Christmas White Aspen Cake & Wood Grain Stag Cake; Tutorial

Nothing says Christmas like Plaid, wood, and stag silhouettes, right? Well, that's what I inspired these traditional winter cakes.

Here's the tutorial:

Cover with Fondant, then...
combine brown food coloring with vanilla and paint on with a clean "food-only" paint brush and then...

Add a couple of gold gumpaste leaves and some fondant "berries" painted red and you are golden. :)

A tutorial on the "Wood Grain" technique coming soon!

Merry Christmas, Everyone!!

Tips to get you started!

Here are a couple of video tutorials to get you started on baking that perfect cake! 

Once you perfect these tips, stay tuned for the Enhanced cake box-mix tutorials!

How to line a cake pan with parchment paper

For a better quality version, click here:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt49mxlvaOA&feature=youtu.be

How to fill your Pastry bag

For a better quality video, click here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXfyio7yexk&list=HL1386099276

Studio 5

Here is a link to the segment that I filmed with Studio 5 yesterday. It was a blast! Brooke Walker is so good at her job and she made me feel so at ease and she led the conversation beautifully. Go to the blog post below to find a full tutorial on the rustic cake tutorial. Keep coming back for more tutorials!

 http://studio5.ksl.com/?nid=61&sid=27703009

Rustic Icing Technique

Here is a full tutorial on how to get that Rustic icing look on your cake at home! 

For a better quality video, click here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5X621eAPOg

Crumb Coat Video Tutorial

Here's a little video tutorial on how to crumb coat that cake of yours in order to get a nice layer of icing or fondant over top of it. Enjoy!

In order to see a better quality version of this tutorial on You Tube, click 

here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxfoCbHYa0M

A Beautiful Vintage Summer Wedding

She did it...she got married! My baby sissy got married. I was so happy for her! What a beautiful wedding it was. The bride had the vision and my Rock-Star of a sister, Heather helped to pull it off. She's a genius, really. She came down from Missouri and spent a month planning and executing. And the results speak for themselves... 

The stunning images that you see here are from my other two sisters that came up from California,  Crystal Ruby Photography and  Melissa Jewel Photography.They are amazing, are they not? Make sure you double-click on the image to enlarge it so that you can see the high quality resolution photos. Trust me...it's worth it. ;) 

First, the cake... Can we just talk about this?? I love, love, LOVE that she wanted a chocolate cake. It just fit perfectly with the whole style of the wedding.

I added these gumpaste leaves that I dipped in gold luster dust. They are SO easy to do. Simply roll out a ball of gumpaste very, very thinly, then cut them out with a large leaf cutter. Then you are going to use your veining tool to mark the veins in the leaves. After they are COMPLETELY dry (sorry I yelled, it's just that it's kind of important), then you dip them in a gold luster dust and vodka mixture (don't worry, the alcohol will evaporate). I always get my luster dust from Orson Gygi's. They have the best.

 The groom hand-carved the cake topper. How cute is that?

Now onto the rest of the wedding...

Stu-ning! is the word that I used to describe this bride. And the DRESS?! She flew to Maryland and together, her and my genius of a seemstress sister sewed it together. 

Dragees

Dragee. Fancy word, right? It's really just a little sugar-coated piece of candy used in cake decorating. I love dragees so much. There is so much that you can do with them and they come in silver, pearl, gold and just about every color that your pretty little heart desires. Did you know that Dragees originated from sugar-coated pills that you would find in an Apothecary? A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, right? Like I always say, Cake was meant to be medicine for the soul. :) Here are some cakes that I have done to show you how you can use Dragees at home. Happy Drageeing!

LOOK! I even used dragees here to add some bling to this gumpaste bow. :)

For a link to the tutorial for theses cute, easy gumpaste flowers on this pink ruffle cake, click here: 

http://apothecakery.blogspot.com/2011/05/gumpaste-flower-tutorial.html