Clever All Occasion Cakes

Now that the days are getting warmer, wouldn't you like to wake up to a cold bowl of cereal? Well, this looks like a bowl of cereal but it's really a cake cleverly designed by Temika one of NYC Cake Decorators Meetup's newest members.

Pretty in Pinks!

Photo courtesy of Cathy Cook

Everyone who knows me, knows I absolutely love flowers, and when I saw this beautiful floral cake made by member Cathy Cook, I just had to share it with you.

Cathy is a multi-talented sugar artist and prop stylist who has styled both Magnolia Cookbooks, the second edition of the Buttercup Cookbook, and a milkshake cookbook which will be published late spring. Check out Cathy's website at CathyCook.com

Enjoy!

Dina

Happy Father's Day!

Cupcake designed and decorated by Annette, Ladybugluggage.

It's been raining and cool the past few days in the New York City area but we can dream can't we? Member Annette, Ladybugluggage, creates the most fabulous cupcakes and she outdid herself with a series of cupcakes paying homage to dads and dads-to-be.

NYC Cake Decorators Sugar Art Show

Silvinia won the Grand Prize and $100.00 for her Corpse Bride Cake. The figures are not store bought but were painstakingly handcrafted by Silvinia.

Noelle won 1st Place Beginner Level and $25.00 for this beautiful cake.


Mary won 1st Place Intermediate Level and $25.00 for her stunning hydrangeas and roses wedding cake.

NYC Cake Decorators first Sugar Art Show, was open to members only. The purpose of the show was to give members an opportunity to push themselves to the next level and get feedback on their design in a helpful and supportive environment. The members are very talented as demonstrated by all the beautiful cakes entered into the show. Special thanks to our judges:
Chef Marc Matthias, Ximena Sempertergui , Isabel Sanchez, and Helen Murphy.

2009 Day of Sharing

Isabel kicked off the Day of Sharing with a demo of her adorable rice krispy treat sculptures. Isa is a master at using this medium to create cartoon figures. When she is not baking beautiful looking and tasting cakes and creating rice krispy treat figures, she is a clown at kids parties.



NYC Cake Decorators Meetup was truly honored to have Chef Toba Garrett teach her Brush Embroidery Class at our second Day of Sharing.

What a beautiful "embroidered" flower made by one of our members during Chef Toba's class!

Ximena Sempertequi flew in from Miami, Florida to teach our 3D baby and bear class. Ximena is a fabulous instructor as demonstrated by the sweet babies created by members who were lucky enough to take her class.

Carmen Jurjo is a talented cake designer and vendor. Here she is showing Shauna how to create a sweet gumpaste purse.

Vendor Ximena's gumpaste shoes and onesie.

Vendor Ximena's sweet baby in peapod

Ximena sold molds for the 3D baby, peapod babies, baby shoes, onesies, fairies, baby shoes, and also brought in some very interesting sugarcraft magazines from Argentina. Vendor Carmen Jurjo also had a large supply of cutters, pattern embossed rolling pins, and formers. I personally went absolutely crazy shopping and purchased and assortment of molds, cutters, and an issue of Utilisima Especial Tortas: Decoracion Paso A Paso. I'm not fluent in Spanish but the magazine does show everything "paso a paso" step by step, and I fell in love with several cute figurines and special Latin American techniques I want to learn.

Dina
Organizer

June 2009 Cake of The Month

Denise is a talented cake designer who absolutely loves to create beautiful and fun cakes. Her towering wedding cake is just the cake to kick off June --wedding cake month!

Dina's Kissing Couple Bas Relief Tutorial

Bas Relief is a favorite technique of mine. This particular kissing couple design is from a book by Kate Venter, Sugar Decorating Filigree, Flowers, & Flooding. Venter used a color flow technique, whereas, I decided to try bas relief. For starters, cover an 8" x 10" board with light blue or light green fondant and let dry. Then trace the kissing couple design with a #2 pencil and cut out.

Using your tracing paper cut-out as a guide, cut out the kissing couple in fondant. Affix on the fondant board with water, gum glue, or egg white. Best to color all your fondant now according to the colors you wish to use for the couple. When working on the sugar art, water, gum glue or egg white is used to attach the fondant.


