Gateaux's cake log

Style

2012-02-05T19:16:00.006-06:00

"Fashion fades, only style remains the same."
Coco Chanel

"Never trust a cake lady who can walk in heels."
Evil Cake Genius

I've never understood Fashion. Take it from the other cake girls, the Cake Lady ALWAYS loses the Project Runway pool at Gateaux. ALWAYS. I guess, when you spend your days working in long sleeve thermal t's and yoga pants, you have other priorities besides fashion.

That's why I love that quote from good old Coco. You see, even the most astute fashion minds, the icons of the industry understand that there is something inherently deeper than what is currently in vogue. Something that transcends yoga pants and bad hair days, and the Cake Lady has it (or at least she borrows it from her clients from time to time). The Cake Lady has style.

That's why, when I first spoke to Laura-Leigh's mom Christine, I knew we'd be perfect together. Turns out, Laura-Leigh, and Christine have that rare gift of possessing both fashion sense and style. And these fortunate few are the architects of some of the most chic and timeless cakes that we do.

Christine described the event decor as "Not French Country, more Paris Flea Market". I instantly conjured up visions of Belle Epoque Metropolitain Paris...black wrought iron and stone, the height of style...the kind that Coco speaks of, the kind that never fades. And Christine and Laura-Leigh delivered.

The color palette of soft champagne, black and Ivory set the stage for a timeless beauty. With the added drama of textural floral, linens, and candlelight, we had ample fuel for the cake-fire.

The definitive elements for the cake were the textures in the floral and an incredible motif from the wedding invitations. Coupled with a french lattice pattern imprinted on the cake and tiny little Fleur de Lis (Paris, after all...not Flea Market, leave off the first word of that phrase, and you have a whole different meaning). And what better to top this not-so-moveable of a feast? How about a vintage bride and groom cake topper. Bride and groom cake toppers are the epitome of that Coco Chanel quote. You see, whether or not they are currently fashionable, the truly well done ones, the vintage, bisque porcelain-beauties, are always in style. Especially when it belonged to the bride's grandmother.

A more timeless event, I can't remember. And once again, my clients made me look so much more chic than I'll ever be. So, thank you Christine and Laura-Leigh...maybe next year, you'll teach me to walk in heels!

Once again, the Fabulous Olive Juice Studios provided us with some absolutely incredible photos of this truly elegant affair.

Mr. B.

2012-01-28T16:41:00.009-06:00

Okay, anyone who knows the Evil Cake Genius knows that her one weakness is the doggies. Bring me within 20 feet of a fur ball, and I turn into a babbling, cooing, cuddling mess. Hand me a baby, and I freak out. Those things are terrifying. And kids, ooh, don't get me started. They're little Petri dishes, just crawling with germs. But give me a slobbering, butt sniffing dog, and I'll roll around on the floor with it for hours. My own dog, Speck, is truly what makes me human. She brings out all the best in me, and has turned my husband and I from a "couple" into a "family".

That's why I fell in love with Melanie, Andy, and Mr. B.

When Melanie and Andy came in for their cake appointment, they were a dream to work with. The wedding reception would be held at the fabulous Graves 601 Hotel, and they really just let me run with it. We sketched up a couple of designs, but the one that I really adored, was based on this incredible lit wall that is part of the Graves' ballroom decor.

I've always wanted to imitate that wall, but not quite literally. With the couple's color scheme of metallic taupe, silver, and navy blue, I recalled a table setting that I had torn out of Grace Ormonde Wedding Style Magazine several year's earlier. The table was set with a Mosaic "runner" of polished rock tiles. I didn't expect them to get it. After all, we went from a cake, to a wall, to a tile table runner...but they got it...and loved it. We added two enormous gumpaste orchids to the design to echo the veritable "orchid forest" of centerpieces that Wisteria Design did for the reception, and we had a knockout cake!

Only, something was missing. It wasn't until they saw another cake in my album that was topped with one of our hand-made frosting doggies, that it came to them. Mr. B.! He must be represented, after all, he was the missing piece of their puzzle.

And the story goes like this.

Melanie and Andy's relationship was on a break. She offered to help his parents out with something up at their cabin one weekend, and Andy was there. They went to a mutual friend's bonfire that night, and out of the woods, walked Mr. B. He was a stray. Covered in wood ticks, and pitiful, but so sweet. The friends said that he had been trying to sleep in everyone's garages, and they were planning to take him to the pound the next day. Melanie took one look at that sweet boy, turned to Andy, and said "I will stay with you forever if you take him home" Andy replied "Get him in the car now!" and they have been a family ever since. I'll pause for you to collect yourselves now...

We contacted Andy's mom (official doggy day care provider) to get some photos of Mr. B. She informed us that mere photos wouldn't do him justice, put him in the car, and brought him in for a face-to-face. And she was right. From his one floppy ear, to his charming disposition, you really have to meet him to see just how great he is.

We took a full photo shoot, and I spent the afternoon sculpting him out of Chocolate paste. Jenna made him a frosting bow tie, and he was ready for his close up.

Melanie and Andy's wedding was beautiful. We set up the cake, a beautiful dessert display, and thankfully, Kelly Brown Weddings was there to capture the evening for us.

We're certain that Mr. B. is happy with his new family. And, as per Gateaux policy, the full price of his frosting likeness was donated to the ASPCA.

Clyde, Tino-San, and the answer to "That Question"

2012-01-14T17:55:00.012-06:00

I know it's been way too long since we've blogged. But sometimes, things get so overly busy in cakeland, that blogging, like sleep, becomes a luxury. My apologies, I'll make up for my absence from the blogosphere, by writing a novel this entry...and no one deserves a novel more than Erica and Josh...and Clyde...and Tino-San.

Last weekend, we had the honor of bringing a cake to LA for an event that I cannot disclose at this time. Patience cake fans, all in good time. We were lucky enough to have a client who flew us out with the cake on their corporate jet...another Gateaux first. While in flight, after playing with the automatic shades, taking photos of us acting like important people, and a few resounding choruses of "Like a G6", the pilot invited people up to the cockpit to have a look around. Of course, my husband, the Goo, was instantly on his feet. When he returned, looking like a kid who just earned his Junior Pilot's wings, he recounted his visit. "What did you ask them?" I asked. "I asked them what the number one question they get asked is" he replied. And much to my surprise, both pilot and copilot immediately chimed in with "Have you ever crashed?"

I was surprised that people ask this, but then, I realized what the number one question I get asked is. Hands down..."Have you ever dropped a cake?" What is this morbid curiousity that people have with disaster (whether it be in the air, or of the lesser serious, except to yours truly, pastry variety)?

Well, for all of you looking for a little drama, here's your answer. No, they had never crashed a plane, and No, I've never (knocking on wood while typing is not easy) dropped a cake. But, the closest cake disaster I've had in years happened this September, and it involved Clyde and Tino-San.

Let's start with the bride and groom...Erica and Josh. Fabulous couple. Amazing taste, an incredible knack for planning, and style...good lord, style. They are my favorite type of couple. They planned their wedding from the ground up, and made everything happen, from hand-painting signs on old dock planks from Erica's Grandpa's Cabin, to growing the dahlias for the bouquets and centerpieces, to finding the perfect wrought iron marshmallow toasting sticks, they didn't miss a loving detail. The wedding would be held at The Enchanted Barn, in Wisconsin. We worked with them to create the invitations, programs, place cards...all with a whimsey turn-of-the-century carnival feel.

Then, we incorporated those designs into Erica's dream cake, and topped the cake with a seven inch replica of Clyde. No, not their dog, not a beloved uncle, Clyde is a Dahlia. You see, Erica's family grows Dahlias. Not your ordinary Dahlias, award winning, Dahlia Society Dahlias. And Clyde would be grown, and primed specifically for Erica's bouquet. Actually, the giant bloom (around 12" in diameter) would be Erica's Bouquet.

Two weeks before the wedding, we began the process of creating Clyde. We studied the photos, counted petals, mangled gum paste cutters into the 6 different petal shapes and sizes, and came up with the perfect combination of orange gum paste, and petal dust to bring that mammoth to life. We created him one row of petals per day, for 6 days, so that the lower petals could dry and not be crushed by the subsequent rows. We finished him just in time for the state fair, and visited Erica at the Dahlia exhibit to check our work (via photo, of course) against some real Clydes.

When the day of the wedding came, we packed up my brand new delivery vehicle with the cakes, and finally our beloved frosting Clyde. Now, some background. I always deliver in an SUV. And this was our first delivery in my new Nissan Murano. He's a Japanese car, with an Italian name, so we called him Tino-San. One of the selling points about Tino-San was that his cargo cover over the back area had extensions on the back side of it that attach to the head rests of the back seats, keeping all the cargo shaded during delivery. Not until we were loading the car, did we realize, that those handy extensions don't reach the head rests of the front seats, and with the back seats folded flat, they are just hanging down behind the cargo cover, and in the way if you want to load anything beyond two feet of the hatch. We flipped the extensions, and their handy head rest clips up onto the top of the extended cargo cover, and decided to deal with the issue later.

Just as I was about to leave, I opened the hatch, checked on my precious cargo, and just as I was closing the hatch, it happened. The extensions, and their clips slid backward off the cargo cover and smashed poor Clyde. How did I know? The cargo cover was blocking my view of him. If the shattering sound wasn't enough, maybe it was the airborn shards of orange petals that shot up into the air when it hit that gave me all the information I needed to feel like someone just punched me in the stomach.

