Fashion Cakes - Celebrating Women!


 This post is dedicated to real women who walk the runway of life proudly and boldly. Women who make a difference in any way. Grandmothers, Mothers, Daughters, Wives, Sisters, Friends, Colleagues... you all have a huge part to play in at least one person's life. Thank you for being Great!

A sophisticated 50th birthday cake



  

Delicately simple ruffles for a young girl's confirmation



This fashion cake was donated
to a local children's foster home to raise funds
in an auction at their annual group event.
It brought in R2400 for the charity home.



My version of the high heeled shoe cupcake. These had to travel far, so they had to be sturdy!

A simple but sexy corset cake for a bachelorette party.

This cake was made for a special client who has now passed away at 31 after a 2 year battle with cancer.
Here's to you, Janice Victor, Wife and Mother and Friend to many.

A cobalt blue wedding cake for a happy bride and groom!

Remember... YOUR boots are made for walking!

Follow That Caker: Maggie Visser of Memorable Occasions

In today's 'Follow That Caker!' interview, we will be taking a look at the life of Cake Decorator, Magdalena Visser of Memorable Occasions,  Bloemfontein, SA.
In her younger years, Maggie Visser enjoyed sketching and painting. It was her favourite hobby and she even recieved a few prizes in art shows. After marrying her now EX-husband, she was ‘ordered to stop painting’.
When her son had his first birthday party, she soon realised that baking cakes was a good way to release her imprisoned creative energy. This was how her love for decorating cakes was born.

After working as a head chef in 2 hotels, an old age home and getting a diploma in food technology, her selfish husband decided that the best way to make money at the time was for Maggie to open a Car valet service! A customer of the valet service noticed how her husband treated her and, being a lawyer decided to help Maggie to get a divorce. Which was nasty, to say the least.

Maggie went on to work at a Girls Hostel, to bring in extra cash. Once the divorce was finalised, Maggie moved away from her ex-husband and started work as a furniture sales person.

 While Maggie did a bit of ‘job-hopping', she was doing the cake decorating as a hobby, baking special cakes for friends and family only.  She had remarried and was much happier.

After having to decline a job offer, due to unsafe working environment, Maggie started baking more cakes and this spiralled into a small business, due to word-of-mouth.

Maggie's personal favourite - a wedding cake
inspired by Alan Dunn

Maggie draws inspiration from real life photos of flowers. Maggie says: “While I work my thoughts continuously go to God and how perfect everything is that He created for us. I am just a small human being, trying to create perfection, no wonder I struggle so much!”
She also finds Cake decorator, Alan Dunn very inspiring.

Maggie made her very first cake when she was 20. The cake was for a family member who is blind. Maggie was asked to use lots of artificial decorations on the cake so that her family member could look at the cake through touch. Maggie felt that this cake was good for its purpose, but she vowed never to use artificial décor on her cakes again.

Maggie's 'killer' cake was The Stargazer. Spending a total of 12 hours and 15 minutes on this cake was a daunting task, but Maggie says it was all worth it. Her client preferred not to have rice paper decor on the cake, so Maggie painstakingly cut and curled each and every triangle by hand out of gum paste.

When asked what her funniest moment was of her baking career, Maggie told me this story...

I received an email requesting a quotation for cupcakes for a bachelorette party . The client's photo was a bit small and unclear. I could determine negligee and what I thought was little figures on the cupcakes. I emailed my quote stating that I will be able to make the cupcakes with negligee on it. Seconds later, I received the confirmation order.

Two dozen with negligee and two dozen with a penis on each of them!

I almost fell off my chair! Shocked, I told my husband what I read. He did not understand. “Lollies,” I said , “men’s lollies!” He called my sons, laughing and told them what I had just received an order for.

Well I had already accepted the order and the full amount was paid into my bank account almost immediately. So I just had to do them.

