A Sweet Life Cakery

Casino Royale Bar Mitzvah

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:42:00 +0000

Ok, so Nicholas had a huge bash this weekend. He happens to be the son of Ralph Giordano from Giordano's Floral Creations. My sister is the manager at this floral shop and is so amazingly talented, it blows my mind.

The cake created for this event was OVER THREE FEET TALL!!! Whoot-Whoot, Nicholas had a blast at his party and was blown away by the cake because he didn't expect this type of cake. Dad told me to just do a couple of dice but I couldn't do such a simple cake when I really was given such full freedom to go crazy with my design. Here is a picture of the cake:

So this was a multi-tiered cake. The bottom was a poker table, the next tier was a roulette table, the next four tiers were staggered and topsy turvey poker chips, followed by two dice. The cake had lights that were flashing, fondant poker chips and playing cards. It was a mammoth cake but it came out really cool. I have to give credit also to my trusty assistant, Amy, who is such a big help. It's awesome having a second pair of hands to help, especially on such a big project cake.

When you entered the room, it was set up like a Casino Lounge with playing tables and sofas and the perfect lighting. As you entered the ballroom, the place just blew the minds of the guests. There were stations of flowers which were hands down show stoppers. I will post these pictures soon! I can't say enough how talented my sister is. She is an amazing floral designer who has such vision with flowers.

Keeping busy at A Sweet Life Cakery

Tue, 10 May 2011 21:19:00 +0000

It's been quite busy at A Sweet Life Cakery. Between cake orders, wedding shows and getting ready for a fantastic full page ad in The Knot magazine and getting photos ready, it's been hard to keep up. My trusty assistants Amy and Arielle are really such a help and help me keep my focus.

Here are a couple of pictures from the recent show we did in West Palm Beach at the Marriott.

That's me behind our table showing off our fancy Chocolate Cupcakes with Blue Icing and sugar flowers.

We all worked so hard putting our show together. This is my assistant Amy who was such a big help getting the show together.

My other trusted assistant, and daughter, Arielle. She's always such a big help to me and keeps me organized. She's great at letting me know when something needs to be adjusted on my cakes and she has an amazing talent for taking photos.

We had an amazing show and the displays came out really nice. Of course I have to give credit to my amazing sister, Sarah, from Giordano's Floral Creations who made really beautiful flowers for the cakes and table.

Everything turned out amazing and I had fantastic feedback. Everyone kept saying my cakes were the best tasting there. It's always my goal to make cakes that look and taste great.

Can't wait for The Perfect Wedding Guide's next show in October!

Treasure Coast Cake Club

Sun, 24 Oct 2010 13:19:00 +0000

Please see the forum page on this web site. We are making strides toward getting a Cake Club up and running on the Teasure Coast which may include video conferencing if I can figure out how to make the program work for that.

There is so much going on in the world of cake and sugar art. The goal of the Treasure Coast Cake Club will be to meet with other cake junkies to have a fun time, meet up with eachother and share tips related to the art of sugar. Other ideas would be to put on a cake type show on the Treasure Coast no matter what your age or level of talent is.

Please send an email if you are interested: asweetlifecakery@aol.com

Have Cake, Will Travel

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 22:40:00 +0000

I recently had the opportunity to make a wedding cake for Tara & Ganett's wedding. The only thing is I am in Florida and they are in Minnesota. Tara is a cousin so I had to volunteer to make the cake when I heard she was getting hitched. Little did I know what was involved in taking a cake from Florida and flying with it to another state. I'm sure I'm not the first and certainly not the last to do this but the key is to really plan well.

As the months and weeks got closer to the wedding date, I made a list of every item I thought I needed to take with me to create the cake. First and foremost I had to know what type of cake, filling and what the outside was going to be iced with. I layed out every item as if I were going to create the cake and make sure I didn't forget one thing....but of course I forgot a thing or two.

The week before the wedding, I baked all the cakes and froze them solid. I thought about doing the outside in buttercream but that was not going to work because the mixer I was using in MN was smaller than I am accustomed to which meant I would have to make it in multiple batches. There was no way to guarantee the color would be uniform. So, fondant was my choice for the outside of the cake.