It felt like walking through jello to get to the side door of Tino-San to see what I was facing. And all the prayers to the Cake gods that spilled from my shaking lips on the way were for naught. He was pulverized. The entire back half of him, smashed, gone. Five days of work, and no backup...gone.

I called the Goo, I called Jenna (both on their way to another delivery) I kept Julia heading to Wisconsin with the S'mores buffet in her car. When they arrived, I had the orange gumpaste out, and felt like that surgeon on the hospital shows...you know the one...who keeps shocking the dead guy until someone kindly takes the paddles from him and advises that he "Let it go". Lucky for Clyde, that voice of reason doesn't exist at Gateaux. Jenna cranked out petals like a mad woman, and fortunately, the inner most portion of the broken petals remained intact, giving us a shelf to lay the new petals on. They held up in perfect position. With anything but surgeon-like steadiness, I replaced the 17 broken petals, packed clyde into my front seat, and began the drive to the Enchanted barn in my new Nissan Murano with a new feature...a cargo cover covered in packing tape to hold up the offending extensions.

When we arrived at the barn, we saw Erica, still wearing a t-shirt and jogging shorts, but with her veil and makeup done, she was already an incredible sight. She informed us that Clyde died. Did Julia tell her, I was thoroughly confused, and began to explain that I resurrected him, when I realized that it was her bouquet Clyde that she was referring to. I explained that frosting Clyde had an equally rough morning, and with her unfailing grace, she was completely unfazed. As for her bouquet, an equally stunning Red Dahlia took Clyde's place.

We set up the cake, with even Julia amazed that Clyde had been in a wreck...she didn't notice any signs of the breakage. Josh, the groom sent me a photo that next day entitled "Clyde looked pretty darn good" and, while they are the type of couple who would have done that to make me feel better even if Clyde looked hideous, he was right. I couldn't see any signs of damage.

I left Julia to set up the S'mores buffet, and had to get back to Minneapolis for another set up. Thankfully, one with far less drama.

So there you have it. Our biggest (knock on wood, again) cake disaster, narrowly averted. I'm sure there will be others, as it's the nature of the business. But keep this in mind next time you see a cake being set up. Do you really want to know if the pilot that is flying your plane has ever crashed? Maybe that's best left unasked.

By the way, Erica and Josh did such an amazing job planning their wedding that it won the Minneapolis St. Paul Bridal Guide Diamond award for "Wedding of the Year". Last I heard, they were planning to buy an old barn and renovate it for weddings. I will be the first in line to recommend their business to potential brides. And may I suggest the name "Clyde Farms"?

Sometimes it's just too easy.

2011-12-11T19:44:00.003-06:00

Sometimes, it is just that...too easy. When I met with Paige and Nolan, I had this photo of a cake that I had just found online, that I had to recreate. It was done by the Cake Girls in Chicago, and it just knocked me over with sheer cakestacy. The cake was a grey fondant background, with blush pink flowers in perfect lines on the sides. Paige and Nolan were planning their wedding in grey, black and blush pink. We're halfway there. Unfortunately, it's the second half of the way there (hoping that the clients have the same taste as you in cake design, convincing them that grey food is okay to serve (people have hang-ups about grey fondant...which I find funny, because they seem to have no problem eating cakes shaped like books, tree trunks, suitcases, even beloved pets, but grey fondant tends to freak people out!?!) and most importantly, not breaking the Gateaux Cardinal Rule...Each cake must be original, designed specifically for the client and their event. Now, once again, I remind you that I'm a cake lady, not an English major, so forgive that last monstrosity of a sentence, and we can all move on.

Paige and Nolan loved the cake that I showed them. They weren't afraid of grey fondant, and best of all, they brought me a copy of their beautiful invitation for added inspiration. The invitations had embossed brocade edges...matte black on high-gloss black. Ultra chic...ultra cake-able!!

So we sketched up several options morphing the cake idea with the invitation pattern. One after another, they kept coming, each prettier than the last design, until I was staring at a table full of cake sketches. Too easy.

For those of you who haven't been in for a consult with us, I'll fill you in. We send our lovely couples home with the black and white sketches, then when they come in to pick up their cake samples on sample day, we give them a stack of colored sketches from which to choose their final design. What often happens in the meantime, is that I fall in love with one of the designs. But, it is out of my hands at that point. After all, as much as the cakes are mine, mine, mine...they ultimately aren't mine at all. They are, as much as I cringe to admit it...not...mine...

That's why when it came to Paige and Nolan, it was, once again, too easy. They called back with their design choice, which happened to be my favorite!!

We got their invitation vendor to release the invitation art and monogram, and happily went about creating the cake. We created 72-plus flowers for the tiers, then saddled Julia with the task of centering each flower with a rhinestone, circled with eight edible silver dragees (I didn't say "too easy" for her, but for me it was a breeze!) We screenprinted the brocade pattern in grey royal icing over a black fondant band...never tried that before...worked like a charm. And delivered the cake to the Graves Hotel, where the bridal party was rehearsing the wedding right before the ceremony began.

We got to see the bride's reaction as we stacked the cake. That's when I realized that it really was her cake, not mine. But with such a gracious and grateful bride, even that was easy....too.

Thanks to JM Photography for these beautiful images!

Erin's Wedding, and the two Kays

2011-11-20T17:22:00.007-06:00

I did a 60th birthday cake for a brilliant woman (Hi Maria) a couple of years ago. She is a professor at Mankato, and was leaving for Africa right after the party to finish her latest paper. The subject, I'm sure I will over-simplify...but it intrigued me to the core...the dual personalities of women. Not that freaky Cybil-type stuff, but something that every woman is familiar with in her daily life, just maybe she's not aware of it. Maria is studying how women change their outward persona depending on the situational demands they face during any given day. Business woman, vs. Mother, vs. Wife...all incredibly different. She simplified it for me by pointing out that to listen to me on a phone call with a client is very different from hearing me talk to one of my friends. Women tend to take on different behavior, speech patterns, etc. depending on the situation.

Fast forward to six months ago. I find an appointment on the books for a bride named Erin..(with Jenna's Mom, Kay). Those of you who have worked with us know Jenna. She is my right-hand woman...the organized, hard worker who actually gets work done despite my constant distractions.

Erin is Kay's best friend. I've met Kay several times. She is the consummate Mom. I call her Mrs. Weasley because of her fabulous red-hair, and penchant for worrying about her six kids (she sends out mass texts when severe weather enters the area). Not sometimes....ALWAYS.

I met with Erin and Kay, and Erin's son Alex, on a Monday. Jenna's day off. I was ready for a nice little chat and some cake sketching with Mrs. Weasley. What I got, however, was a sociological experience, that my college-professor client Maria would be proud of. You see, Mrs. Weasley, when with her friends, is a riot. I've never laughed so hard at a cake appointment in my life. Those two women had me laughing, blushing, practically crying. Poor Alex, just rolled his eyes from time to time, as though this were par for the course when these two joined forces.

By the time they left, we had three completely different cake sketches, and an appointment for them to come back to discuss invitations. Not necessarily because I had some amazing ideas for her invitations, but more like I just wanted to hang out with them again.

By the time they returned for the invitation meeting, now with Erin's sister in tow (more fuel for the revelry) Erin had decided to do the skyline cake that we designed. Her reception would be at the top of the IDS building, so we decided that we could use the view as our inspiration. We decided to carry that theme over to the invitations, adding a silhouette of the church where the reception was to be held to the Minneapolis skyline. Any other significant landmarks? Alex had an answer for that. Turns out they were holding out on me. Erin's family owns the Rollergardens. Yep, you know it, the St. Louis Park Landmark Roller Rink, with...a giant dinosaur on its roof! Well, turns out they had to move the dino inside, after years of it being stolen as a SLP High Homecoming prank, but nonetheless, DINOSAUR.

I set Alex out to do some recon. He is an incredibly talented photographer. He got me photos of the church, the Rollergardens, and yes, the Dinosaur. We got the photos to my husband/graphic design consultant, the Goo, who created a landscape logo for the invitations. The Rollergarden silhouette featured on the RSVP card, where the options to attend were either "All skate" or "Wipeout".

Best thing about the invitations, was finding one in my mailbox. My husband and I decided to "All Skate" and had a fabulous time. We got to enjoy seeing the guests react to our light-up skyline cake, and even had a slice ourselves.

Alex took a skyline photo of Minneapolis, that they enlarged to poster size, cut into place card size pieces, and put back together on a large board. Coolest place card I've ever seen. The Goo and I got to sit at a table with Jenna and the other Weasley kids, and I got to see Jenna's mom play the role of Jenna's mom again. With a few moments of Erin's friend peppered in for good measure. Both are lovely women.

His Dress: the Groomscake demystified.

2011-11-07T17:25:00.008-06:00

What exactly is this "Groom's Cake" thing anyway? I get that question all the time. My answer...an antiquated southern tradition, that thanks to Martha Stewart and a whole lot of cake-related television shows, has regained popularity and even spread to good-old Yankee territory (not the baseball team, the great frozen north in general). You see, the groom's cake was originally a counter to the main wedding cake, which was meant to be white (inside and out) in reference to the Bride's purity. No kidding.

So, the fact that the groom's cake is traditionally chocolate begs the question...What's he been up to? That, is a whole other topic. One best left to someone other than the cake lady.

Move forward, into this millennium, and you'll find that the Groom's Cake has taken on an entirely new role in the wedding. It is no longer a sad little pile of chocolate cake dwarfed by the majestic beauty of the wedding cake. It has actually become an opportunity for the Groom to have his moment in the proverbial Cake-Sun.

