Wedding Cupcakes at Tom Ham's

This weekend I had the pleasure of making 24 dozen cupcakes plus a 6" cutting cake for a huge wedding at Tom Ham's Lighthouse at shelter island. It was funny to be back there just a week after my bike team had been training, passing the venue 9 times as we circled the island!!

The bride and groom decided on a simple blue and white theme, and provided a beautiful topper for the cake, which really complemented it beautifully. I added a handmade sugar peony, which I was worried would look fussy, but I think it turned out well.




This was accompanied by cupcakes in four flavors, carrot with cream cheese, lemon with lemon curd filling and vanilla buttercream, chocolate with praline buttercream, and a gluten free orange almond with chocolate ganache.

It was fun coming to set up and finding all the other little details that matched the cakes, with the blue table runners, blue and white flowers all matching the theme.

I was happy to be set up and out of there before any guests arrived. I hope it was a fun party!

Ok, I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for the royal wedding!

I managed to find these pictures on Flickr, thanks to Darlene. I just loved the chocolate cake, you just want to dive right in! Having tried this kind of cake, or snack or whatever you call it, I'd say that this would be totally yummy but you'd only need a tiny piece! Chopped up digestive biscuits with nuts and raisins, all held together with a magical mixture of chocolate, golden syrup and butter. Yum!

And one of these days I'll try and get into chef James Foran's chocolate class so I can master the art of chocolate!

I found the other wedding cake a little more over the top and its not really my style, all the fussy piping and jumble of flowers, but very well executed, and so grand for such a great occasion. I wouldnt say no to a piece of fruit cake, I hope this tradition comes back into fashion. Since it lasts for years, you can decorate it at your leisure once it is 'fed' with alcohol and enrobed in marzipan and rolled icing.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Friday, I'm trying not to be jealous of my friends across the pond who are embarking on their second four day weekend in a row!

More pics here:

Brummie Wedding Cake!

What a crazy and fun experience it was making and decorating a cake for my friend in my home country! It was a considerable risk, since I dont know the ingredients, wasnt exactly sure of the location that I would be working in, and I had serious doubts about my ability to pull it off.

Thankfully it all turned out well, my lovely patient long suffering Mum was my sous chef, she also found me a huge and wonderful kitchen, with tons of space, great ovens, a giant
mixer, and a very helpful manager who found us whatever we needed!

We were actually working in the Masonic Lodge's kitchen. I dont know much about what goes on but I do know that they love their meat! The chef was preparing masses of devilled kidneys for a function the following day, and they also made some heavenly smelling steak and kidney pies. I guess that funny handshaking needs a lot of protein for fortification!

Mum was completely amazed by the amount of ingredients we needed as I swept a whole shelf of chocolate from the display at Asda. I normally use callebut chocolate but didnt come across any, so I used a combination of cadbury and green and blacks chocolate with a little galaxy mixed in there.

We got to work on the first day, baked all the cakes in sheets, wrapped them up and then prepared the ganaches. I made a mixture of white and milk chocolate ganaches. These were an excellent complement to a dark mud cake(the bottom tier) and a solid chocolate cake(the top two cakes). We also had to make gallons of chocolate ganache to use as a covering. I'd decided this was going to be the most elegant presentation, and I didnt want to work with new fondant, or worry about buttercream melting.

The next day we came back and cut the cakes to size, then stacked four layers of cake filled with three layers of filling. I carefully measured the cake to ensure it was completely straight, then cut to eliminate any high spots. This is extremely important to produce a neat uniform cake, with a square there are more angles to compare, so just a little bit of a wrong angle looks terrible.

I then crumb coated each cake with a layer of ganache. It was so cold that day that I needed to work very quickly, the ganache started setting almost as soon as I started working! I followed that with another two layers to try and get a smooth finish. This was the trickiest part. I used a bench scraper to get a nice clean line, not as clean as I'd have liked, since the ganache kept setting so quickly, but I had to remember the famous quote 'dont let the perfect be the enemy of the good' which is turning into my mantra.

