with the jewelry again.  I have a wholesale order waiting on enough money to be able to click the “checkout” button.  But I think I’m going to give that some serious thought and maybe go in a different direction altogether.  There are just so many different options with jewelry design that keeping it fresh is really not that hard to do – it’s just a matter of deciding what to explore.  So many ideas, so little time.

 

The good folks at the Library have invited me to come and do a cake demonstration for them.  They’ve given me an hour and I’m supposed to carve, ice and decorate a cake into the shape of a book and talk to them as I do it.  Then they’ll all eat the cake and that will be that.  It sounds like it could be fun.  Boss Lady told me to think about jokes to tell and ways to make it fun and interesting.  I’ve never really thought about cake decorating as a performance art, so this will be interesting indeed.  Anything for a change of pace I suppose.  Who knows, I may decide that I really like pretending to host a cake decorating show.  J

 

Well, it’s getting late and the morning has a way of coming round on a regular basis.  So I shall curl up next to my snoring hubby and see where the Dream Giver takes me.

 

Goodnight foxy voxers

And sweet dreams

For a bridal shower where the bride hates pastel colors.  They asked for fun, funky and bright.

 

 

I was finishing up the order and Boss Lady was standing there looking at the cake.  And I said "Yah know, I'd just like to do a row of ants all the way around the border of the cake."  She squeeled and laughed and told me to do it.  And she promised to take the heat if the client complained.  :D  So those little black dashes...

This was an interesting project.  A woman brought in her cake pan from Williams and Sonoma.  They make beautiful things, but nothing a bakery would ever touch just because of the impractical nature of the equipment.  This was a case in point.  The client wanted the end product to look like the photo on the cake pan.  Well, it was naked cake with a few candies glued to it.  Cute, but hardly practical.  Let that baby sit out for an hour and it would be hard and stale and nasty to eat.  Cute but nasty.  Hardly the reputation a bakery really needs.  So we finally settled upon the idea of making them from Chocolate cake and putting on a very thin coat of chocolate ganache to coat them so that they would not dry out.  Some of the detail from the pan was lost but not too bad.  So I went back in with the icing to bring out the details and the client was very happy with how it turned out.  And who wouldn’t love a chocolate cake frosted in chocolate ganache?  Yummmmm!

I made this cute little baby shower cake for a lovely Momma who was tall and blonde and really beautiful with her little baby bump.  And they loved how it turned out!  I took the designs from the napkin they showed me and made the medallion based on a scrap booking quote.  "Little hands and little feet make our life so very sweet." 

It looks like most of the chocolate for our Adoption fund raiser Saturday night is finished.  My mom has made/is making a few other kinds also so they are not on here.  Looks yummy, right?  Oh yeah!

I’m planning the Chocolate for a fund raiser coming up next month.  Since we are adopting from Colombia I’ve used the flag colors of red, blue and yellow as an inspiration for the colors and flavors for the chocolate.  And I’ve looked to South American deserts for inspiration for these truffles. 

 

Here are the twelve flavors I’ve got in mind at the moment:

 

They are:

White chocolate lemon ganache molded in dark chocolate garnished in yellow.  I may put some gold leaf in this one for the fun of it.  I happen to already have it so it would be no big deal but I think it would look amazing.

 

Dark chocolate black raspberry ganache molded in milk choc and wrapped in red foil

 

White chocolate blueberry ganache dipped in milk chocolate with blue garnish

 

Vanilla truffle (the cream for the ganache is infused with a South American vanilla bean until the flavor is full tilt rich orchid goodness) in dark chocolate garnished in white.  I can’t wait to try this one but I only have one vanilla bean and since they are rather expensive I don’t think I’m going to get a trial run on this one.  I hope I get it right.

 

White chocolate cranberry almond in white chocolate garnished with red.  Hubby hates this one but I think it’s pretty good and it’s a good texture contrast to the others and the only one coated in white chocolate.

 

Marzipan (a personal favorite) dipped in milk chocolate garnished with almond

 

Earl Grey truffle (I can’t wait to try this one!) in milk and wrapped in silver foil.  (Ok, it’s not the least bit South American, this one is all about me!)

 

A red hot South American chocolate flavor:  Dark chocolate ganache with cinnamon, nutmeg and cayenne pepper in dark chocolate with tiny red rose medallion garnish. (I’ve already tried this one and love, Love, LOVE it!)

 

Pecan praline in milk ganache with a pecan half garnish.  This sounds divine and easy to make.  Maybe I’ll get time for a trial run this week.

 

Dulce de Leche (a South American milk based caramel) cashew in dark or milk (Have not decided) chocolate.  Sounds good.  Don’t know whether to make my own or buy it online.  If I made it I’d never know if I got an authentic end product.  Hmmm… undecided.

 

Hazelnut truffle in dark chocolate wrapped in blue foil.

 

A dark chocolate, blue and white layered peppermint with snowflake garnish.  Coooool!

 

I’m looking forward to it.  I think it will be a feast for the eyes as well as for the taste buds.  I’ve done some serious chocolate making years ago so this is a real flash from the past.  I hope the old skills are still in there as far as dipping and handling the chocolate.  I hope so anyway.  It certainly will be a nice change from what I’m usually doing these days!

Chocolate cake cut in the shape of a guitar, iced in buttercream on the top and chocolate on the sides.  The fret board, head, bridge and tuning pegs are all of fondant.  Was fun to create.  Client loved it.

Yeah, I spent most of the day uploading a bunch of new stuff to Etsy.com for sale.  Yeah baby, surf on over and check out the goods.  Especially if you enjoy beading like I do.  Today I posted beads I've made from polymer clay.  And I realized a little bit ago that there are tons more of these beads and such that I didn't find when I did the first batch!  Oy!  I've got more work to do!