Let's face it, weddings are one of the last bastians of Matriarchy left in the world. I know a lot of Grooms (my own included) enjoy the process of planning a wedding, but let's face it girls, this is our world. Anyone that argues otherwise can explain to me why the Bride's dress (my own included) makes up a nice chunk of the wedding budget, while quite often, the Groom is outfitted for FREE, with the rental of the groomsmen's tuxes. I, myself, donned a handmade dupioni silk dress custom designed to my frame by a lovely Austrian seamstress (Hello, Irene), while my Groom wore RENTED clothes. That still seems pretty odd to me, but...it's our world, ladies.

It wasn't until I was setting up a cake a few weeks ago, when the groom's sister came to me and told me how excited he was for the cake. She referred to it as "his dress". We'll get to that lovely couple in a few posts, but that really stuck with me. Fine, he can wear rented clothes and shoes that are one step above a good pair of bowling shoes, but, let's get him one hell of a cake!

And that's just what lot's of my clients have done. Honestly, most of these little numbers are surprises. The Bride will sneak in and design a cake that is purely representative of her Groom. No fluff, no frills, all man! All, car-loving, tech-buying, hunting, fishing, golfing, cigar smoking, man! Hallelujah! And here are a few of our favorites:

Matt's Apple store groom's cake with all the toys he loves. The Ipad, solid chocolate, the Ipod, fondant, the bag is the actual cake.
We loved coming up with wedding "apps".
And, a little Sinatra on the iPod...
As Promised, Photos of Adam's Groom's Cake, also a surprise. This one celebrated his Eagle Scout status, as well as his love of frisbee, legos, and of course, Gatsby.
Couldn't forget his kitties though, that's one of their tails, and the other's paw clawing out of the back pack. *No frosting cats were harmed in the making of this cake.
Don't forget Tristen, the die-hard Twin's fan!
Or Jonathan's first love, his Shelby Mustang...

And, one of my all-time favorites...Andrew's Lobster pot cake. Because, lobsters mate for life.

So, here's to our boys, god love 'em. For all we put them through, it's nice to show them a little appreciation, especially when it takes the form of Cakey Goodness.

Emily, Adam, Gatsby and the Stars

2011-10-22T17:50:00.005-05:00

I have met in the streets a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul”
― Victor Hugo

Sorry for getting all literati on you guys, but The Evil Cake Genius is a sucker for for Victor Hugo. I'm also quite the Astronomy buff, every science credit in my Bachelor's Degree is Astronomy related, from 101 to Comparative Planetology, it is the artist's science in my humble opinion.

But onto Emily and Adam. I was surprised when I met them, to hear that they were having an outdoor wedding reception in August, but they weren't interested in a garden theme. Just when you think you've got people pegged...
They, instead, wanted a cake that would reflect their evening under the stars. And, I, for one, couldn't have been happier. We've never done a celestial themed cake before. We've had our share of starry cakes, but never one that embodied the Minnesota Night sky. So we got to work. The general idea wasn't to create a literal scene of Lake to Sky, but rather to incorporate the essence of the two.

I had seen a cake with fondant collars on the ledges before. Definitely meant to be waves in that cake decorator's vision, but I showed it to the couple, who instantly knew what I was thinking...the Auroura Borealis. We would use this general shape for the silhouette, but add some other references to solidify the theme. The ceiling of their reception tent would be lit by star-shaped lanterns, so we decided to top the cake with a frosting North Star in the same shape. We added silver dragee stars to the sides of the tiers (see if you can spot Orion, the Big Dipper, and even the couple's sign, Cancer) and then some shooting stars on wires to keep the celestial party going. Luckily, their wedding colors were deep blue with pink accents, so we decided to have the cake's color get deeper as you moved to the top tiers, travelling further into the night. All that was left was to add some of the pink color, but how? Simple, Lake to Night Sky...Waterlilies. I just love the sound of that...Waterlilies dancing across the milky way...Good morning Starshine, Lucy in the sky with Diamonds, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes, dude, I'll trade you my sweet tye die shirt for a grilled cheese, wait...just had a college flashback. Well, whether you inhaled or not, you can't argue that this was going to be one spectacular cake.

But we can't forget about Gatsby...As it happens these two started a family a little early, by adopting their first fur-baby. When we met to go over details a few months prior to the wedding, Emily added a frosting replica of their new puppy to the cake (supporting the ASPCA in the process with her donation, thank you!) I've done lots of these little frosting pups over the years, but Emily's idea had me laughing out loud. They wanted Gatsby to be swimming through the waves of the Milky Way on the cake. Of course, I agreed, and figured out how to accomplish this later.

She also added a surprise groom's cake for Adam. An awesome cake shaped like an old Eagle Scout back pack complete with all the things he loves, his two cats (one hiding in the backpack, with just it's tail poking out, and one clawing it's way out) leggos (man after my own heart) and frisbee's. This cake would be kept inside, and carried out by the caterers at the appropriate time to surprise him. Which...cake fans...sort of explains why I completely gapped taking a photograph of it. Argghhhh...We'll update this post once the professional photos come out...promise.

Carte Rouge

2011-10-02T17:26:00.006-05:00

I'm a control freak. A serioiusly, over the top, mind-numbing control freak. Ultimately, this works out favorably for my clients. After all, it's a good thing to have a cake lady that won't let your caterers pick up a stacked four tier cake and move it just because they thought it would look better in the far corner of the room. Well, I can tell you for sure, that while it may look better over there, it wouldn't look better smashed into the carpet, which is likely to be its actual destination if they try to move a 120 pound cake after it has been stacked for over an hour. Let's just say that flexibility is not my strong suit.

That's why I am in total awe when I meet clients like Jahaira and Adam. They came in with their coordinator, Sarah from Lasting Impressions, and pretty much gave me Carte Blanche to do what I wanted to do for their invitations and cake. Well, actually not Carte Blanche. More like Carte Rouge...you see, the only thing they really wanted was that the invitations, the cake, the decor, etc. be wonderful and glamourous, and...not white. They'd seen it all before...white linens, white draping, white invitations, white, white, white. So, other than Jahaira's wedding dress, they wanted to shake things up a bit, and do the rest of the wedding in Red and Black. How this would be accomplished, would be up to myself and Miss Trotter to figure out.

I love it when people do this. Hire people that you trust, and let them run with it. While, I couldn't do this for all the Xanax on the planet, I really do appreciate those who can. Jahaira and Adam have great taste, a fabulous sense of style, and most important the wisdom to let the people around them do their jobs without interference.

What's funny, is that you'd think this would be easy for the vendors involved, but it's not. I see a lot of weddings, so when you ask me to do something I haven't seen before, that says a lot. We needed something to set the invitations apart. I had seen rhinestones on invitations, ribbon, and even feathers, so we started looking, not in our invitation catalogues, but everywhere else. There had to be something new out there. And we found it. A pulled ribbon rosette. Beautiful...but not for sale. Merely a suggestion. You know, like a serving suggestion. Like on the box of frozen waffles, how the picture on the front has a beautifully toasted waffle, topped with melted butter, maple syrup poured from a silver basin, and fresh berries picked at the peak of perfection....all served on fine china with a single rose along side the plate. Look closely at the bottom right corner of that photo, you'll see the words "serving suggestion" printed there. As though we all expected that box of frozen waffles to contain all the necessary ingredients for that lavish breakfast, and we may just sue the waffle company when we open our weary morning eyes to a burnt waffle on missmatched stoneware, topped with "syrup" from a god-only-knows-how-old bottle of Log Cabin that we dug out of the back of the cupboard, then had to run under hot water for ten minutes to get the top to open. Garnished with...oh hell, who garnishes a toaster waffle? But I digress. Not unlike the serving suggestion, the beautiful ribbon rosette would take time, and lots of it. So, given Carte Blanche, we don't need to even show this to Jahaira... but we do. Come on, have you never read this blog before? ...of course we do, we thrive on this stuff!

Needless to say, they loved our ribbon rosette idea. They loved the invitation design, with not a shred of white on it, even the envelopes were black. Upon Sarah's suggestion, we added Menu cards with the heading "Eat", little printed flags mounted on swizzle sticks for the bar that said "Drink", and monogrammed napkins that said "Be Merry". Thanks to Bjorn Messner

for the shots of the menu cards and our beautiful couple.

After that, the cake was a gimme. We copied the invitation colors, motif, monogram, and even the rosettes, this time made out of gum paste. We made it big, we made it sparkle, we made it NOT WHITE!

Jahaira was so excited about the cake design, that she commissioned a surprise groom's cake for Adam. We incorporated his favorite things, cigars, good Tequila, and the Godfather movies. Best part, the top tier isn't a cake, it is a molded chocolate bowl, filled with rice crispie treats, and topped with royal icing "popcorn". Even the Godfather DVD is chocolate. But my favorite part is the Tequila worm making its way up the frosting bottle wearing his top hat and bow tie. Damn I love this job.

So, they ate, they drank, and they were married. A lesson in letting go? It worked out for these two, maybe I should...ahh, get real, I can't even eat a toaster waffle without breaking out the fine china.

Lindsay, Sean, and the Durability of Rice Crispy Treats

2011-09-25T18:20:00.005-05:00

When I met with Lindsay and Sean, I was instantly intrigued by the fact that they are both commercial airline pilots. Of course, all sorts of travel-inspired cakes came into my head. After all, cake and traveling are two of my favorite things in life. However, as details of their wedding plans came out, the chance of working in some crazy whimsey travel themed cake slipped away.

