Connie Di Tommaso's Cake Featured on the Cover of ACD Magazine's December Issue!

I received my issue of American Cake Decorating Magazine (also known as ACD) today and was ecstatic to see Connie Di Tammaso's cake on the front cover. Connie is an extraordinary cake artist who is a member of the NYC Cake Decorators Meetup and Assistant Organizer at the Dutchess County Cake Decorators Meetup. Her poinsettia ornament cake is simply stunning! Congratulations, Connie!

Dina
Organizer

Want to Be on Top? Hints that can make your Cake Show Entry a Winner in 2009!

Entry at 140th Annual Salon of Culinary Art, Jacob Javits Center, NYC. The designer is unknown.

Diane Shavkin is a cake artist, vendor of cake decorating and sugar art supplies, instructor at ICES Cake Camp. and has served as a judge. Shirl Chouinard is a fine artist, sugar artist, and blogger known as Tip Top 57 on cake central. With cake shows just around the corner Diane and Shirl have offered some suggestions to consider when preparing to enter your next cake show:

• Diane's tip is that the focus should be on neatness, precision, and color balance.
  
• The eye follows color. In a tiered cake, for example, the eye should start at the bottom of the tiered cake and must go all the way up to the top and whoooooop- up and off to the air above.
• The cake board is very important. The cake board must compliment the cake. The basic "rule of thumb" that Diane uses is that the board should be 2" to 4" from the cake to the outer edge of the board. Consider what looks good to the eye in your decision to cover the board with fondant, a plain design (or no design) or a design on the base board covering. Diane suggests that the board should be thick enough so that a nice ribbon - a ribbon which compliments the cake display - can be glued to the rim of the cake board.
• Be sure that the ribbon used on the rim of the cake board lays perfectly flat. Therefore, be careful in your application of glue, just putting a dab of glue here and there around the rim of the board. Make sure the ribbon ends are tucked in seamlessly--frayed ends will cost you points.

When judges evaluate entries on the categories "use of color" and "artistic expression" - what exactly does that mean????

Shirl Chouinard is a fine artist and sugar artist who strongly believes that if you can match a pair of pants, top, shoes, purse, and jewelry with an understanding of what colors look best on you, then you can master color. Shirl suggests that you purchase a color wheel (which can be purchased at any art supply store) and then follow the tutorial at writedesign.com, which has an easy to understand discussion on color theory. Here are some more tips:

• Artistic expression refers to how you designed your cake: How well does your cake design fit with the theme? Did you copy someone's design or adapted someone's design? Did you create the design on your own? Did you follow age old practices using the correct techniques with tips and molds or did you become innovative and try something new?
  
• Artistic design is a critical thinking skill. Shirl suggests that you start looking at cakes and figure out what you like about them and what you don't like about them and write your thoughts down in a notebook with a picture of the cake. Then start taking the items you like and try designing your own cakes from scratch. You will see your own style emerging over time.
  
• Thinking of artistic expression and style: Alan Dunn's signature cakes are decorated with magnificent flowers, one or two (separed tiers) and usually white; Margaret Braun uses rich colors and stacks her tiers and they are very ornate with a Rococo flair to them; Debbie Brown models her cakes, etc.

Need more information? Earlene Moore has a great article chock full of hints at www.earlenemoore.com. Good Luck!

Wine Bottle Cake Tutorial

Cake designed by Brenda, owner, Brenda's Dream Cakes

Brenda, owner, Brenda's Dream Cakes, is a fabulous cake designer and member of NYC Cake Decorators. Her wine bottle cake is just the right kind of bubbly for your New Year's Celebration.

Use a heavy firm recipe like pound cake for the bottle. Use 3 empty vegetable cans. Coat 2 of the cans very well with a non-stick spray and fill 3/4 of the way to the top. For the top of the bottle, use a heavy aluminum foil to get a mold of a real bottle, then fill the mold 3/4 of the way with batter and let it rest inside the 3rd can. Make sure you spray the inside of the foil first so the cake will pop out.