That night I was tossing and turning until I eventually got out of bed to do a search on Google for adult cakes.  Wow! I thought that I was a relatively open minded 54 year old/ young woman. But goodness me, I was shocked! I could just imagine my late Granny coming to my kitchen tea and seeing one of those cakes. Bless her soul, she would have died right there on the spot! But at least it gave me the courage to fulfil my commitment.

The negligee was fun. I experimented with lace  and different  textures and really enjoyed doing them. Then I had to start on the male anatomy part. I told my two sons (34 years and 25 years old) to stay out of my room, closed the door and did my first model. I couldn’t help it, I tried not to...but I started laughing! I laughed so much that my two sons came into the room. They looked and started laughing too and proceeded to help form the correct shape!... Now I had a prototype. After much more laughter and jesting they left me to continue.

On the pickup day I needed to go out unexpectedly, so my poor, shy bachelor son had to hand over to the clients. He was more embarrassed than them!  

                                                                         *** ~~~~~ ***

Maggie believes that her difficult life has helped her in her business endeavours, but it keeps her humble.
It has taught her to appreciate her talent and to go ahead and live her dream. Although Maggie has had no formal training, a few of life's ups and downs have shown her that dedication is what gets the job done.

 

Maggie makes wonderfully realistic sugar flowers for wedding cakes and Christening cakes.

 

A beautiful wedding cake with handmade sugar sunflowers made by Maggie.

For a delicious recipe, tried and tested by Maggie, please visit Fudge's Favourite Foods.
Details for Memorable Occasions:  

Facebook: Memorable Occasions
Online Community: Cakes We Bake
Website: memorable-occasions.wozaonline.co.za 





Sea Themed Cakes 2012

I thought I would post a few sea themed cakes today. Some of them are old, but they are just so fun, I couldn't resist.
The first cake... The Nemo/Sebastian/Tintin cake was a real mix up of characters. I really struggled to get all the requested characters onto the cake, but in the end, they all came together nicely.
Take a look at some of the detailed shots of this cake.

The Nemo/ Sebastian/ Tintin cake

Then we have the tiny Little Mermaid cake.

The cake was 15cm diam. and the figurine was 8cm tall.

A 2D Finding Nemo cake

 

And finally some whale cupcakes

I hope you have a Whale of a time today! And remember... 'Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...'

:)

Follow that Caker: Lana Joubert of Couture Cupcakes

Hello everyone! Welcome to the very first 'Follow that Caker' interview!
Today we are taking a peek into the life of creative caker, Lana Joubert of Couture Cupcakes, KwaZulu-Natal.


Mini Chocolate Coffee and Vanilla Cakelet Tower by Couture Cupcakes.
Lana Joubert's favourite 'cake' to date.



To begin her cake journey, Lana did a basic “Decorating Cake with fondant” class and got hooked from there. She absolutely loves being creative and creating gorgeous things so this was the perfect opportunity to keep her corporate job while still being able to do something fun and true to herself.

Like many of us cakers, Lana enjoys asking Uncle Google for inspiration. She loves to find cakes that really stand out and then she changes the design to add her own little twist.

Every different cake picture that Lana comes across adds to her inspiration in one way or another.

Lana's very first cake was a cake she lovingly made for her mother's birthday.
This cake was made the same day that her first class was held.

Lana's very first client order was for a Barney the dinosaur birthday cake.

When she took the order, she had no experience making figurines. Needless to say, Lana was extremely nervous but still confident that if she put her mind to it, she could make it happen.



Lana says: "Suddenly everything becomes a hundred times more important when you have someone paying for a cake – it has to be perfect!"



Lana got the hang of covering cakes quite quickly, but for her, making 3D decorations was another thing altogether! With the weather being at odds against her, the figurines got very sweaty and started to collapse with the heat and humidity.

Absolutely hysterical, Lana kept moving them around to get the right spot for the figurines to set. She put them in the oven with the fan on, and even put them in her car with the air con on. Not much helped! Lana says: "I was wonderfully stressed!"

Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, the evening came and everything got cooler and less humid. Tucked away in a cupboard, Lana's little dino’s hardened up and stopped sweating. Lana now believes firmly in owning a home Air conditioner in Durban!