Their reception would be at the Semple Mansion in Minneapolis, one of my favorite venues, but also incredibly traditional in decor. Their palette would be Ivory,Pale Yellow and Silver, with accents of French Blue in the floral, also subdued and classic. But the nail in the "Crazy Cake" coffin, was that Lindsay had chosen to wear the most beautiful Priscilla of Boston gown that had incredible ribbon embroidery accents.

Honestly, it was a cake waiting to happen. That, coupled with their Fleur de Lis motif popping up throughout the stationery, decor, and even attire, made the cake practically design itself. We all loved the design, and I quickly forgot about my visions of travel-cake grandeur.

That is, until I got a call from Ashleigh. Ashleigh is one of my favorite former brides, and actually the person who referred Lindsay and Sean to us in the first place. Ashleigh was planning a bridal shower for Lindsay...with...a travel theme! Hell to the yeah, the cake lady gets to make the elegant wedding cake, and the theme cake too!

Now, Ashleigh's timing was impeccable, as we were about to film three more episodes of "Amazing Wedding Cakes" for WeTV. The producers were looking for cakes that were unusual, interesting, and most importantly, cakes that would put me in a position in which I was likely to have a full-on mental meltdown on television. I can oblige. Instead of the original thought of a stack of vintage suitcases, I pitched to Ashleigh a vintage travel trunk cake with a full-size globe on top of it. Why do I do these things? I don't know. The producers, Ashleigh, Lindsay, all would have been thrilled with a stack of vintage suitcase cakes. But instead, I had to go and pitch a sphere. Have we ever done a sphere before? No. Why not do it with a kitchen full of camera men (hello Amazing Larry and Kimmel) to record my descent into complete madness.

For details on how that worked out for us, just watch the episode, but let's get back to our couple. We made the globe out of Rice Crispie Treats, then frosted it in fondant. We delivered the cake to the shower, they ate the cake, loved it, but didn't cut into the globe. As it happens, they decided to save the globe to display it on their candy table at the wedding reception...6 months later. God Speed little Crispie...and I'm staying completely out of this.

The wedding came, and we delivered the beautiful wedding cake.

When we arrived, there it was, the Rice Crispie globe, in all its glory, mounted on top of a cute little suitcase that they'd bought as a display stand for it.

I've got to admit, I was shocked at how well preserved it was. We've kept dummy cakes for over a year at the shop, but those are styrofoam underneath. I had no idea that rice crispies could last that long without imploding, exploding, or otherwise ploding. Makes you want to treat the crispies with a little more respect, doesn't it?
Thanks to Brandis Alves Photography for the photographic evidence of this mad science experiment...and the beautiful couple.

Courtney and David at the Walker

2011-09-17T18:11:00.005-05:00

Courtney and David had their wedding and reception at the Walker. You might call it "returning to the scene of the crime". After all, they had their first date at that very museum.

We've designed cakes for weddings at The Walker before. It's easy. After all, if you are the type of people to have your wedding at an art museum, you are definitely not afraid of good design, clean lines, and creativity. Come to think of it, almost any of our clients fit that description, but we're lucky that way.

So we sketched up something clean, something modern, something that would suit the venue and our design-driven couple. We even did their invitations for them. Modern, minimalist, and beautiful.

The cake would be equally modern. Rather than a lot of color, we decided to emboss the fondant with geometric patterns so that the detail would be a play of light and shadow. We'd accent the embossing with a few touches of color (they had a great palette) but mostly, the cake would remain white.

Until...several weeks later, when I got an email from the groom. It turns out they'd been holding out on me. There was photographic evidence from their first date...at The Walker. Two little snapshots. One of him, one of her, that they'd taken of each other. Would it be too weird, he asked, to incorporate those photos into the cake design?

Well, that depends. If you treat it like a graduation cake, and get the photos printed on edible images, then attach those to the cake with a birthday-cake-shell-border so that Aunt Cindy can eat part of your cheek and your right ear, then yes...too weird. But these are creative people, I am creative people. We can work this out!

Enter Captain Leisure. The Captain, for those of you who do not know, is married to the Evil Cake Genius. He also designs t-shirts embossed signs, and other gift products to amuse, and support the Cake Lady's cakey lifestyle. A good egg. But more importantly...insanely talented in graphic design. The Captain took those little snapshots and worked a little of his magic and next thing we knew....art. Cakey art.

We shot a screen, and printed their first date in royal icing, right on the bottom tier of their wedding cake. LOVE IT.
Best of all, the Bride and Groom loved it. The guests loved it, and Aunt Cindy still got to eat somebody's ear, but... do you taste that Auntie? That's what art tastes like.

Elizabeth, Mike and July in Minnesota

2011-09-03T18:51:00.005-05:00

Many of you cake fans out there saw us deliver Stephanie and Pete's cake in the Snowmageddon blizzard of 2010 on Amazing Wedding Cakes. It's true, Minnesota is a Harsh, blustery climate with awful winters. You'd think that the weather gods would cut us some slack the rest of the year, but what many of you don't know, is that come mid July, a cake lady can find herself longing for 10 below and snow covered roads. You see, Minnesota in the summertime can be a relentless steam bath. And fondant cakes plus humidity and heat are a cake decorators worst nightmare.

Enter Elizabeth and Mike. A nicer couple you would be hard-pressed to find. They've got a great back story for cake-spiration too. They're currently living in Hong Kong, but having a Lakeside reception in her parent's beautiful backyard in Sun Fish Lake. Without being too themey, they wanted to incorporate some Chinese design elements into an otherwise "summer on the lake" themed cake. This might sound like a tricky proposition, however, we had a few tricks up our sleeves.

To start, the couple had Mimi Designs coordinating their wedding, and while I am still convinced that they are out to kill me,(we'll get to that later) they do amazing design work that has inspired many a Gateaux cake. Second, the Cake Lady has had the opportunity to travel to China within the past two years, and was overwhelmed with inspiration in the Yu Yuan Garden in Shanghai.

Easy, we take the birch tree motif from their invitation, add in some laquered chinese garden pagoda lattice (made entirely of frosting, of course) and top it with a frosting double happiness character. A few frosting water lilies at the base, and we had a winner. Elizabeth and Mike were happy, I was happy, the Mimi's were happy, Mother Nature was laughing at all of us.

Now, let's get back to some history here. Amy and Amy from Mimi Designs have been bringing their clients to us for cakes for many years. They are creative, unique, and very talented event designers. And...they are out to kill me. If I had a buck for every time I've heard Amy Red say "don't freak out, but..." to me, I'd be retired and living in a villa in the hills outside of Florence, Italy(mmmmm...Florence). I've shown up to deliver elaborate cakes, followed in by Irish Step Dancers (not kidding...STEP DANCERS) who asked Amy where to set up. The answer..."You'll be dancing around the cake". Trying to kill me. Other cakes, I've been informed that "The bride didn't want the cake cut until 11:00" while setting up the cake...at 3:00 in the afternoon. Trying to kill me. "Don't freak out, but the florist has brought you 300 of the wrong color roses for the cake". TRYING TO KILL ME. Funny thing is, these situations always work out. The step dancers were a hit, and the cake stayed upright, the 11:00 cake cutting was a dramatic highlight of the late night reception, and the Mimi's had already cleared the flower color change with the bride before her high strung cake lady arrived.

The Monday before Elizabeth and Mike's wedding, I got the dreaded call from Amy. "Don't freak out, but they're predicting record high temperatures and heat advisories for Saturday". Just what every cake lady loves to hear. We worked through any possibility of setting the cake up inside the house, but the guests wouldn't be in the house for any portion of the reception, so that was out. We then figured out the absolute latest possible set up time frame so that the cake would be stacked and done when the guests arrived, but not standing for a second longer than it had to be before being seen. None of this would matter,however, because the weather forcasters were wrong. Dead Wrong...they had to be. There's no way, we'd get stuck with three weddings in a blizzard, and one outdoor set up during a heat advisory in the same year. It simply wasn't a possibility.

Until, of course, Saturday morning, when I woke up to the most torrential downpour and thunderstorms I can remember. Overnight on Friday, Minneapolis got 4.85 inches of rain. By mid afternoon, it had heated up to 93 degrees, evaporating all of that water into the air, causing a near record 77 degree dew point. For those of you who don't have a meteorology degree, and aren't anal retentive paranoid cake decorators, let's have a lesson, shall we? You know how when you take a can of soda out of the fridge, and set it on a table in the summer, it sweats? Well, the dew point is the temperature at which that water will condense on a surface on any given day. Anything over 65 is not pleasant, the record for Minnesota is in the early 80 degrees, and on Elizabeth and Mike's wedding day it was 77 degrees. That means, that if you took the can of soda out of the 38 degree fridge, put it in the oven, heated it to 77 degrees, and took it outside, it would get sweaty.

Our cakes are kept in a 38 degree refrigerator. We let this one come to room temperature in Elizabeth's parent's livingroom before we took it outside to stack it. The wooden cake stand that I brought for the cake table, and my camera tripod (typically not stored under refrigeration) were sweating. I was SWEATING.

We set up the cake in a record 30 minutes. We had stabilized the buttercream as we always do for outside events, but with a heat index of 108 degrees, who really knows. Funny thing. The condensation on the tiers made the cake high gloss, no, really high gloss. It actually looked like we lacquered it. If you didn't know that to a cake lady, that's terrifying, you'd think it was really quite pretty.