I stacked all the cakes with plenty of support, then added a fondant ribbon. We heaved a heavy sigh of relief once the behemoth was in the fridge, and went home for a much needed rest!

There were plenty of offcuts of cake left, so I took some home with the chocolate ganache around to my friend's house for dessert and I could tell we'd made a good cake when complete silcence descended upon us until we'd cleared our plates!

The wedding was at the beautiful Highbury Hall, somewhere I'd probably been past a million times but never set foot in! We set the cake up on a dramatic pewter stand and it started to really take shape.



I added the characters and some flowers and it looked great, if a little odd! I'd made all the requested characters, robot, monkey, dinosaur, giraffe, cat and some ninjas, and I decided it would be fun to have two of them as the couple, so added a bow tie to the robot and a little veil to the giraffe.

I also took the other side of the cake as a different perspective and added some sugar flowers that I'd copied from some very blurry pictures of the brides dress.



Everyone was extremely excited by the cake, and it was really fun being able to be a part of my dear friend's day. I did have a little worry, the cake was placed in front of a giant radiator, and I think the insides were a little melty by the time it was served. Thankfully the ganache stood up well to the heat, I dont think buttercream would have survived.



I took the remainder of the ganache and diluted it with cream to make a delicious pouring sauce.



As always with these kind of events, I'll raise a glass (or a cup of tea) to the happy couple, Em and Daz. They were just glowing that day, and I'm so glad that they've found each other, they complement each other perfectly.


The speeches were wonderful, there was so much love in the room for them and support for their union it was really touching. As they return from their honeymoon, I hope they will look back on their day with as much happiness as I do.

A very special day

I was very honored to be a part of a really wonderful wedding recently. I love weddings anyway, but this was so much fun. The day was really all about the couple, their family and friends and the love that they had for each other. It was very personal and the guests were having a whale of a time. Being on an incredible property in the beautiful Rancho Santa Fe area didnt hurt either!
Here I am with the cake!




















The details were totally adorable, like these little succulent place cards/favors.







Delicious barbecue was served, and it reminded me of a recent NYT article about the backyard bbq being totally where its at these days
I also made my first proper wedding cake! As an amateur I got to really enjoy the process, have fun with the couple, go through lots of tastings and iterations of designs and come to what I hope was a great conclusion on their special day. I recently bought Martha Stewarts book on weddings, and her advice to try making the entire cake for a practice run is a good idea. I found a very nice girl who wanted a birthday cake, so it was good to try a 3 tier cake.







I definitely pushed my boundaries, doing a square cake was a little tricky, but I'm glad they insisted as it came out super cute.













I helped out with some goodies for their out of town guests, they were treated to a home made recycled bag containing some water, fruit, chocolate chip cookies, caramels and fruit and nut bars. As per the bride's wishes I managed to find some biodegradable bags for the snacks from clearbags.






On the wedding day itself, I brought a big jar of caramels, three types of cupcakes, and a square 3 tier wedding cake, which the couple asked to be off center.

The cake was carrot cake on the bottom and 'almond joy' on the top two tiers, a delicious fudge chocolate cake, filled with a layer of coconut mixed with cream cheese frosting, and a layer of chocolate ganache with almonds. mmmm! The cake was covered in fondant and decorated with the couples colors of choice, and topped with their hand made likeness, very cute.


I also made 3 flavors of cupcakes, 'sexy vegan' from Vegan Cupcakes takes over the world, banana choc chip with caramel and cream cheese frosting, and a lovely light 'berrylicious' cupcake with berry buttercream.













The cakes looked wonderful on the table, and the guests all seemed very excited! So my first wedding experience was a fantastic one!


For any other amateurs thinking of trying this kind of thing, I'd recommend giving yourself plenty of time, if you're planning on doing a tiered cake, make sure to have all the cakes ready and crumb coated at least the night before and thoroughly chilled before you cover in fondant. Cardboard isnt strong enough as a base, use poster board or something similar(and food safe) between the layers and use a proper dowel (available from michaels) for support.