In bas relief, you must remember to complete the parts of the drawing that are behind other parts of the drawing first. Thus the girl is finished in the following order: socks which are inside the shoes are made first, then the shoe in the background, the shoe in the foreground, the dress, the apron, the apron strings, the arm, and then the hand. (Work on the boy next, since the girl's bonnet is the last piece of clothing to be completed).

Close up view of the bas relief kissing couple.

Close up look at how the hands are created. Use a cell stick to open up the wrist of the figure and dampen with water, egg white or gum glue and attach the hand.

Next, work on the boy's clothing. First the left shoe in the background, then the right shoe in the foreground. Take bits of fondant and place on the legs to simulate thigh and calf muscles. Roll out a bit of dark blue fondant for the boy's pants, and using your tracing cut-out as a guide (leaving a little extra around the edges) cut out the pants. Apply carefully over the figure tucking in with your gumpaste tool and discarding excess fondant with a sharp knife.

Complete the boy's shirt using the same technique. Attach a small bit of fondant on the stomach area. Then cut out the shirt, dampen the area with water, egg white, or gum glue and apply carefully. Make the boy's arm. Insert a cell stick inside the wrist to make an opening for the hand. Apply a small amount of water, egg white or gum glue and insert hand. Put a small piece of fiber fill or tissue under the hand until firm. Use an extruder for the boy's shirt collar, tie, and hair. To complete the girl's bonnet, attach small bits of fondant on the edge of the bonnet (the rounded section which cradles the back of the girl's head). Again using your traced cut-out, cut out a piece of fondant slightly larger than the bonnet and attach to the figure. Extrude strings with an extruder.

Take a small piece of white fondant and using a cell stick, needle tool, or friller, ruffle the fondant. Attach to the bonnet with water, egg white or gum glue. Be sure the bonnet covers the boy's face as in the drawing.

Closer view of the kissing couple. A small amount of grass was extruded through a clay gun to make grass.


Now comes the dusting. Apply petal dust to form shadows on the figures. You can shine the couple's shoes by dipping an artist's brush in confectioner's glaze and brushing the shoes. This scene is rather plain. Be daring and more creative with your background. After you're done you can protect your art work in a neat little shadow box like the one I purchased at Michael's Craft Store. Enjoy!

Great Cake Flavors!

Pineapple Coconut Cake, oh my! Pineapple and coconut are great flavors for your cakes. This recipe is courtesy of Silma.

Golden Pineapple Coconut Cake

1 stick butter
2 c. flour
2 c. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. milk
4 eggs
16 oz. can crushed pineapple (in its own juice)
1 c. sugar
juice of 1/4 lemon
3 tab. cornstarch
2 c. flaked coconut

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Sift flour with salt and baking powder. Add 1/3 of this dry mixture to butter and beat to incorporate. Add half the milk, beat well. Then add another 1/3 of the dry mixture, then rest of milk, then the last 1/3 of the dry mixture, beating after each addition. Add eggs one at a time, then vanilla. Pour into 2 greased 10" cake pans. Bake 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean.

Rock-a-Bye Fondant Baby 'n Bear Figures

Baby 'n bear were created by Dina, Sugar Designs NYC

Ever since I learned that Ximena Sempertegui will be teaching how to create a fondant baby 'n bear at our June 7th Day of Sharing, I've been itching to try a mold set I purchased on a whim several months ago. I had some left over fondant from another project and after several attempts, I ended up with the sugarpaste baby pictured above. I used a liner art brush to highlight some of the facial details and cut the hat, shirt, and blankets and fitted directly on the doll. The cap texture was achieved with a nifty rolling pin I purchased from Diane Shavkin at her 3D Fondant Doll class last Sunday. The baby's cheeks were lightly dusted with pink petal dust and a round artist's brush. The teddy bear was made following Lorraine McKay's (Aine2) tutorial. It's still a bit rough but not too bad, huh? I can't wait to meet Ximena and learn her tips and hints of creating these sweet baby figurines.

Dina