The Mimi's did their best to comfort me, as usual, and in the end, the couple loved their cake. We had the pleasure of seeing some of their photos, and just like our blizzard couples, you wouldn't even know that there was any issue. As a matter of fact, the reception looked like a blast to attend. Other than the Double Happiness flopping over (now the symbol for double heat exhaustion) the cake stood tall and lasted until they cut it...thankfully NOT at 11:00 at night. And the Mimi's...have still not succeeded in killing me.

A Cake of His Own

2011-08-20T16:12:00.004-05:00

We do a lot of wedding cakes. And that's just how we like it. But every once in a while, I realize that the estrogen level at the shop is getting a bit high. Every time we make a fabulous gum paste flower or frosting bow, it edges a little higher. By mid July, the bakery reaches female DEFCON 1, practically glowing pink with femininity, and I feel the desperate need to do something, anything, that isn't girly.

Thankfully, that's when Michelle showed up. Don't get me wrong, Michelle is plenty feminine. She's strikingly beautiful, and, might I add, she rocked her Maggie Sottero wedding gown. But, she didn't come to me for herself. She came to me for a surprise groom's cake for her fiance Tristen.

Imagine my joy, when she described him as a "man's man". Hallelujah! Even better, he's an officer in the Army...loves baseball, especially the Twins, and has a thing for Sam Adam's beer.

Michelle had a pair of Twin's tickets that she planned to give him as a wedding gift, so we decided to focus on baseball as a theme for the cake. Before we knew it, we had designed a cake that was all about peanuts and crackerjack rather than silk and chiffon. We added a pair of frosting dog tags in lieu of a frosting brooch, and, to honor their first date on the 4th of July, a few frosting firecrackers...can't shake a well-manicured finger at that, can you?

So we traded out our Katy Perry and Regina Spektor CDs for some Beck, and Sublime, and commenced a week of purely masculine cake decorating (no, that's NOT an oxymoron). There's nothing like molding a solid chocolate bottle of beer and baseball to cure whatever ails you! We even added a frosting scoreboard, with their wedding date as the score, a frosting baseball cap, and a pair of frosting hot dogs(with his and her favorite toppings). And with each stroke of the pastry bag, the threat of an all out Gateaux cat-fight-meltdown was diminished.

Michelle reported back that Tristen loved his cake (once he actually realized it was a cake) and it was the hit of the reception, especially with the guys. Thanks Michelle, we needed that....no, we really, really needed that.

Thanks to Michelle and Tristen's Photographer Kate Botwinski for capturing this cake in all of it's manly glory!

Nicole, Jim, and Cake Kismet

2011-08-14T15:50:00.005-05:00

Anyone who's been in to design a cake at Gateaux, knows that it is a rambling unorganized mess of a process. And that's just the way I like it. I rarely know much about my clients before they come in to meet with me, shy of the basics...wedding location, color scheme, etc. So the design session is the ultimate cake show and tell.

Every once in a while, I'll pull a photo out of my overstuffed file of "cake ideas" before a meeting, if there is something that strikes me as particularly suited to a couple based on my limited knowledge of their event, but usually by the third or fourth minute of the appointment, my ideas have shifted so dramatically, that it never even sees the light of day.

Not the case with Nicole and Jim. They walked in with a photo in their hand of their dream cake. To which, I laughed, and pulled out my torn out magazine page of the exact same design. Easy enough. Or is it? Ask my husband (or my beloved doggie Speck) if I've ever been known to let sleeping dogs lie. NOT LIKELY.

Just because we all thought of the same cake, doesn't make it the right cake. Yep, it had the right color combination of pale yellow and white, and an incredibly sophisticated interlocked ring pattern on it, which suited the graphic nature of the couples style, with the minimalist design of the reception site (the Walker Art Center). But, the problem was, that it wasn't Nicole and Jim's cake, it was Martha Stewart's.

So, we dug through the rest of their idea file, looked through my portfolio of cakes, and before we knew it, we had four alternative designs. Several of them kept the ring pattern, but oh, what incredible depth it added to make the back row of rings charcoal grey (their accent color) and what about changing the tiers to square? If we stack the tiers asymmetrically, maybe the pattern shouldn't wrap all the way around the cakes? When they left the appointment, that original "perfect" design had transformed into THEIR cake.

But that wasn't all. They wanted to go all out with a dessert table. Still on a design high, we sketched up desserts decorated with clean graphic patterns to compliment the cake design. Nicole had a collection of fabulous cake stands and trays, and we had our own "Magic Phil" make us two tiered square plateaus to wrap with groovy paper provided by the ever-talented Mimi Designs. On Nicole's suggestion, we added pink and blue to the dessert color scheme to make it more inviting and fun.

And she was right, I had a hard time keeping myself from digging into that table during the set up. Okay, truth be told, they may have been shorted a yellow malt ball or two. Or three.

Rubber Duckies!

2011-08-07T19:03:00.003-05:00

During a wedding cake consultation, I often ask about how the groom proposed. Not necessarily for cake inspiration, but simply because I'm a bit of a busy-body, and a lot of a romantic. You can imagine, in sixteen years, I've heard just about everything. Gateaux clients don't lack in creativity, so I've heard tales of proposals on mountain tops, beaches, famous Paris Churches, on Safari, in jail (they were both working as guards, don't worry) and even an elevator.

Just when I thought I'd heard it all, I met Sara and Dan.

We pretty much had their cake designed. They came in with a picture of a cake made by Confetti Cakes in New York...one of my favorite cake shops. We knew we wanted to add a few tiers, and tweak the design, but for the most part, we had it figured out. Then, to pass the time while I was drawing hundreds of tiny stripes and polka dots on the sketches, I floated the proposal question.
"I had to propose in a bathroom" was his answer. Which begs the question "...and she said yes?" as well as "Were you trapped under something heavy in said bathroom?"and "Did you lose a bet?" and most importantly "Does your mother know?" The answers to which were "yes", "no", "no", and "well, yes, my dad proposed to her in a bathroom as well".
Turns out, our boy Dan had a bathroom legacy to uphold. As the story goes, when Dan's grandfather arrived at his future wife's house on the night he was planning to propose, he rang the doorbell, and when her parents came to the door, asked "Where's Minnie?" When they told him she was in the bathroom getting ready for their date, the poor kid just couldn't stand the wait, and went into the bathroom, got down on one knee, and proposed to a surely unsuspecting young Minnie.
Since then, in the spirit of giving that poor man a hard time, each of his sons and now grandsons have proposed to their future wives in, you guessed it, in the John.
You will be happy to know that Dan's proposal was quite elaborate, involving flying in Sara's best friend to surprise her, setting up the woman at the jewelry store to give her a room key to a suite at the Saint Paul Hotel, arranging for both of their parents to meet the next morning for brunch at the hotel, and.....proposing in the bathroom.
Now, all of you that know, and hopefully love, the cake lady, know that there's absolutely not a chance in heaven or hell that I'm going to let this go unrealized in cake form. So, I immediately began scheming with our couple as to how we could tastefully (key word here) incorporate this most unusual proposal into their cake. Dan was correct in assuming that a frosting toilet, was out of the question, but a frosting bathtub complete with bride and groom rubber duckies were absolutely on the table. Well, on the cake.
So we added a tiny frosting tub with two rubber duckies and a pair of his and hers towels embroidered with "Just" and "Married" to the cake design.
We delivered the cake to the Saint Paul Hotel for the reception and let the guests in on a long held family tradition in the process.
The bride later informed me that the hotel staff brought the tub to their Sweetheart table, and they dined with their frosting ducky counterparts at the reception. If you look closely, you can see them on the table.
Much thanks to Kelly Brown for these wonderful images, and to the Saint Paul Hotel staff, for their incredible care and consideration in adding two tiny guests to the head table that night.

Love is Sweet

2011-07-30T18:31:00.005-05:00

Matt and Andrea had a chic, sophisticated, modern look to their wedding. An intimate affair, held at an artist's studio, it would reflect the couple's style perfectly.
This is a slam dunk when it comes to cake design. It's simple. Take a few key elements (a monogram, a fabulous color scheme, a simple graphic) and turn them into a clean, crisp modern cake. How about this for minimalism...Instead of putting the pattern on the side of the cake, we cut out the pattern from the fondant panels to reveal another layer of colored fondant below. I showed the technique to these guys and they loved it, so we had a cake.

One disconnect to deal with, however. As it happens, Matt comes from a family of serious sugar-junkies. It wouldn't be a family celebration without a full dessert spread. To Andrea, however, this brought visions of country club brunch displays towering with petit fours and cream puff swans swimming around on lavish sterling silver stands. Delicious, yes, but completely NOT in line with the modern, clean design of the wedding.

Enter the cake lady, who, while has quite the respect and admiration for the well-executed cream puff fowl, has grown weary of their aesthetic. It's time for a makeover. So, we took all of the family favorites, Petit Fours, Fruit Tarts, Mini Eclairs, etc. and mixed in some new treats, Monogrammed Pecan Shortbread Cookies, French Macarons, and Cake Pops. Then, we added some coordinating candies, and had all new stands built. All acrylic and glass, no filigree, no mirrors, no swans!

The couple ran with it. We arrived to the studio, and the entire length of the streetfront window was reserved for the cake and desserts. They found amazing table linens, and strung the letters L-O-V-E -I-S- -S-W-E-E-T above the table so that it was visible from the street. The groom shared with us, that the night before, at their rehearsal, a couple stopped in to see if there was a new bakery opening in the space. I guess there kind of was, just "invitation only".