After the cake is baked, remove carefully, cover with plastic immediately, and pop the pieces in the freezer until frozen solid. After they are frozen, trim the 2 main pieces to make the body of the bottle. Brenda used to use a skewer through the center but she recently decided it's not totally necessary. Coat thinly with buttercream. Add the top piece being VERY VERY careful. After coating with buttercream completely, freeze solid again. Even when frozen, the tip will be fragile. Remove from freezer and smooth out rough edges.

Prepare your fondant and trim to the correct size by molding over a real wine bottle. Quickly move the fondant to the bottle cake. Move the bottle to the base cake carefully. Brenda prefers to use drape-type fondant to look like fabric that the bottle is resting on, but she has used shaved white chocolate and shaved coconut to surround the bottle as well which looks like packing material. You will need to carve a space out of your base cake so the bottle can sit into it.

To color the bottle: Burgundy and brown food coloring gel with just a touch of almond extract. Paint this on the bottle VERY VERY thickly and evenly with ONLY downward strokes until you get the glassy appearance. This will take at least a day to dry.

Brenda paints her bottle cake after it's sitting in place on the main base. If you do this, be very very very careful to not get any coloring on the light fondant "fabric". You'll regret it.

Brenda uses a fondant/gumpaste mix for the very top "foil" of the bottle. Mold this a day in advance and let dry on the real bottle. You will have to trim the top of the cake to get it to fit and be very careful to leave an opening on the fondant so you can get it off the top of the real bottle without cracking. Paint with gold highlighter.

Brenda cuts out her main label a day in advance also and lets it dry on a real bottle. Design the label as you wish. Brenda usually takes gets inspired from real wine labels.

Sides of box that look like wood are cut the night before and left to dry before placed on cake. Score with a toothpick then paint with a thin ivory/brown gel coloring until look of wood is achieved.

Happy Baking!

I Dream of Buttercream

Now that you've piped that last border and arranged that last gumpaste spray, it's time to relax and pamper yourself with products that smell good enough to eat. Thoughts of chocolate orange body bar, pink sugar body splash, buttercream frosting lotion, birthday cake bath & shower syrup, cupcake infused bath salts, and delicious brownie soaps come immediately to my mind. Or why not a luxurious chocolate facial? All these decadent goodies can be found at A Scentimental Journey--Staten Island, New York's best kept secret. Located in historic Stapleton Heights, this home-spun Victorian inspired perfumery creates custom fragrances and has an entire line of bakery/pastry scented products that are beautifully presented and heavenly to smell. Why not ask Carmen, owner, to create your own signature fragrance so where ever you go, people think "cake"? Too far away to visit this little gem? You can also order Carmen's goodies online.

Have Your Bling and Eat it Too!

How about ringing in the New Year with your own $1,000.00 edible "bar of gold" cake? An over the top dessert served at the Kempinski Hotels in Istanbul, Turkey, it takes 72 hours to make the edible brick of gold, which is available by special request for weddings. Spiked with apricots, pears, quince and figs that have been marinating in Jamaican rum for two years (yes, I did say two years), and flavored with shaved caramelized black truffles, this 24-carat gold leaf-covered cake is presented in a sterling silver handcrafted cake box with a golden seal. Now that's having your bling and eating it too!

One of the most gorgeous and most expensive cakes on the planet is the diamond studded fruit cake, which was showcased at the Takashimaya Department Store in Tokyo, Japan. Painstakingly designed and created by Tokyo pastry chef Jeong Hong-Yong, the fruit cake was bejeweled with 223 diamonds with a price tag of approximately $1.65 million U.S. dollars.

Nahid La Patisserie Artistique

The world’s most expensive cake was unveiled in 2006 at the Luxury Bridal Show on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. This glitzy wedding confection was created by cake designers Nahid La Patisserie Artistique along with jewelers Mimi So.