I made a point to have some items shipped from my supplier to MN before I got there. The package arrived the same day I did. I had half the cake packed in an insulated box and the rest went with me on the airplane as my carry-on. Thank GOD the security guy had a sense of humor as I explained I had a wedding cake to make in Minnesota. I told him he could pass it through the x-ray machine but if it came out on the other side with a bite missing I knew it was him who did it. He just laughed and let me go through. On to the airplane we went and it was tucked with care under the seat in front of me.

Our flight from Florida to Atlanta was fine but we had to change planes and got a little lost in the concourse. All along I had the cakes in my tote which were starting to thaw so I was a little worried. We made it to the connecting flight just in time and back under the seat the cakes went.

Finally, we arrived at MSP (Minneapolis/St. Paul) and the cakes made it through baggage claim and the cakes in the tote made it in one piece ((((sigh of relief)))))!!! Off we went to the van rental and drove to our destination in the Andover/Ham Lake area. I was pooped by this point but still had lots to do.

First thing Thursday morning at 5:00 a.m. I was up coloring 20 lbs. of fondant a jewel tone green. It took me a good hour or more to do all of the batch and make it uniform. After I had to make 4 batches of buttercream in a 4.5 qt mixer. and mousse to fill the cakes. I started icing the cakes and chilling them all but realized we were going to run out of fridge space. I iced and froze the largest cake and would take it out the next day early to work on it. I was up until about midnight and finally had to call it a night as I could not keep my eyes open.

Friday morning about 4:00 a.m. I woke up to take the cakes out and get cranking on them. As luck would have it, a cold front came through which meant the garage was so cold it was like a walk-in fridge. My lovely cousin's husband, Chris set up a table for me to line up the cakes since it was nice and cold out. While everyone was buzzing around getting ready for the wedding, I was feverishly working on the scroll work on the cake. Finally by about 2:00 p.m. the cake was done and ready to be delivered to the country club. The cake weighed a ton but with a helping hand from Chris, we were able to bring it into the reception room and get it set up.

I flew back to the house to clean up and get dolled up for the wedding and made it back just in time to take pictures with the family and enjoy the rest of the trip. The cake came out beautiful with the help of my wonderful sister Sarah who is a florist. She added the flowers were just really completed the entire look of the cake.

This is Tara & Ganett's cake:

Mental Break - Play Time with Cake

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 23:45:00 +0000

I can't stop talking about the amazing past few days I have spent learning from such amazing talent. Every now and then I need a mental break and have to take time away from everything and everyone so I can regroup my thoughts and revitalize my inspiration. I spent the past three days, Friday through Sunday in Orlando at a continuing education class with Marina Sousa. Those of you familiar with Marina's work know she has been on several Food Network Challenges and has held her own earning the top prize for her stunning cakes. This long weekend was everything expected and more.

I know many people have asked how I learn to do the cakes that I create. While it is true I have a degree in culinary arts, to specialize in cakes is no easy feat because you have to be able to make your vision come to reality in cake. It's an art really. Pick your medium; mine is cake. Don't get me wrong, I love pastries and I am a bread freak too but cake is definitely my medium of choice. Well before I attended culinary school I created cakes. Culinary school was the icing on the cake so to speak. It enabled me to learn from talented chefs. What I gained was invaluable. My thing is that I like to know about the details and inner working of the business and how ingredients function so I can maximize how to apply them. I learned these things while in culinary school. Once I graduated, it was a whole different story. I realized that pastry artists and cake designers are not always so ready to give advice and pointers. Some designers are almost protective of their tips and tricks as if someone is going to clone their art. When it comes down to it, no matter how we try, each person has a style to their designing cakes, almost like a finger print. A cake I create even if using a design someone brings to me will always turn out different because it is like a signature, no one will do it exactly the same. So, long story short, I continue to take classes to improve my skills and gleen something from other artists perspectives. It helps me keep my inspiration fresh. The best advice I can give is never stop learning. If you can take at least one thing from what you learn from another person, you have gained so very much.

