Friday, April 17, 2009

Gift Boxes and Giraffes

I know I have been slackin' on the blog lately, but I am back!  For the past couple of weeks I took off for Spring Break, and then just took some more time off.

SO, this week, I made two really lovely cakes.  I'll start with my favorite, which is this beautiful box cake.   I have been wanting to expand my techniques lately, and when I was hired to make a gift box cake for a bridal shower, I desperately wanted to do something more intricate than I usually do.  
I am a big fan of Sharon Zambito, with Sugar Ed Productions (SugarShack to those of us in the cake world) and she produces a series of wonderful instructional DVDs.  She just came out with one entitled Boxes and Bows, so I quickly snatched it up.  I think the techniques are difficult, and I fudged with them a little bit, but I love the gumpaste tops to these boxes.   They are dusted with a mix of Cosmos Luster Dust and Super Pearl.  The bow on the top took me forEVER, but it is so beautiful in person!  SugarShack used a fondant roller with a silk pattern on it.  I don't have that, but I did have a grosgrain pattern one, and used that for an extra detail.  If you look closely, you can see that the loops are lined with teeny tiny pearls that I used a bead maker to make.  And then, I'll admit that I splurged on some Stephen Benison gumpaste cutters for the pretty scrolls on the front.   I really, really like the technique, and hope that I can perfect it.  Also, I stamped the cake board with "love" and "forever", just like SugarShack did.  :) 

Not too long ago, I made a cake for a client, Neatherly.  She ordered a 3 tiered blue cake that had a modern twist, and she was happy enough to place a second order with me for a baby shower!
Neatherly has an invitation business, and so I designed the cake around her invitations.  The stripes are in various widths, and then I attached gumpaste giraffes to the side, which are replicas of the cartoon giraffes on the invites.  For the Baby Boy on the bottom, I use a grosgrain roller, and then cutout circles.  Next I used some letter cutters to cut out the letters, and it looks really great.  
I hope they both enjoy their cakes!

2 comments:

Heather said...

Very sweet cakes. The box cake is amazing! The beads on the top bow are crazy cool!

Summer Rippe said...

Thank you, Heather!

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