Beautiful Wedding Cakes

I have been setting up some projects for a new (ish) client and I just have to share. Kellie Bryson and her team at The Bake Shoppe designed these gorgeous wedding cakes. I know she won’t mind, so enjoy the eye candy. You can view the complete gallery here.

The Bake Shoppe is located in Nashville in one of the coolest rehabed buildings around. Kellie and her husband, Jerry Bryson spent over a year creating this unique space. It now houses not only The Bake Shoppe and A Catered Affair but still had plenty of room to hold events on both the main floor and the dreamy roof top. Called simply Events at 1418, it is a perfect space to showcase their work. As a former cake designer myself, I must say that my favorite part is that the decorating station has it’s own, huge window overlooking the street scene beyond. Cool.

Another Stunning Wedding Cake

When I first started in the wedding industry there were only 3 or 4 people in NashVegas doing wedding cakes; and only one that truly excelled: Leland Riggins. From the very beginning, her cakes were the gold standard, the best in town and they still are.

Leland’s company, Dessert Designs has the most amazing buttercream I have ever tasted. I remember one of my decorator and my baker and I would get slices of her cake and sit around the shop trying to analyze it. We did this for years and never got anywhere. The flavor is heavenly; it makes incredible flowers and because it is meringue based it has the prettiest sheen I have ever seen. Quite honestly, I have still not seen anything like it. No, it’s not Italian or Swiss meringue, I tried that.

Pink and white rose covered wedding cake

Her cakes have an over all “Sylvia Weinstock” look to them, but since the floral is all buttercream they cut and serve like a dream.

Leland said it took nearly a month to pipe all the roses for this cake. I believe it. Take a minute and enjoy the cake gallery and take a look at her flavor list. If you are salivating by this time you can order from her online store. WARNING: The chocolate truffle cake is the deepest, darkest, richest thing you will ever put in your mouth. It borders on sensory overload.

She Takes The Cake

One of the things you rarely see me post about are wedding cakes. I think it is because when I stopped doing them I needed a complete break. Lately they have started seeping into my life again.

Rather than dive back into the madness of baking and designing again I thought I would start a semi regular feature showcasing some of the best designer out there.

soft pink and green tower wedding cake by She Takes the Cake

First up, Jen of She Takes the Cake. I have been following Jen’s tweets and this girl thinks like me. Her cakes are simply stunning. This soft pink and green tower is particularly lovely.

You can view Jen’s gallery here or her Flickr photostream here. If you really want to get an inside look at the world of a cake designer, read her blog. Maybe then you can understand a) why wedding cakes are so expensive and b) why after 20 years I stepped away from the turntable.

Wedding Cake Topper to Make You Go awwwwwwwwwwwwww

As a former cake decorator I have never been too keen on cake toppers. Most of the one I have seen are tacky. Then of course there are the new breed that are just offensive. I always tended to lean toward using sugar sculptures to match the rest of the artwork on the cake. But this one just makes me go awwww. I would actually use this. In fact now I want to design a cake to go with it.

Let’s see. 3 tiers in fondant with classic curved top edges. Make the fondant on the base tier the faintest robin’s egg blue, fade the middle tier down to almost white and make the top tier a pure white to match the birds. For a base border, in a dark straw/light tan combination pipe random woven bits with maybe a number 4 round tip to resemble a band of birds nest. Do a board to match in just the next shade darker robin’s egg blue and add maybe a tuft of grass or a two as an accent on the base.

Inside, hmmmm…oh I know! The vanilla pudding pound cake I used to make with a passion fruit ganache filling; add a touch of Le Grande Passion liquor to the soak and the butter cream base coat. Oh drool. Love it. Almost makes me want to bake again!

DIY Cake Stands

A pet peeve of mine is seeing a beautiful wedding cake sitting on an ugly cake base. Oh come on, you’ve seen it: a board covered in aluminum foil that some poor florist has had to try to hide with greenery. Yuck Oh!

Well not any more! Martha has come to the rescue with a fast easy solution that you can do yourself and just take to your cake designer to use on your cake. You can find all the details here. I do have one caveat: add an additional foot in the canter of the stand. Wedding cakes are very heavy and if that board bows at all it can destroy your cake. Been there done that—been scrambling to find something to support the center of a sterling silver cake stand. Thank God for chefs that love me!

You have just got to love the people at MS Weddings; they come up with the best ideas

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