This past weekend was certainly no exception to my advice above. As soon as I saw Marina's name on the list of coming classes, I was quick to sign up. She is very down to earth, funny and certainly a humble soul. She had no problem offering advice and pointers. I think alot of us in the class probably wore her out with our questions, how-to's and of course questions about how she dealt with the pressure of time while doing cake challenges on the Food Network. I really enjoyed the time we had in class. She is talented and very humble about her skills.

The following are some photos of what we did in class. This took place at Chef Ewald Notter's School of Pastry Arts in Orlando. If you have not been there or are interested, look them up on the web. You will not be dissapointed in their professionalism and the amazing talent you learn from.

Thanks again of course to Chef Notter for offering such brilliant classes, to the helpful staff and students who cleaned up after our crazy mess and of course Marina Sousa for sharing your insight and inspiration.

Below is a photo of Marina and I in front of the cake I created. The cake was inspired from the colors of clothing designer, Lilly Pulitzer. Marina will probably forget my first name but she will remember me as Lilly for the cake design. (LOL, inside joke) I had a hard time at first coming up with the design but sat on my lunch break and used crayons and colored pencils to draw out the design concept which I tweeked from her master design for the class. She had no problem with all of us adding our own special touches to our cakes.

Below is yet another familiar face from former Food Network Challenges. He is an extremely talented chef.

Below is another photo of my cake design. I had a crazy fun time creating it. It was tiring, however. Can't wait until the next class I can take. It's not easy work but it's a mental release for me without a doubt.

Brent's Wish

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 22:50:00 +0000

Part of the reason I love doing cakes is that it brings joy to someone else. Who ever heard of someone being sad at receiving a cool cake. While this blog is a little delayed, I didn't want to fail posting it.

In March I had the pleasure of creating a cake for a special person, Brent. His mother had been here for him for such a long time as he underwent personal trials in his life. Brent had been undergoing such a severe form of cancer that it was literally consuming parts of his face. True it is a sad thing but his mom was more concerned with making Brent's wish come true. Brent had always dreamed of having a certain car and had not gotten around to getting one. With the situation being as it was, it didn't seem likely as Brent's cancer was terminal.

This year Brent celebrated a birthday with his mother. While every parent relishes the day their child was born, this was an especially important day as it may very well be Brent's last. Brent really isn't a very old person, at least by my standards. Either way, his mom was determined one way or another Brent was going to get his wish, to have the car he wanted. He couldn't drive it but it was a sweet gift in the form of the car he wanted, an Opal GT.

Creating specialty cakes such as sculpted cars or objects isn't easy as it takes an eye for detail and there really is no science to it. You just have to see the lines basically. The photos below are a progression of Brent's dream car.

I hope that Brent's days are all filled with joy. It was truly my pleasure and honor to make his day even more special!!

Brent picked the color of his car.

Below is a photo of the real car. Again not a science, but the cake I created was my artist perspective.

Thanks again Brent for allowing me to be part of your special day.

Thanks also to the owner of the vehicle in the photo above.

Florida ICES Day of Sharing

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 10:57:00 +0000

Just a quick note regarding the ICES Day of Sharing held this past weekend. If you are not familiar with ICES, it is an amazing organization of cake decorators, professions, novice sugar artists and everyone in between. If interested in further information visit www.ices.org.

I was amazed how many people are into creating cakes. The room was packed with people of all skill levels. It was nice to sit amongst other Cake Junkies like myself and talk about different ideas about how to's on certain techniques. There were many demonstrations by people who volunteered their time. It was very nice of them to share their talents with us all.

In addition to the demonstrations, there were tables of sugar works that the attendees brought in. It's always amazed me how diversified cake artists can be and how everyone's eye is different in the way they see the art of cake. There were some really beautiful cakes and other items as well.

Last but not least, there were several vendors. ((((Yahoo)))) I have to say this is on of my favorite parts. I could probably shop all day looking through cake stuff as I am always looking to add some type of tool to my bag of tricks. I found a couple of really unique cake tools and bought a magazine from Argentina. What talent is held within the pages of this magazine!

