Owl Love You Forever

Inspiration can come from anywhere. Seriously, ANYWHERE. Wallpaper, pillows, coffee mugs, paintings, buildings, even kleenex boxes. Yep, you read that right. A silly painted kleenex box was the inspiration for this wedding cake.

I had been trying to shake what is either a cold or winter allergies and have gone through an absolutely insane amount of kleenex in the past three weeks. There was one box I just couldn't throw away. These owls were mesmerizing. I knew I wanted to do something with them, but couldn't figure out what.

I had been wanting to try watercolor-style painting on fondant for a while now and these cute little owls gave me the perfect subject. As it turns out, it was much easier than I thought it would be. First, I cut my shapes out, let them dry overnight. Then I just mixed some gel food coloring (you only need a very small amount) with a splash of vodka. From there, you can paint just as you would with real paint. The thinner you make the food coloring, the lighter the color will be, just like watercolors. Again, I let my shapes dry overnight, then punched the outline out with some jet black royal icing.

Who says you need a traditional all white wedding cake with flowers and bows? Not that there is anything wrong with that, but in the days of pinterest and zillions of wedding blogs, its never been easier to get a little creative with your wedding day. Plus why would you pass up the opportunity to say owl love you forever all day?

Happy Valentine's day to you and yours.

Ruffles!

One more wedding cake under my belt, and just a few days to recover before I start working on the next one. This cake came with a few ups and downs, and many lessons learned. I realized as I was putting the fondant on the bottom tier of this cake, that this was in fact the largest fondant project I had taken on yet. I haven't covered anything larger than a ten inch cake before. A pyramid, yes, but something this huge? Nope, not even close. For some reason it hadn't occurred to me until just that moment.

There is no more hesitation these days when someone hires me to make a cake or dessert table, I say yes of course I can do that. Whether its for better or worse, I rarely consider if I have the necessary time and means to do said project, but deep down, I know that one way or another I will get it done, and I won't stop or finish it until it looks and tastes exactly how I wanted it. If that means ripping two pounds of fondant off of a 15-inch cake tier because it has one too many wrinkles and starting from scratch at 2 am, that's what I will do.

As much as it interferes with my sleep schedule, and the cleanliness of my kitchen at times, it's the attitude I need to have in this industry. Yep, I can do that! Sometimes, the google helps, and sometimes I just jump right in and figure it out for myself. So here's to diving into the deep end, and hoping you make it out alive, and with a beautiful, and even more importantly, delicious, cake in hand.