Garden Cake for Homeland Florist's 85th Anniversary

Photo from ECHerald.com

I knew when I had agreed to do this cake that it would be quite the undertaking given the crazy week I had planned. The cake was needed the day after my inventory date at my day job. I though, no big deal, I can swing it, especially since it's AFTER inventory I should be able to take a few days off. And then the inevitable happened, work changed my inventory date from the day before the party, to the day after the anniversary party. No manager in the history of my job (that I'm aware of) has ever dared to take the day before inventory off. I guess you could say I either like to live dangerously, or I had no other option. Maybe a little of both? Not too dangerously though, I got permission from my boss and we worked it out.

Kitchenaide "after" pic.

 

I went back and forth on the design for this one. Do I use real flowers, do I use gum paste flowers? And if I do use real flowers, if I don't get them from the florist who's throwing the anniversary party, will they be offended? Do I even have time to order and pick up flowers? Knowing that I basically had zero time to do anything, besides bake, I decided to go with gum paste flowers. I dabbled a bit in making my own gum paste flowers and quickly learned that I would much rather buy them, since I just don't have the time and patience. We did, however, make all the small flowers in shop.

I love, love, LOVE that I was given creative freedom on this cake. It makes things a lot less stressful. I wanted to make sure this cake was extra special, so I was a bit more adventuresome than I probably needed to be. I made all three layers a different flavor; bottom was champagne cake with lemon buttercream, middle was chocolate cake with nutella buttercream and top was carrot cake with cream cheese buttercream. I had planned on doing a different design for the top carrot cake layer, but had to improvise, since carrot cake is SO freaking heavy! It would not hold up in the shape I wanted and kept drooping down. Some quick thinking, a little trimming and a lot of wasted fondant later, I had something else that seemed to work better with the design. Minor disaster avoided.

I was fortunate to have Shannon, my intern, helping me with this one. Between the two of us, it took 10 hours to complete and we were literally painting flowers as we were packing up the car to leave for the party. We painted the flowers with a little vodka and food coloring, since the vodka evaporates much more quickly than water does. The banner and the small flowers on the middle tier were made of fondant, the remaining flowers were gum paste and the other accessories (such as the butterflies and bird) were non-edible and non-toxic. Cake stand is from Crate & Barrel.

Photo from echerald.com

A professional photographer from the East County Herald was there taking pictures and the garden cake pictures made it into the publication and on their webside, echerald.com (click pictures of events, then homeland florist). It was a great networking opportunity and I'm glad I put forth so much time and effort into the cake. We were really happy with the results and it tasted delicious as well!

Picture from ECHerald.com

Succulent Wedding Cake

I must admit that when a bride approached me with the idea of putting succulents on her wedding cake, I wasn't sold on the idea. I had no idea if they were even "safe" to use and had difficulty finding any examples online. After extensive research, I learned that they were non-toxic and would then be okay to use. I still wrapped all the clipped ends in floral tape, just in case.

This cake was a true test of my patience. Turns out, I still have some left. Who knew? I made a double batch of almond champagne cake (recipe to follow), wasn't paying attention, and used baking SODA instead of baking POWDER. I decided to bake it anyways and find out what happens....... Both cakes were baked at the same temperature and were not overcooked. The cake on the left had the baking soda and the one on the right was cooked correctly with the baking powder. The whole place smelled like pancakes! Not ideal when you're baking a cake. I basically had to start over. This was a very long baking day.

With hopefully all the mishaps behind me, we forged ahead with cake assembly. The bride wanted white on white cake. I was able to talk her into lemon buttercream. Flavor is huge with me and I don't often do plain anything, unless I have to.

I also made a lemon mousse filling in addition to lemon buttercream and covered the cake in white fondant. I also saturated each layer of the cake with vanilla bean simple syrup to add moisture and flavor.

The bottom edges of the cake were finished with a turquoise ribbon and set in the fridge to chill.

Finally, the wedding day had come. I couldn't wait to set it up and hope that everyone loved it. The wedding toppers were made by the bride's daughter, Shannon, out of sculpty clay. She also helped me make the cake, every step of the way, and was a ton of help!

I supplemented with silvered thistles to the succulent bouquet. It maybe be the first and hopefully not last time I use thistles on anything. I find them very interesting looking.

Champagne Cake Recipe
(from allrecipes.com)

INGREDIENTS:
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (I used caked flour)
3 tsp. baking powder (NOT soda, lol)
1 tsp. kosher salt 
2/3 cup butter
1 1/2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup champagne (I used almond champagne)
                                                                                 6 egg whites
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 10" round cake pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until very light and fluffy. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together, and then blend into creamed mixture alternately with champagne. (I also added 1 tsp. of vanilla)
3. In a large clean bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. (I also add 1/2 tsp. of meringue powder). Fold 1/3 of the whites into batter to lighten it, then fold in remaining egg whites. (it's extremely important that you incorporate the whites completely into the batter). Pour into prepared pan.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Also, a rule I make a point to bake the cake a day before I assemble it. The cake is wrapped completely in saran wrap and refrigerated overnight. This helps retain more of the moisture and makes it less crumbly to work with. I also don't give out my recipes (unless you're a really, really good friend) but here are the ingredients that I used in the other components of the cake:

Vanilla Bean Simple Syrup
white sugar
water
vanilla bean, split and scraped
pinch salt
mint leaves
lemon zest and juice

Lemon Buttercream
Balade butter
powdered sugar
lemon zest and juice
half and half
lemon sea salt