The cake, artfully bejeweled with priceless gems, wasn’t meant to be eaten—or even touched. In fact, during the show, the cake had its own "body" guards. So how much was the most expensive wedding cake in the world? The diamond-studded masterpiece was said to be worth $20 million U.S. dollars!

Probably one of the most expensive chocolate cakes in the world, this 14 inch tall cake was artfully decorated with 50 diamonds. The decadent chocolate confection was displayed in a department store in Osaka, Japan and the selling price was reportedly one billion Yen or approximately $8M US dollars.

Photo courtesy of Marco Soriano

One of the most fashion forward cakes is Gregory Paul Soriano's tribute to Louis Vuitton, which is a decidedly artsy take on bling.

Photograph courtsy of Loneman Photography

We cake designers can create our own edible bling masterpieces with pre-made edible diamonds from Fancy Flours , edible pearls from Country Kitchen Sweet Art, or by making our own food safe molds for edible cake jewelry.

Happy Kwanzaa!

African wedding cake designed by Soni, Botswana, Africa

African-Americans, from every phase of life in the United States, have been celebrating Kwanzaa since 1965. Founded by Professor Maulana Karenga, Kwanzaa is celebrated from December 26 to January 1. It is a warm, social, time where people gather to reinforce each other's spirit and friendship, and promote the seven basic principles honored during this holiday.

Today is the second day of Kwanzaa - Kujichagulia, which is a Swahili word for self-determination. In obervation of this principle, we are highlighting several African-American cake designers located in the New York City area. The first on our list is the fabulous Charmaine Jones, owner of Cakediva. The NYC Cake Decorators Meetup has been honored to meet and network with Charmaine Jones at the Wedding Cafe Bridal Lounge, her stunning shared space, located at 16 East 38th Street in the tony Murray Hill section of Manhattan.

Charmaine is the cake decorator to the stars and her prestigious client list includes, but is not limited to, Beyonce, Geraldo Rivera, Michael Jordan, Jay Leno, Susan Sarandon, Erykah Badu, Fat Joe, NBC, MTV, and Queen Latifah's mom. Cakediva's designs are featured in several books including "Jumping The Broom" and "Victoria's Romantic Weddings", and she has had numerous photo spreads in several well-known magazines. Did you know that Charmaine was the first noted cake designer to create and specialize in afrocentric and ethnic special occasion and wedding cakes? Charmaine, a formal model with a Master's Degree in Art, turned fabulous Cake Diva, is a warm, down to earth person who has a fascinating story to tell about her journey to fame in the world of celebrity cake design. Her main retail space is in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Cake Man Raven Confectionery is located in the heart of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, NY. The confectionery is not just a bakery but a specialized facility that caters for major events all over the world. Some of the items may include cupcakes, brownies, cookies, pies, pineapple cakes and 9 inch to 12 inch standard red velvet cakes to celebrity cakes. Wedding cakes are in season all year long. Cake man has been a challenger on Food TV Network Cake Challenge and recently on an espisode of Bobby Flay's Throw Down.

Cake Man Raven's signature red velvet cake is legendary in New York City. In fact, it's not unusual to see lines wrapped around the block for the Cake Man's tasty creations, and tales of folks waiting for hours for a sniff of warm, sweet cake by the Cake Man, are stuff to dream on. Cake Man's Confectionary is a "must see" on your next visit to Brooklyn. And for those foodies who can't wait to taste his red velvet cake, Cake Man Raven's red velvet cake recipe can be downloaded from his website.

When she was a young girl, Regina McRae used to sit in her Grandma's kitchen and listen to her hum Gospel music as she baked. As she smelled the yeast in the rising breads, and the cinnamon and butter in the pies, Regina would be filled with a warm feeling of peace, contentment and love of family and baking. In 1995, Regina opened Grandma's Secrets with $10.00 and 8 pies. Grandma's Secrets not only delivers a variety of desserts throughout the New York City area but also holds workshops and classes in cake decorating and sugar art.