We had the pleasure of meeting the mother of the groom while we set up the desserts. When I commented on the sheer volume of desserts vs. the small guest list, she took full credit. "That was me" she said with a grin that only a true dessert-junkie could understand. And I did.

Fashionista

2011-07-23T18:28:00.003-05:00

The cake lady's got style. There's no denying that. Unfortunately, my style is limited to the world of all things cakeable. The rest, we'll leave to that talented few, whose parents, in their infinite foresight knew to name them things like Coco, Donatella, and Yves. My parents had a thing for birds, I guess, which stopped my potential for a career in fashion dead in its tracks by the time I left the delivery room.

Jasmine, however...is a different story.

Jasmine had her "people" (sister Tahlia) call me to arrange a fabulous, designer 21st birthday cake worthy of her impeccable style. I was intrigued by the prospect of designing for a designer, so I sketched up an homage to all of her favorite things. The Chanel purse, nail polish, Dior lip gloss, and Juicy Couture charm bracelet were a gimme, but we felt the need to acknowledge this little Diva's own love of design. It turns out, our Jasmine has her own line of couture goodies, so we added a dressmaker dummy with her label "sewn" to it, as well as her Vaio laptop that aids her in the design process.

Of course, these items could only be properly carried in a "Big Brown Bag", so we had ourselves the perfect cake!

I will say, that upon talking to our little Jas, I couldn't help feeling a little "Diva" myself. She calls me "Miss Robin" in her awesome New Zealand accent, frequently refers to "glittering her knickers" when she's excited, and loves when I curse on "Amazing Wedding Cakes" because it "shows how much I care". I really do think I love her....

One more little addition to the cake, a frosting ipod, with of course, Madonna's "Vogue" on the screen. Go Jasmine, you've definitely got it down...and by the way, you rocked your little white pleated baby doll dress and emerald green sparkly shoes at your birthday party.

Amber and Katy Perry?

2011-07-16T19:51:00.008-05:00

Okay, this is actually Amber and Randy's wedding cake, but stay with me people.

When I met with Amber, her mom, and her awesome wedding coordinator Stephanie from Table 6 productions, I instantly knew I wanted to make this wedding cake. Well, not instantly...about 7 minutes into the appointment to be exact.

That's when Amber pulled out of her bridal file, not only the photo of her lovely wedding gown, awesome sparkly shoes, but.....wait for it, people....a photo of Katy Perry.

Now, those of you who know the cake lady, know that her taste in music is nothing short of a little wacky. On any given day, you might hear Etta James, Natalie Merchant, Cake (of course), Greenday, or G Love and Special Sauce playing at the bakery. It wasn't until a few years ago, though, that I discovered Katy Perry, after seeing her don a fruit dress at the Grammys. Any girl who can keep a straight face, and work it, while wearing glittered bananas and strawberries has got my undying admiration and respect. I quickly borrowed her CD from Jenna (cake girly number two) and never gave it back.

Needless to say, I was thrilled to see Ms. Perry in someone's wedding file. But it was her dress that intrigued Amber. A beautiful little ombre number fading from blue to purple. While the bridesmaids would be wearing black at Amber's wedding, the rest of the decor would be inspired by this ombre effect. Lighting, floral, and of course, the cake!

I immediately agreed, and we designed a cake that I had absolutely no idea how to do. It would have the outline of the pattern that trailed down Amber's train, but the sides would be airbrushed ombre from blue to purple sheen. Awesome....terrifying....Awesifying!!!!

Better yet, we would do a dessert/candy buffet that would also transform from blue to purple. Gimme, gimme, gimme!

Much to my dismay, the combination of the cake and dessert buffet made the delivery too extensive for me to wear a fruit dress to the wedding, maybe next time.

Thanks to Ruth from Happily Ever After for these lovely photos!

Stacy Style

2011-06-26T19:16:00.005-05:00

People always ask me how I come up with so many unique cake designs. Don't I ever run out of ideas? The answer is simple. Emerson knew it, and I live by it..."Genius borrows nobly". The only thing he forgot is the "Evil Cake" in front of Genius, but hey, we'll give him a break, he's Ralph Waldo Emerson (and, I'm actually making his great, great, grandson's wedding cake this October...but that's another story).

Onto my knack for Plaigiarism...

Stacy and Andy came into the shop with the usual "wedding file" bursting with inspiration for a hungry cake designer. I love these files, I've seen huge expandable accordion files, the usual ring binder, the latest...ipad wedding file, and my favorite of all time, Dawn Strauss (hi Dawnie!) who would show up at my shop with giant rubbermaid tubs full of inspiration. Stacy and Andy had a lot of beautiful inspiration, but it was their incredible hand-made inviations that grabbed me instantly. Each invitation would have one of four bold, beautiful fabrics ironed on to the back of the card. Enclosure cards as well, so that each invitation had a mixture of patterns packed into one lucky envelope.

Now, the cake lady has no eye for this stuff, I would never put together these varied patterns and colors, but I do know a good thing when I sees it, so I pounced. How about a four tier cake patterned with each of the four fabrics? The grey background with dots, would become grey fondant with 3-D spheres, the pale gingham with opaque polka dots would become airbrushed stripes with fondant applique dots and beads, and the floral patterns would stay in their floral-y glory.

We had a photo shoot coming up with Minneapolis St. Paul Weddings. Typically, I'll make them a dummy cake, but when I got the call, I offered one and only one cake. This one. Being the fabulous creative folks that they are, upon seeing the sketch, they sent out one of their photographers to shoot this little lovely on site...on a Sunday.

So, Stacy and Andy, chalk one more published cake to the Evil Cake Borrower, and thanks for giving me the inspiration for one of my favorite designs of all time.

Town and Country

2011-06-18T18:57:00.004-05:00

So I just got an email from Town and Country Magazine. They're looking for cakes for an upcoming article. We're pretty lucky over here at Gateaux, and have had several of our lovelies published nationally. Town and Country is one of my favorites, because they actually ask us to submit photos from actual weddings...of actual cakes, which is what we actually do.

Last summer they published Ashley's beautiful antique blue and lace cake, it was to die for.

Anyway, this time, they're going for a theme. Town and Country, is looking for exactly that...City inspired cakes, and Country inspired cakes.

As I went sifting through my latest cakes for which to send over, it was pretty easy to plop them into city, city, country, country, city, categories...until I got to Ashley and Matt's cake. While it definitely is worthy of a look-see by the editors, it completely stumped me.

You see, we based this cake on the couples invitations, designed by the fabulous Amy at Mi Mi Weddings. They wanted a vintage look to the invites, and while the reception would be on the ledge of a lake, it's Lake Calhoun, smack-dab in the middle of Minneapolis (well, not really the middle, but you get the idea). So, what to do with an urban-vintage lake design scheme? They solved this design problem with an exquisite replication of a full-color, antique map of Minneapolis printed on vellum and included with the invitations. Beautiful!

Cake with said map...not possible. That's where the amazing TK comes into play. Those of you who know us, know that we come with a crew of thousands (people who will lend a hand for a handful of cake, that is) and TK is one of them. He took the map, and cleaned it up to a one color, screen-printable version. Don't ask me how, something to do with cloning, outputting, a little bit of burnt sage, a few chants, you know, artist stuff.

So, with our screens in hand, we laid out sections of the map, printed them, and the rest is a bunch of Jenna's amazing mitering skills.

So, where to put this cake, City or Country? I'm taking votes, but mine is that the article should remain the same, only change the layout to one photo...this one. Country, City, great cake, the editors can get off early and take a nice drive to the Lake.

Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll, two out of three anyway.

2011-05-29T18:18:00.005-05:00

We've had some interesting cakes at Gateaux over the years. Hell, we've had some interesting cakes at Gateaux over the weeks, days, etc. But sometimes, we get a week, where I look at the bakery rack of drying "cakesessories" and can't possibly wrap my head around how and why I've ended up with that particular mix of items in my shop. This was one of those weeks.
While the concept of drugs and heavy metal music aren't too foreign to each other, throw together an AC/DC amplifier and several boxes of (that's right, I'm gonna say it) suppositories, and my type "A" world starts to crumble.
It all started with a drop in from one of our favorite past brides, Krista. Her husband, Justin, was turning 30, and she wanted a cake for his surprise party that would rival his groom's cake. Justin happens to be quite the AC/DC fan (their daughter even has an AB/CD Pacifier, complete with the little lightning bolt) so she'd been kicking around the idea of theming the cake in that direction.
Now, the cake lady has pretty broad taste in music. On any given day, you can catch everything from Etta James, to G Love and Special Sauce, and of course, Cake, playing in the shop. But, I never developed the Heavy Metal side of my brain. So, some research was necessary. Google search AC/DC and you'll get a slew of inspiration. So, we sketched up a life-size amplifier, draped with a tour shirt (marked with important dates in Justin's life) and topped it with Hell's Bell (yup, I had no idea about that either). Add in a frosting vinyl record with custom label, a frosting copy of that adorable pacifier for daddy's little head-banger, and some blown off frosting boards (from what else, the frosting sticks of dynamite) and you've got yourself a cake worthy of holding up you saluting with your fist of rock while drinking from your goblet of rock, rock, rock, rock, ro....sorry, vinyl can skip from time to time.