So, in a nutshell, that was the ICES Day of Sharing. I had a great time and it was a nice mental break for me. Back to work for me!

Camaro Car Cake

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 17:52:00 +0000

Thanks Danielle for allowing me to make this for you. I always enjoy creating new and interesting designs in cake.

The cake is a marble cake with a layer of buttercream and ganache. The cakes were stacked and then carved to give it somewhat of the shape I needed. I then iced with ganache to give it a smooth finish. I then covered with fonant and embelished with all the do-dads that are typically on a Camaro.

When creating a cake like this it's helpful to scour the internet for photos of the object you are carving so you can try to capture some of the details. As you can see in the background, I actually had a toy model, in addition to photos, to help me visualize the shape. Sometimes these cakes would seem to be easy to make but quite frankly, they are very much a challenge. I giggle because I know I have a bit of OCD so I have to stop myself from fiddling with the cake because I see details and imperfections that most people will not even notice. Makes me crazy though.

Here are a couple of pictures.

Firefighting Irish

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:35:00 +0000

I had the pleasure of creating a very special grooms cake which was a total surprise to the groom. The cake dawned a working LED light, O'Bryan's signature Firefighting Irish patch and lucky green clover on the back of the helmet.

Here are a few pictures to share of the cake in a couple of angles and the groom afterward with his cake...............

Thanks again for allowing me to take part in your special day!

This is what his mother-in-law had to say:

From: Vicky Mack

You made my new son-in-law a true surprise and everyone was impressed with the exact replica of his PBG firefighter helmet. as his groom's cake. You are the area's "Ace of Cakes". Thanks !

Cake Face 102

Sat, 23 May 2009 18:06:00 +0000

So I had a friend request a cake to look like Jonas Brothers but the request was changed and she later asked for Zac Efron. I had to think about this because it's really not always easy recreating someone in cake. This is a brief glimpse into another method I used to do a Cake Face. This is the other method I came up with by making it out of cake unlike the Cake Face 101 version which is crispy treats.

I started with one of those styrofoam heads from a beauty supply store that are used to put wigs on. I cut the styro from a portion of the nose upward if you can visualize so that upper portion can be made of cake. The photo below shows the head once I have cut and mounted my cake on top. The barrier between is a cake board cut to size.

***I would highly recommend pre-drilling supports through the styro which can be mounted to your base board as the head is top heavy and can tip breaking the neck away from the base of your cake which you will shape as shoulders.***

As you can see above, the cake is trimed and iced to look the same shape and size of the styro portion you cut away initially. I used one single oval and an egg pan trimmed to size and proportion.

This is another view:

From this point, you need to just lightly give the styro a little schmere of b.c. so the fondant would stick. Then you can proceed to overlay the fondant and sculpt out the features as I did with Cake Face 101. As a side note, I think I would try a different approach next time by first overlaying white modeling chocolate and then over lay with Fondant as it would give a better structure to the facial features once you start sculpting them out with the fondant which is going to be on top. The structure of the face has to be solid enough to hold the facial features on well. As you can see the stryro has a little bony structure if you will and this will help almost like a skeleton of the face but you really have to sculpt out the features to get the look you are trying to achieve.

If you have not read Cake Face 101 first, go back and take a look at some of the tips about sculpting a face. I'll avoid repeating those steps for this blog entry.

Essentially, after this point, it's all just a matter of manipulating to get the face you are happy with. for me, it's still a work in progress but I'm very much loving doing faces now.

Ok, so this is during the process, I had to keep adding, taking away, etc. My biggest advice, try to work away from a draft as it dries out the fondant too quick. Keep a shrowd of pastic wrap on the portions not being worked onto prevent drying out. You can always smooth out the slight marks from the plastic later. Also some of the features can be manipulated through the plastic so you don't always have to expose it to the air until you are ready.

It's a work in progress but here is the end result.

Have fun if you try this project. Again, my best advice, make sure you have enough supports in the cake and keep it free from drafts while sculpting the features out. Then basically all you do is color with an airbrush or your method of choice and add the different features.