The one thing that she learnt whilst creating this cake was to butter cream the cake the day before covering it with fondant – that way the butter cream will dry/ harden and will prevent the fondant from sagging – which is never very pretty.



A cake Lana made for her Dad's 50th.
Lana enjoys putting a lot of love into cakes made for her own family, but she uses these occasions to test new techniques and designs. Although the cakes are always lovely, the end result is not always as it was planned.



This cake was made for the Heritage Cake Boss Competition for Ingane Yami Children's village

When asked "how long is the longest time you’ve spent on a cake?", Lana's husband answers "Too long!"

Lana spent every evening for 2 weeks working on the Ingane Yami cake. She decided to do a replica of the actual children's village, using schematics of the land and buildings. This cake was a real product of perseverance and love.

Lana always gives her best when making cakes for clients – at the end of the day they are paying a lot of money to have something different and amazing and that’s what she aims to give them.

For a special family cupcake recipe from Lana, please visit Fudge's Favourite Foods.

Details for Cupcake Couture:
Website: www.couturecupcakes.co.za
Facebook: Cupcake Couture
Telephone: 071 997 1266
Cupcake Couture supplies to any area in Durban and surrounding areas, including North, South and Highway Area's (KZN).

Quick video tutorial: How to make a Christmas tree.

I hope everyone enjoys this short little video tutorial! I've used "Rockin' around the Christmas tree" by Brenda Lee as background music.

Getting ready for Christmas!!

2D Cake Decor

You may know by now that I specialise in figurines. It's a real passion that I have to try to get the character looking as close to the real thing as possible.
I will be featuring a few "how to's" for modelling figurines in the future. (Please kindly comment if you would be interested in something like this!)
Another type of cake that I do is a 2D decor cake. I actually find these more difficult and time consuming than the figurines. (Don't get me wrong, the figurines are not necessarily a breeze...)
 

Dora the Explorer Figurine



2D Diego

 Although it takes long to make the figurines, (and I really can spend up to an hour on a face alone); the 2D cutouts are far more complex for me.
Some advise for when you are working on 2D decor:
Use your fondant veining tool for indentations and decorative lines. These tend to give a more realistic finish, rather than using a knife.
When looking at your picture, figure out shapes from what you are looking at, for instance, Diego's boots above are hearts cutout with a regular heart cutter and then just trimmed with a circle cutter to give the open edge of his boots.
Some of your shapes will need to be free hand, such as diego's t-shirt above. But try to use different shaped cutters as far as you can.

In this basic layout of Mickey Mouse, I've tried to explain briefly what I mean by 'using shape cutters'.



www.easy-drawings-and-sketches.com


Remember to always round/ smooth the edges with your fingertips, to make the character more believable. When there are snags and fluffy bits around your edges, it reminds us that it is just made up of shapes. Smoothing your lines will bring it all together nicely.

In the photos below, I have shown broken up dimensions for these 2 characters, to make up the final character.

Its simple when the character is viewed in sections.

 Sometimes it works out better if portions of your character are modelled partially 3D, as I suggested with Mickey Mouse's mouth.

Goofy's hands, mouth, eyes and hat were 3D modelled.

Donald's hat, beak, hands, bowtie and legs were partially 3D modelled



Have a look at a few of the other 2D cakes I've done:

As this was a large Mickey, his face was done freehand.



Giraffe biscuits, neck and head made with the end of a large music note cutter



Noddy made up of a series of different sized circles and ovals and a bit of 3D modelling.



The heads are just cut out with an oval cutter and the bodies are many dots cut with a piping nozzle.




These were mostly just freehand cutting.




Again mostly freehand cutting, but you can see the different pieces that have been used to make the character.



Mostly 3D modelled.





The completed SpongeBob cake.



I know this is only a short 'how-to' and there are a few holes in the explanations, but next time I make a 2D decorated cake, I will try to take step-by-step photos that could explain it a bit better.

Please comment on this post, I'd like to know if this came across as helpful or not.

xxx