It's Here! It's Here! It's Here!

As you can tell, I am very excited that the spring/summer 2010 issue of Bride and Bloom magazine finally made it into the stores!

I feel as though I have been waiting forever to see it, but this afternoon it was sitting on the shelves of our local Borders as I shopped with my children. They have also been anxiously looking for it with me every time we go to the bookstore and were just as happy as I was that is was there.

This is my first time to be featured in a national bridal magazine, and I was given an entire page for my Turquoise Cake with Black Scroll Work. It was one of my very first cakes, and has proven to be popular with clients with lots and lots of requests for it.

Thanks to the Account Executive Richelle Gingerich for noticing my cake and getting it in the magazine for me. I am incredibly honored!

Ni Hao Kai Lan

Today I made a cake for a coworker of my husband. Her daughter was turning 4 and loves Kai Lan (just like my daughter!)

Kai Lan is one of those light hearted cartoons where everything is bright skies and sun, cute animals, lots of flowers and in general happy looking. So that's pretty much where I jumped off.

The background of the sky was made in pale blue, with a border around the bottom to look like rolling green hills. Mr. Sun is front and center, because he is a major character. His face was panted with food coloring, and I also added fluffy white clouds cut from fondant.

All of the figures were hand molded. To add some more color and whimsy, I added on bright fondant flowers to the green hills.

My husband was happy to report to me that his coworker loved the cake. I'm happy to say that I do too!

A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes

This weekend I participated in the Colorado ICES cake show Sweet Times in the Rockies in Denver. It was fun to finally christen my new kitchen with some cakes! I have been really missing decorating, so it was also great to get back.

With my first cake, I bought some stencils that I just adored the designs of. I realized how much the large scroll design looked like Cinderella's carriage one morning when my daughter pointed it out to me. I was practicing the technique and she gasped "that's for Cinderella!" I took a step back and realized she was exactly right. This started me in a whole new direction where I wanted to center the cake around a Cinderella theme. I tried my best to color the cake Cinderella blue and thought a glass slipper for the top would be perfect, along with some gumpaste bows.

The "glass" slipper for the top is white chocolate that I poured into shoe shaped molds along with a heart mold for the accent at the toe. When it was set and I pieced the shoe together, I absolutely slathered it in disco and luster dust.

The rest of the cake was also covered in luster dust to make it glittery and luminescent.

I am thrilled and delighted to say that I received First Place in the Professional Category!

For awhile now I have wanted to make a damask cake and while perusing cake stencils on the internet, came across this set that I decided I could not live without. I had never used cake stencils before, but decided it is always good to learn new techniques.

I chose a square design and I wanted my corners to be super sharp and clean, so I used a technique where I cut out panels for the sides of each tier and their tops out of gumpaste and then allowed them to dry over several days. When they were dry, I took my stencils and used a thick royal icing for the designs. Basically you use an offset spatula to smooth the royal icing over the stencil, and after it is completely covered, you gently pull the stencil off and you have a beautiful design!

There is, of course, some trial and error involved in this. It takes both patience and time. But if you stick with it the work is well worth it.

Black and white damask is rather popular, and it is nearly

always paired with red or pink as an accent. I wanted to try something different and chose yellow anemones to contrast. I love how it looks! Anemones are imperfect flowers with large black centers, and I thought it would contrast with the prim and proper damask. I am really happy with how it turned out.

This cake earned 3rd Place in the Professional Category!

This was a great weekend for me and I had a wonderful time competing!

Announcements

Now that we are settled here in Colorado, I just wanted to let everyone know what is going on with Butterfly Sweets.

Coming up on Valentines weekend, I am entering a cake show in Denver. I am so excited! I have greatly missed decorating cakes. I will be making two cakes and cannot wait to see how they turn out. I will be trying some new techniques I have never used before, and am hoping to make so unique additions to my portfolio.

Also, something I am even happier about is that I have been contacted by The Bride and Bloom magazine, and they will be featuring some of my cakes in their spring issue! This is the first time I have been featured in a bridal magazine. It should be out some time right after Valentine's Day, and I will be posting pictures as soon as I get my hands on a copy.

Lastly, to stave off some of my cake withdrawal, I've started a blog on baking. I decided to make it separate from this blog since this one seems to be focused on decorating. It is at http://butterflysweetsincolorado.blogspot.com/, so please take a look! My first post is a little long, but I plan to start baking tomorrow.

As far as Butterfly Sweets goes, I currently do not have a kitchen to rent, which means that I am not taking orders. Hopefully this will change sometime in the near future.