Thanks for visiting.

~Melissa

A Sweet Life Cakery

Turkey anyone?

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 16:19:00 +0000

So, this turkey sandwich cake was created for a really cool person, Diane M. She is a phone warrior at a law office and the girl means business. All day Di' handles an obsene amount of phone calls and scheduling for multiple attorneys. She is the pitbull of scheduling and she always gets the job done. The first time I me her she had really long hair and would wear these Oakly sunglasses which made her look like someone you would not want to meet up with in a dark ally. As time went by, I realized what a cool person she really was.

Overall, I didn't think Di' was a heavy person by any means but one day she started eating Turkey Sandwiches for lunch....kinda like Jarred on the Subway Commercials. However, her turkey sandwiches were usually on beautiful grain bread, always had the most perfect lettuce and tomatoes and a spritz of good old fashioned yellow mustard. Oh....and little cup of yogurt on the side to go with her sandwich of course. Di' started eating the same thing day in and day out. I'd venture to say that she's been eating her Turkey Sandwich combo for maybe about a year now, if now longer. Well, who has the last laugh now? Di has lost a crazy amount of weight, cut her hair and dawned a new attitude.

Here are just fun pictures of Di' doing what she does best, creating her Turkey Sandwich Lunch Combo.....HEY DI' wanna biggie size that sandwich????

This is Di' sitting at lunch, having to make a decision which turkey sandwich to eat. Hmmmm, I'd say the one on the right. Needless to say, she enjoyed both of her sandwiches.

Cake Face 101

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 17:42:00 +0000

Ok, so this isn't really cake but edible it is. I can't say I have seen any instructions on the web for creating fondant heads so here is a glimpse into what I do in creating cake faces. As long as you have an imagination, you can create any type of face you want. I don't have any formal sculpting classes so I do what comes to me naturally and just keep playing with it until it comes out the way I want it. I will say, however, it is helpful to look at books with instructions on drawing because this gives you a little better idea how to proportion and line up the facial features. I like to have a visual on paper so I can keep looking at it while sculpting features.

I start with a wire cage. It's about 8 very long heavy gauge wires tied in the middle and folded down and bent to make a bolloon shape.

I cover the wire cage with aluminum foil and the over it with Crispy treats and press it together really well so it all sticks nice and snug. I slipped a dowel in the bottom and stuck it in styro for a while to set a little before I start the next step of adding the face.

Once the Crispy base has set up you can start creating the face. This part is tricky as there cannot be any drafts from your a/c nearby or it will dry out too soon and not allow you to mold the face. The face is contoured with white fondant using shortening to keep the tips of your fingers moist as you sculpt the face. When not working on the face, lightly wrap it in plastic wrap to prevent drying out.

So this is the base of the face. It looks a little rough but basically you want to get the underlying pronounced features formed so when you overlay with the flesh tone fondant it's all smooth and perfect. I molded the facial features by hand and kept manipulating the fondant to get the features I wanted.

Once you have the base features roll out flesh tone fondant thinly and overlay it on the base. From there gently manipulate to get the features to come out. I used a curved wire to put into the crease of the mouth to get the smile. If you get any air pockets, try to pin prink them through the unnoticable areas like the mouth or the nostrl or behind the eye as you will put an eye in that spot. From this point you will use cutters to make the eyes and roll out eye brows or whatever you want your cake-head to look like. Brush color on the lips and if you want dust the cheeks, etc.

This is what she ultimately came out to look like. Her one eye is a little off center (lazy eye, LOL) but these are things that obviously can be adjusted. This was one of the heads I made. If you look in my photo gallery, I use the same concept to create Betty Boop, Japanese Fairy, Minnie Mouse, etc. It's all the same. No science to it but it's my crazy method.

If you are a cake freak like me, I hope this has helped because I know there isn't too much out there to show instruction. You can make these heads to vary in size. I use wire and crispy treats because otherwise the head is so heavy of pure gumpaste or fondant that the cake can be too top heavy but I still wanted to keep it edible. :D

I'll keep ya posted if I do anything else.

Here is the Japanese Fairy done with the same process: