Archives for September 2010

Penguin Cake

Claire and Nhu got married at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, CA. They wanted to incorporate both their Save the Date and their invitation in their cake design.

Save the Date
Invitation
The sketch we created.
We made the penguins out of fondant and allowed them to dry for about a week.

The cake!

Orange, green, and blue wedding cake Congratulations Claire and Nhu!

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Fiesta Cake

I am very critical of my work, so I’m always pleasantly surprised when I actually like something I’ve created. The Fiesta cake was for Quica’s 90th birthday celebration. I met with her daughter and granddaughter, and together we came up with the design based on the invitation by Wedding Paper Divas. The finished cake had Quica’s photo on it in an oval, beaded fondant frame. You can see some of the changes I made from the sketch to the final product.

A younger Quica. I love her lips.

The invitation design.

The sketch.

The cake.

pink and white papel picado cake

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New Classes Just Announced!

Maybe it’s because everyone’s kids are back at school, or maybe it’s the preponderance of cake reality shows, but we’ve been receiving an inordinate number of inquiries about cake design classes. In response to the many requests, we’ve added to new classes to the schedule. The next Tier I: Introduction to Cake Design will be on Tuesdays in October, and the next Tier II: Intermediate Cake Design will be held on Sunday mornings beginning mid-October.

For more information, or to register for one of our classes, please visit our website: http://ericaobrien.com/classes.html.

Thanks!

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Wedding Cake Serving Chart

It’s always challenging to determine what size pans to use for a cake. Search the web and you’ll find that cake serving guides vary significantly. Earlene’s Cake Serving Chart shows that a 9″ cake serves only 22 guests, while Aztec Rental shows that it serves 32. I’ve always relied on an old Wilton chart. My print copy shows considerable wear and tear in the form of stray pen marks, grease stains, and random notes. See?

For whatever reason, it’s really hard to find the Wilton chart online, so I’m sharing it here for easy reference. Keep in mind that the standard wedding cake slice is 1″ wide by 2″ deep by 4″ high, much smaller than a typical birthday or party cake slice. I tend to use the more generously-sized party cake chart (email me for a copy–I couldn’t find it online) if the cake is for a party rather than a wedding. Oh, I should mention that I use only 2″ deep pans and don’t recommend using 3″ deep pans because they take too long to bake resulting in a dry cake. Here’s the chart.

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