Now that I think of it, I'm guessing that this week made more sense than I gave it credit for. After all, I'm guessing at their age, the members of AC/DC are probably more inclined to be dealing with prescription drugs than recreational drugs. So, onto cake number two (oh God, did I just make that inadvertent, and horrible, horrible pun?)
This cake was ordered to celebrate the owner's sale of his company to another company and subsequent going away party. They originally wanted a replica of the corporate headquarters, but I'm a cake lady, not an architect, so I talked them in a direction that was much more do-able, and kind of fun. I thought we could make the owner a stack of boxes that look like he's packing up his office and leaving. He collects African art, so we could have one of those pieces coming out of the top tier, and since he'll have plenty of time to ride his motorcycles now, we could make the middle tier shaped like a Harley Davidson saddle bag. The cake could be strewn with office supplies, Post-it notes, etc. scrawled with well-wish messages from his staff.
The party planning committee loved the concept, but thought the cake could represent the history of the company, and the products that put them on the map instead. So, we started with a big pharmeceutical tin of compouding powders, onto anti-poisoning remediers, and then onto their latest products, injectables and, yes...don't make me type it again...you know whats.
We added a message on the side of the cake via those edible Post-it Notes that I was pushing for earlier.

We delivered the cake to corporate headquarters, where...we had the most fun! These people were awesome. We had a constant influx of employees coming down to check out the cake set up, and don't let the lab coats fool you, these guys are one hell of a good time!

So, there you have it, two insanely different cakes, but one thing always ties things together...cake makes people happy, not just me, kind of everyone.

Nothing runs like a...(n) International Harvester

2011-05-21T20:06:00.004-05:00

As a cake lady, you'd think I might not know all that much about tractors. You'd think right. You'd think I didn't know anything about AC/DC music either, but that's for another blog.
Enter Amy. Her fiance grew up in Iowa on a farm called, not making this up kids, "Lover's Lane Acres". He loves it there, and while that is not his chosen profession, he still spends a lot of time there, on his favorite tractor "Barney". Amy would like to have their wedding cake topped with a frosting replica of his beloved tractor.
So we meet. Surprisingly, Amy is a very fashionable, not-at-all-country girl. Upon hearing her wedding details (pink and orange gerbera daisies, white linen dining, a stunning wedding dress) I couldn't bring myself to top any wedding cake of hers with farm machinery. Fortunately, she had been leaning towards the tractor as a surprise groom's cake, so we had a deal. She provided me with photos of Barney, photos of Jake (not another tractor, their adorable doggy) and details that would be fun to include on the cake (how the groom loves to fish with his boys, etc.)
Since a tractor doesn't have much bulk to it, we decided to put a frosting replica of Barney on a cake shaped like a shipping crate, stamped with the name of the farm, as though it was sent up for the wedding.
Now the madness begins. How the hell do you make a tractor out of frosting. You start by calling in the big guns...Magic Phil...whose family owned an International Harvester dealership in Kansas when he was a kid. Thank god Barney wasn't a Green (ahem, you know who you are) tractor, or we would have lost Phil right away. We ordered a cast iron replica of what, after many hours of internet searching, I learned, was an International Harvester Farmall 756 Custom Diesel tractor. This, of course, only after looking through hundreds of tractor replica toys, and learning the subtle nuances of tractor design.
Once we got our little toy in the mail, we called in Phil to dismantle the sucker to cast some molds. He filled us in a whole lot more on tractor design, and tractor etiquette. Yes, there is such a thing.
It took us the better part of a week, and a final assembly mission involving all three cake ladies, royal icing, red chocolate, and a few cans of compressed air, but the tractor was assembled and happily, made the ride to St. Paul without a hitch (ha, no pun intended...the IH Farmall 756 Custom Diesel doesn't come with a hitch, silly urban folk).
Now onto the wedding cake. I've never made Gerbera Daisies out of frosting before. We've made cute little Shasta Daisies, and tons of little cartoony daisies, but never something as complex as these. We got them cut and imprinted, and let them dry for a day before assembling them, and learning the hard way, that they are insanely fragile. We needed three for the cake. We made six. Two days before the wedding, we made three more (just couldn't sleep without a few more extras). I know I can be paranoid, just ask the girls, but once the cake was set up, we had zero, yes, zero orange daisies left, and only one pink one. Gah!

Anyway, despite the daisy terror, this cake ended up being one of the most festive and just plain fun wedding cakes we've done. We set it up, hid out in the kitchen, and watched as the Bride and Groom entered. She was covering his eyes, so that she could surprise him with his groom's cake. So cute. And she informed me that he drove to the hotel that night with the tractor in a box, on her lap "like he had a newborn baby in the car". Now that's love.

Otters Holding Hands

2011-05-14T20:19:00.004-05:00

So, we get this call. Her name is Rachel, and she has an idea for a cake, but her and her fiance have done some research, and have decided, that we're the only ones who can make this cake without risk of it being "creepy". No pressure.
As soon as Jenna got off the phone with Rachel, she went to Youtube, and followed the bride's instructions. This is what we saw.
Those of you who don't know the cake lady personally, you must know this. I've never met an animal that I didn't think was absolutely adorable. I once took a boat tour to "Stingray City" in Grand Cayman. While others on the boat were quite freaked out by the stingrays, who, by the way, like to rub up against your legs like cats, I found them nothing shy of adorable. Majestic, yes, exotic, you bet, but to me...adorable. The captain of the boat showed us each individually how to get one to perch on our outstretched arms, by feeding them calamari. When I saw that stingrays yellow eyes peering up at me, I instantly started speaking in tongues of baby-talk and cooing. Captain Andy had never seen anyone react quite like that, and thought I deserved to drive the boat back to shore. Sweet. But scary for the rest of the passengers. The cake lady likes to drive fast too. But that's another tale.

Back to otters, who...are cute to EVERYONE. I met with Rachel and Chris shortly after that phone call, and found them to be as charming, creative, and all around awesome as I'd expected, based on the Otter video. We designed a cake that would be worthy of such a topper, complete with waterfalls, water lilies, turtles, frogs, Koi Carp and a pair of owls, their other favorite critters.

Of course, we had to give the boy otter a bow tie, and, since Rachel wasn't wearing a veil, we gave the girl otter a little calla lily bouquet. The otters sat on my baker's rack for a little over a week in varying stages of completeness. I must admit, that by the time I put them on the cake and delivered them, I was a little heartbroken to see them go. That is, until we arrived at the wedding venue, and I opened the box, only to see our sweet Rachel tearing up at the sight of them. I have a feeling that our little otters have found themselves a good home.

Thanks to Michelle Huber Photography for sharing with us these amazing photos!

Bridesmaid Dresses!

2011-04-30T19:00:00.006-05:00

Here's one for all of you fashionistas out there. The cake lady knows nothing of fashion, but these sisters do! Not only did they bring the dresses on which we based these cakes to the appointment, but they modeled them for us as well. Shoes, tiaras, the works. For those of you who have followed the blog for a while, this is that same family (some of my all time favorite clients) who we made the cowboy cake for last spring. I love them...but they think I can do anything. That's why, despite my minor stroke when they suggested I replicate four dresses, I somehow still muttered "okay". That's where the story starts.
Next step, how do we make these and more importantly, how do we get them three hours away from the shop without killing them. Answer...very carefully, and very carefully.
We needed a mold to cast the dressmaker dummy bodices. If there had only been one, I would have carved it by hand, but there were three, and if they weren't identical, it would have looked sloppy. So we went shopping. A My Size Barbie, the victim...Craig's list...the resource. I picked her up, and felt a slight pang of guilt for the gruesome acts that were about to follow. Let's be honest, what woman wouldn't derive at least a little pleasure from decapitating and ripping the arms off of that symbol of all that is unattainable in the female form, but before I get political, I'll get back to the story. Sorry to all my little cake fans, but Barbie had to die. We ripped off her arms, legs, and head, and cast a plaster of paris mold off of her torso. Admittedly, it actually was a little weird to do, plus, Mattel builds those suckers to last. It took a whole lot more effort and tools than anticipated to get the job done.

Being the frugal cake ladies that we are, we felt guilty throwing away perfectly good arms and legs, so we left them at the shop for a while. That provided seemingly unending entertainment for the Crew of Amazing Wedding Cakes, who would randomly appear for an OTF with a barbie arm sticking out of their shirt sleeve, or worse.

We don't typically practice cakes in advance of making them. This would be impossible to afford, but in this case, I needed a little assurance. So, we made a mock up a week before the cameras arrived, and then sent Jenna and her boyfriend Kyle out on a snowy Saturday afternoon with it in the back of my SUV. Once it stood normal driving maneuvers, they decided to test the limits, and I'm happy to report that it withstood a pretty wild ride (I believe they did doughnuts in the parking lot, but they won't confirm or deny this).

Once we were convinced that they were road-worthy, we made some serious friends by giving away chunks of that 50 pound dress cake to our neighbors.

The rest is pretty much viewable on Amazing Wedding Cakes, which I have been informed is now available for download on iTunes. Take that Lady Gaga, the cake ladies have arrived! And in style, for once.

Many thanks to Cat Manchank Photography for capturing these cakes for us before they became dessert!

