wedding cake connecticut

Our Grand Opening and Our Grand Opening Cake!

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Erica OBrien in Cake decorating classes NY, cake decorating design classes Connecticut, cake decorating design classes Connecticut (CT), edible cake bunting, Featured, fondant, pink cake, vintage wedding cakes, wedding cake connecticut, wedding cake connecticut (CT), wedding cake farfield county ct, wedding cake new york, wedding cake ny, wedding cakes connecticut, wedding cakes ct, wedding cakes new york, wedding cakes ny | 4 Comments

There are benefits to living in a small town, such as knowing all the guys at the town buildings department by name (no lie: Bob, Bill, Jim, Joe) and that when you open a business and hold a grand opening, like we did on April 25th, the town arranges a ribbon cutting ceremony and sends the mayor. We even got press coverage! (Okay, it was this article in the Hamden Journal, but still.)

Here we are (me on the right, my sister on the left) with Mayor Scott Jackson. And the official golden ribbon-cutting scissors.
IMG_6129

IMG_6132

Our grand opening turned into a little fête of sorts. Of course the cocktails helped.

IMG_6156

My consultation studio is now mostly finished, with the exception of the completely bare walls. My brother-in-law took this shot.

And my friend Brooke of Brooke Allison Photography took these. She is a wedding photographer and is rapidly becoming one of the top photographers in Connecticut. Keep your eye on her.

 

I created a special cake for the grand opening. I covered the cake in pink (one of my logo colors), made gold bunting for three of the tiers (I went through a serious bunting phase about a year and a half ago that thankfully passed. This was just a brief relapse.) and hand-cut the plaque and letters. (Photos by Brooke Allison Photography.)

The community has been so supportive, and we feel extremely fortunate to be in such a great place. Thank you so much to all of you who stopped by, and thank you to those of you who wanted to but, for whatever reason, couldn’t. Don’t worry : we plan to be here for a long, long time.

Special thanks to Brooke Allison, my husband and children, my mom, sister, Scott, Zachy and Kody, and Frank. Love you guys.

Read More

Some Recent Press

Posted on May 5, 2012 by Erica OBrien in erica obrien cake design, Featured, peony cake, photos, pink and gray wedding, sugar magnolia cake, unique wedding cakes, vintage, vintage wedding cakes, wedding cake connecticut, wedding cake connecticut (CT), wedding cake farfield county ct, wedding cakes, wedding cakes connecticut, wedding cakes ct, wedding cakes new york, wedding cakes ny, wedding cupcakes | Leave a comment

My husband says I change my mind a lot. I guess it’s kind of true. At some point, I decided not to have a press page on my website. (Read this post–it’s actually pretty funny–and you’ll see what I mean.) Then I guess I went ahead and changed my mind, ’cause now I have one.

I thought I’d share some of our most recent press here (although, of course, you could just look at my website.) I’ll not go into detail on every piece of press. Instead, I’ll just share the magazine cover and the page(s) on which my cake was featured. You’ll get the idea. 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

 


Read More

Cake for The Knot Magazine

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Erica OBrien in brides magazine 50 most beautiful, Featured, ombre cake, vintage, vintage wedding cakes, wedding cake connecticut, wedding cake connecticut (CT), wedding cake new york, wedding cake ny, wedding cakes ct, wedding cakes new york | 4 Comments

Last year, I wrote about a cake with pleated pinwheels that I proposed to Bride’s magazine. The cake was inspired by something I had seen in Martha Stewart, and in the sketch (and my imagination) it was beautiful, with shades of peach, ivory, buttercup and pink. Once I executed it in sugar, however, it was lackluster at best, and the Bride’s editors passed on it.

I couldn’t let the idea of the pinwheels go though, and when The Knot asked me to do a cake–and left the design and colors completely up to me–I decided to revisit them. This time, I proposed a cake with more vibrantly colored pinwheels in an ombré that would pop against a white cake, as seen in the sketch below.

The Knot editors liked my idea, and so I hand-delivered the final product last spring to their offices. This time, the design really worked, and so does the photo by Devon Jarvis (to whom I am extremely grateful for sending me this high res image):
 
 
The photo appeared in The Knot magazine’s Spring-Sumer 2012 New York edition.
 
I’ll end with this: If you’ve been reading my blog for a long time (or, for that matter, a short time) or if you know me personally at all, you know I never say this, but…I love this cake!
 
Read More

We’ve Been a Little Busy

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Erica OBrien in Featured, for the baker, wedding cake, wedding cake connecticut, wedding cake connecticut (CT), wedding cake farfield county ct, wedding cake new york, wedding cake ny, wedding cakes connecticut, wedding cakes ct, wedding cakes new york, wedding cakes ny, wedding cupcakes | 4 Comments

After much anticipation (and years in the making), we’ve opened our retail shop. Okay, it’s not exactly “ours”. I call it our sister shop, and it’s quite literally my sister’s shop. My sister Jessica, The Soup Girl, and I share the commercial kitchen in the back of the house. The front is divided between her retail area and my consultation studio, but I’m selling my cupcakes on her side.

Since part of my personal mission is to educate the world about what a good cake/cupcake should actually taste like, retail is proving the perfect forum for me. Although most bakeries–even some high end cake design studios–bake from mixes and purchase large vats of “buttercream” that often contain no actual butter, we bake everything from scratch and use real butter. All of our fruit flavors are made in-house by reducing the whole fruit with sugar until all that is left is intense, concentrated fruit flavor. We use really good quality chocolate (Callebaut), fruit purees (Boiron), and vanilla paste (Nielsen-Massey). We sold out of every single cupcake the first two days we were open. (I’ve since increased production to keep up with demand.) Apparently Hamden, CT was just waiting for a quality cupcake.

We officially opened last Thursday, and I would describe the experience as exciting, exhuasting, exhilarating, and emotional. (Megan, if you’re reading this, forgive the alliteration. It was completely unintentional.) The neighborhood we’re in is extremely welcoming, and so many people came out to show their support. We couldn’t be happier with the location.

Below, some photos of The Soup Girl’s retail shop, our staff, and me and my absolutely fabulous intern working on some cupcakes. I’m saving the photos of my studio until it’s completely finished.

And if you’re in the neighborhood, please stop by!

Read More

Pinspiration

Posted on January 8, 2012 by Erica OBrien in Cake decorating classes NY, Featured, wedding cake connecticut, wedding cake connecticut (CT), wedding cake farfield county ct, wedding cake new york, wedding cake ny, winter wedding cakes | 1 Comment

If you already use Pinterest, you probably love it. If not, try it, and you’re sure to become addicted. Pinterest is a curated collection of searchable images, meaning that the images are selected by users. Pinterest users are just like you and me, and their searches are our searches, so when you search “wedding flowers” on Pinterest, your results will return only photos of wedding flowers Pinterest users deemed worthy of pinning (rather than the photos of, say, random Equadorian rose wholesalers you get with a Google images search). Users create “boards” (think of them as pin boards used to hold photos with a push pin) to organize their pins. Although some people use Pinterest as another social media outlet, recommending other users to follow, tallying up the number of followers they have, etc., I use it as my own personal inspiration board. I used to have my “Images for Inspiration” folder on my desktop–you know the drill: right click, save image as, etc.–but now I just use Pinterest. And I get inspiration not just for cakes: I have boards  for my living room, my studio, even my mudroom.

Below are two images I found on Pinterest that I just had to turn into cake. The first cake is a loose interpretation of the image. (I plan to revisit the sunset rose in the near future.) The second is pretty much a reproduction in sugar. All the decor on each cake is made of gumpaste and is edible–right down to the pine cones. And, just for fun, I’ve included a little Pin It button above each image. Enjoy.

Pinspiration # 1: Sunset Rose. (Original Source: Xanga.com)

 Pin It Pin It Pin It

 Pinspiration # 2: Winter Bouquet. (Original Source: Cava Weddings)

Pin It

 Pin It

Read More

A Quick Update

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Erica OBrien in unique wedding cakes, wedding cake connecticut, wedding cake new york | 4 Comments

Well we moved to Connecticut just two days before the hurricane (my husband, a California native, was both horrified and fascinated) and a few days after the earthquake (my husband, a California native, felt right at home). So far, I’ve found two good things about Connecticut, namely:
1. My family is here and
2. The spray paint at Home Depot is not held captive behind a metal cage but is instead displayed freely on the shelves like any other paint. (I am a big consumer of spray paint and am therefore intimately familiar with the challenges of securing a disgruntled Home Depot employee from the paint department who no doubt looks upon spray paint with disdain and asking him to unlock said cage to liberate the chosen can.)

It seems I seriously overestimated the amount of blogging I’d be doing, and my efforts have been thwarted mostly because I:
1. Have no time and
2. Have no internet even though we moved on August 26th.

If that sounds like an awfully long time to be internetless (and trust me, it is), you can thank:
1. Hurricane Irene, which (a) put new cable installation low down on the list of priorities for the cable companies, making it extremely difficult to get an appointment and (b) also made it impossibly humid so that when the cable company did finally arrive to install the cable, the newly refinished floors still weren’t dry (even though it had been a week) and couldn’t be walked on and
2. Comcast, who, once we were finally able to reschedule our appointment, said they would be at our house between 2pm and 5pm and called at 7pm (by which time we were en route to my sister’s house for dinner) to say they were on their way. Their next available appointment was not until this Wednesday, so my husband opted to wait for AT&T whose next available appointment is on Saturday, September 17th.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Dude, you should just take your laptop, head to Starbucks, grab a latte, and blog from there like a normal person.” This would be a good option, but:
1. My laptop go stolen out of my house about a month before we moved and
2. I quit caffeine (it’s like crack for me) on September 1st.

Meanwhile, I’ve been considerably more productive around the house without the interruption of the internet, and have made some good progress on the search for commercial space. My sister (The Soup Girl) and I will be sharing kitchen space and dividing the front of the house into consultation space for me and a retail area for her. After viewing several spaces, I think we’ve found a place that has reasonable rent and ample kitchen space in North Haven, about five minutes from my house. I should know more in the coming days. (Of course I wanted to document the whole process in film but:
1. I couldn’t find the camera and
2. Even if I could find the camera, my husband hasn’t hooked up the computer yet so I don’t have access to our photo editing software.)
My sister and I are really excited about the new venture, and I will definitely be sharing photos of our progress going forward.

Other than that, things should be back to normal by this weekend. Thanks for your patience and for hanging in there with me. I look forward to more blogging soon.

Read More

BRIDES Magazine’s Most Beautiful Cakes {Part II}

Posted on August 20, 2011 by Erica OBrien in brides magazine most beautiful, jonathan adler, wedding cake connecticut | 9 Comments

Back in May I wrote about two of the sketches I submitted to Bride’s Magazine for their Most Beautiful Cakes issue that were ultimately rejected. I was sworn to secrecy on my two other design submissions, but now that the issue is on newsstands, I’m free to share.

I love interior designer Jonathan Adler. His Nixon rug, left, is a favorite of mine, and I thought it could be fantastic on a cake. I wanted to juxtapose the edginess of the geometric print of the rug against something soft and romantic, like garden roses. Below right is the mood board I submitted.

And the sketch of the cake I envisioned:

My second concept was also based on interior design elements. I really like Ethan Allen’s starburst mirror (below), and thought it would work well against a neutral color.

Here’s the starburst mirror sketch:

The next step in the process once the design was accepted was to submit a sugar “tile”–a flat piece of fondant (I backed mine with foamcore board) approximately 8″ by 8″. Brides editor Maria McBride–yes, that’s her real name–wanted to see the Adler cake with both the garden rose and the starburst mirror.

For the Adler pattern, I commissioned a stencil which I airbrushed onto the fondant tile using a custom-mixed color. Below left, my sugar tile with the Adler pattern and starburst mirror (yes–it’s broken. I realized after I packed it that I hadn’t taken a picture and as I was taking it out of the box, I smashed it), and below right my rather un-gardeny garden rose, a work in progress.

Within a week or two of submitting my tile, and to my great surprise, I got an email from Ms. McBride saying that they wanted me to create the Adler cake with the starburst mirror for the BRIDES Most Beautiful Cakes shoot on May 10th in New York. There was still no guarantee my cake would make it into the magazine, since shipping disasters and design difficulties have been known to render even the most perfect of cake concepts unworthy of print. I wasn’t taking any chances: I booked my ticket to New York and delivered my cake personally. After waiting for what seemed an excruciatingly long time, Maria McBride emailed to say the Adler cake had been accepted for print. I’m proud to announce that our cake is now one of BRIDES Most Beautiful Cakes! Below, the cover and inside of the September, 2011 BRIDES Magazine.

And an individual shot of our Adler cake as seen on the BRIDES website:

Thank you to the wonderfully supportive people in my life who rooted for me, got their hands blue for me (my husband Cory and friend Megan of Honey and Poppies), watched my kids for me (Mom, Pat), and insisted on driving me, paying for all tolls and gas, and saying she had fun (my sister, The Soup Girl).
Read More

East Coast Bound

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Erica OBrien in wedding cake, wedding cake connecticut | 10 Comments
I could go on and on about how we came to this decision and why, and I probably will at some point, but for now I just want to officially announce that we are moving back to the east coast on August 25th. I will greatly miss my friends and colleagues here in California, but I’m also excited to be near my family and lifelong friends back home. We’ll be setting up shop somewhere around New Haven, Connecticut.

Over the next few months, as I establish my business in our new location, I’ll be working on a few special projects, getting organized, and blogging. Lots and lots of blogging. I look forward to sharing this next chapter with you.

Read More

Zoo Animal Cupcakes

Posted on April 19, 2010 by Erica OBrien in birthday cupcakes, CA, first birthday, fondant, for the baker, Long Beach, Papyrus, wedding cake connecticut, wedding cake connecticut (CT), wedding cake farfield county ct, wedding cake new york, wedding cake ny, zoo animal cupcakes | 2 Comments

This is a lengthy introduction to the zoo animal cupcakes I recently made, but here goes. My daughter Mia was born with hip dysplasia. For the first several months of her life, she had to wear a brace that kept her legs splayed out like a frog. So, we called her The Frog. The name took on a life of its own: She became Froggie, then Frogalina, and even had her own Froggie theme song. The nickname sounds callous, I know, but the best nicknames usually are. (Take for instance, my 6’8″ brother-in-law, “Stubby”, who earned his nickname as a teenager after blowing off three fingers with a homemade bomb.)

Cute frogs are hard to come by, but when Mia was about six months, I found this card at the Papyrus store on 2nd Street in Long Beach and bought it thinking I might use the design for Mia’s first birthday. We ended up going with a very different theme, but I kept the card in my inspiration file. So, when a client called and asked for zoo-themed cupcakes for her son Dante’s 2nd birthday, I knew exactly what design I would use. Here’s the card:

And here are the cupcakes:

PS: Mia no longer wears the brace, and has earned a new nickname: The Maniac.

Read More