Gustafson 70th birthday

What a fun cake! I had an awesome challenge from a new friend, Mark. His dad's 70th birthday party... cake had to travel 2+ hours to Apex, NC and he wanted something unique, that encompassed his father. So, he gave me a list of activities and hobbies (and this man IS ACTIVE!!!) and we went from there. Since Mark had to do the actual on-site construction of the cake, I do not have final pictures yet. Argh! I will post them as soon as he gets them from family members.


Represented in these pictures are a love for the Red Sox (the hat is life sized), softball (he still plays in two leagues!), puzzles, card games, chess, genealogy and his family (I forgot to photograph the poker chips and baseball!). The "W" puzzle represents places he lived, his wedding, his birth, his employment with IBM, his love of math, his life time of involvement with Jaycees and his service in the Army. This cake was a true celebration of the man. I hope he had a splendid weekend with all of his family!

The Red Sox cake was a red velvet cake and the base cake was a light lemon cake with raspberry filling. Buttercream frosting under the marshmallow fondant on both cakes. This cake was a ton of fun and I also learned how to rescue fondant... so a valuable learning experience!

Here are some pictures of the composed cake that made the trip easily to Raleigh. Whew! I am told it was a hit!

Installation cake

This cake was done for friends at the UUF in Wilmington for the installation of the new minister, Rev. Cheryl Walker. Let's be honest. Not every cake is perfect! This cake was definitely not one of my proudest moments. It was too heavy and the middle layers started to bulge more than I would have liked. Lesson learned. The columns that the top two layers were designed to stand on were too tall (i.e. unstable) and lasted about 20 minutes before we decided to lower the middle layer onto the base layer and support the top layer with a clear, square, glass bowl. And the color. Originally I had a beautiful ivory, but when I whipped up a second batch of icing (yes, I managed to not make enough the first time around and yes, it is next to impossible to match a color...), I used the wrong color... added too much... and didn't account for the color to deepen throughout the course of the day. But I went with it and it did taste scrumptious. I think the flowers saved it all. Had I not just told you all these disasters, maybe you would have even thought it was suppose to look like this! Minus the frosting mishaps of course. Long story short, it's no where close to perfect, but it was another lesson learned and people came back for seconds and thirds!

Anyway, here are some shots of the assembly process. It was a lemon cake divided by a sinfully yummy almond-meringue layer that was sandwiched between dams of sweet orange marmalade. The idea is taken directly out of Baking with Julia, and the original concept cake is from Martha Stewart. I didn't make her almond cake though, but stole the meringue and preserve dam idea. I also made a chocolate cake with the same meringue layer, but used raspberry preserve instead of the marmalade. So yummy..... =) No pictures though, sorry!

Lastly, I made 497 rolls for this event! They were the first yeast bread I have ever made (apart from pizza crust)! They were beautiful. I was quite proud of myself. =)

Four more orders rolled in this weekend, so I will have more posts soon!