A Tale of Three Cities (and one Mexican Restaurant)

2011-04-17T18:16:00.003-05:00

When I met with Marissa and Robb, they instantly took to the idea that their wedding cake should be a “Tale of Three Cites”. You see, while they were both from the Twin Cities, Marissa had been living in New York, and Robb in LA. They moved back home within two weeks of each other, met, fell in love, and then needed a cake! My original thought was to have Landmark New York buildings silhouetted on the top two tiers, the Hollywood sign and palm trees on the bottom two tiers, and Minneapolis represented on the middle tier. It was Robb’s idea to switch the bottom tier from palm trees to Hollywood search lights (great call). We would top the cake with a well known Minneapolis sculpture of a cherry balancing on top of a spoon.
It wasn’t until I went over the design with Jenna and Julia, my trusty sidekicks, that the idea of making the searchlights actually light up was hatched. After all, I had opened my big yapper about making the cherry on the top of the cake light up when meeting with the bride and groom, and they loved the idea, so why not light up the searchlights too?
This was the first cake we’d ever made with a camera crew in our kitchen. Honestly, the idea of being filmed while working on wedding cakes wasn’t high on my list of things that sounded “fun” so it was an extra stressful day around Gateaux. We arrived to eight crew members in our tiny shop. I think I had convinced myself that this would be a smaller production than it actually is. For my own sanity, for weeks, I was happily picturing some lone camera man hiding out in the corner of the kitchen as the extent of “the crew”. Trying to act like this is all completely “normal”, we got microphones attached to us, and started making buttercream. Somehow, the ritual of the morning prep work was managing to calm me down, until everything went dark.
No, I didn’t pass out from sheer terror… power to the building was out. Off to a great start. Fortunately, the strip mall across from the shop was spared the power outage, so we packed up our little prep mixer, and busted in on two very kind, but very confused prep cooks at El Azteca Mexican Restaurant. They agreed to let us use their electrical outlet, and we managed to whip up the Mousse filling for the wedding cake within a couple of resounding renditions of the Mexican Hat Dance.
After our little field trip, we returned to our powerless shop, and filled the cakes in the dark. With the cake gods on our sides, the power came on within a half hour of our return to the shop. The rest of the cake went as planned (with the exception of yours truly breaking a number of the frosting buildings, but that’s why we make extra everything). When the day was over, I was actually grateful to have our morning field trip on film. I think Marissa and Robb will get a kick out of seeing what went into the making of their wedding cake. We often see that the process of making someone’s cake reflects their personality. These two had to travel halfway across the country to find each other right where they both started. The least we could do was walk across the street.

Much thanks to Jacki Vaughn for these beautiful photos, and to Donna at the Graves 601 hotel for connecting us with this chic and wonderful couple.

Samanthony and the Beach

2011-04-12T22:56:00.004-05:00

Nothing makes me happier than making a cake in the middle of a Minnesota winter that is NOT snow related. Don’t get me wrong, the snow is lovely, and winter weddings are cozy wonderful events. But…come mid-February…if I have to look at another frosting snowflake, while I’ve spent the last three months shoveling pounds of their real counterparts off of my sidewalk, and scraping their icy cousins off of my windshield every morning, I just about want to pack up everything and move south.

Enter Samantha and Anthony. A quick aside, here…Say their names together enough, and you can’t help but calling them Samanthony. That officially became their code name around the shop, after every time I had to reference the couple on camera, that’s how it came out. Watch the episode closely, I hesitate every time I say their names together. Anyway, back to the story. So, I get this call for a New Year’s Eve wedding reception, and I start hard-selling champagne theme, clock theme, confetti theme, anything but snowflakes. Then, they let me know that they were married on a beach in 2009 and they wanted the cake to help bring the beach to their families at their Minnesota reception. Amen, brothers and sisters! We have a beach-themed wedding cake in the middle of a land-locked state, in the middle of the winter!

God, I love my job! Once I found out about Samanthony’s unusual marital situation, the fact that they had to have their wedding in a quick ceremony before he was deployed to Afghanistan, and that none of their family could make it to the actual wedding due to the quick timing, I was thrilled to be able to create a cake that would bring the beach to Minnesota. But how does one pack up a frosting beach for transport? Seems to me that a frosting crate would be the perfect solution. They agreed, and we quickly determined that the bottom tier would be a crate post marked with their wedding date and location, as well as some post marks of other places significant to them. My favorite was the “return to sender” stamp from Afghanistan, the bride loved it!

Now onto the baby! As it turns out, Samanthony were expecting their first baby…and knew what the gender of the child was. Samantha thought it would be fun to put a little sign on the cake that said “It’s a Boy” so that the guests would find out what the baby was when they looked at the cake. I had heard of baby shower cakes being dyed either pink or blue so that when the cake was cut, it revealed the baby’s gender. I suggested it immediately, and they loved the idea.

I began testing various shades blue cakes. Too pale, and none of the guests would be able to tell the color when the cake was cut from across the room, too dark, and no one would want to eat it. We settled on a pretty vibrant, unmistakable color. But what they don’t show you on the Amazing Wedding Cakes episode, is that in an email with Anthony’s sister (who was helping to plan the reception) I blew the surprise. I was careful to reference “pink or blue” cake when discussing the cake flavor in three different areas of the email. In the fourth reference…I blew it. I typed "blue" rather than the “pink or blue” bluff. Just be glad I'm a cake lady, not CIA, I'd fold like a cheap lawn chair under pressure! Lucky for me, the couple was incredibly gracious about it, and more importantly, Anthony’s sister can keep secrets better than the cake lady!

Stephanie & Pete, Amazing Wedding Cake, Ridiculous Weather

2011-04-02T16:42:00.006-05:00

I moved to Minneapolis in 1989 to go to the U of MN. My family is from the east coast, and moved to Wisconsin when I was three year’s old. My mom loves to tell the story that leading up to our move, everyone kept telling me that I was moving to a place that got a lot of snow, so when we got off the plane in mid July to move into our new house, my first words were “Where’s all the snow?”
Well, thirty-seven years later, I finally have the answer. It’s in Minneapolis.

And we love it…my Husband, the Goo, once timed a half our news cast during a run of the mill snowstorm, and they spent eighteen minutes covering the weather. Subtract commercials, and that left about six minutes for news and sports. And when a potential storm is on its way…the hype rivals that of the Superbowl lead up.

That’s why I typically don’t concern myself with weather forecasts. They hype it up to the level of “we’re all gonna die” and sometimes, the storm misses us completely.

That was certainly not the case on the day of Stephanie and Peter’s wedding.

Like I said, I’ve lived in Minneapolis for over twenty years. I’m used to driving in the snow. I had planned to make the St. Paul wedding cake deliveries myself, with Julia following me in her car. But, on my way to the shop, I called the Goo, and asked him to come drive for me. I’ve never done this before, in fifteen years of business…never. And I’ve delivered through some pretty nasty storms. Being the prince that he is, he met me at the shop, and it was definitely the right decision.

For those of you who haven’t driven in a blizzard, here’s the trick. No matter how high you have your windshield defrost set, the windshield wipers ice up. And they don’t do such a great job when they’re basically two sno-pops dragging across the windshield. The only way to fix this is to roll down your window, grab the wiper, pull it away from the windshield, and let it snap back against the glass to break the ice off. Well, if you’re 5’3” and have arms to match, this is impossible to do while driving. But with the Goo at the wheel, we were golden.

Let’s complicate things a little…this wedding cake was one of the nine cakes that were to be featured on Amazing Wedding Cakes on WeTV. So, we had a film crew caravan of cars behind us, and about 2 miles away from the reception, they ripped off the driver’s side wiper trying to snap the ice off the blade. The call came over the Walkie-Talkie that they needed to pull over. But we had a wedding cake to deliver, and it really isn’t the best idea to pull over on the highway during a blizzard. So we talked them into continuing for the last two miles with… wait for it…the driver hanging his head out the window. Ahh, dedication!

Well, Stephanie and Pete got their wedding cake, and were the most gracious of couples. The wedding was a success despite all of the obstacles that the weather put in their way.

Julia’s car spent the night at the reception site, it was hopelessly stuck after the time spent setting up the cake. We drove to the nearest auto parts store, where the crew got a new wiper, and headed back home via the backstreets (they had pulled the plows off the major highways). The snow was over waist deep at my house, but Great Wall Chinese Restaurant in my neighborhood, as usual, was open. Apparently, they don’t listen to weather forecasts either.
Thanks to Kemmetmeuller Photography for these fabulous images!

My birthday twin!

2011-03-19T18:47:00.003-05:00

I've never met anyone with the same birthday as me. At least not to my knowledge, I suppose it isn't something that you discuss in casual conversation while checking out at the grocery store, or ordering lunch. So, when Rita from Premier Planning called me about a cake for a 40th birthday party for a December 14th birthday girl, I thought that she was planning a party for me. As it turns out, it was the next best thing...a party for Frances, who, as it turns out not only shares my birthday, but my taste, a lot of my opinions, and definitely my sense of humor. So, at our meeting, we quickly sketched up her/our Harlequin dream cake, and then spent the rest of the time chatting like old friends.

Old friends, with one common curse! Frances chose December 11th as her party date, and I had two wedding cakes that day as well. Unusually busy for December. If any of you live in the Twin Cities, that date might ring a bell as the date of the biggest blizzard in 20 years! So, while I was steadily tracking down I-94 to two St. Paul Weddings, Jenna, my full-timer was trudging to set up Frances' cake. Fortunately, they all made it in their cakey glory to their destinations, and Frances was kind enough to send me this pictures from her party.

When I asked her about a joint 41st next year, she said "only if it's somewhere where it doesn't snow". I've been thinking about that Frances, and after this winter, I think I may be calling you on that...let's go!

Come Together

2011-03-06T17:47:00.004-06:00

Amber and Gregg came in with a plan for a chic, modern wedding reception at the Graves 601. Color Scheme: Yellow and Slate Grey. That's plenty to get me started. As we got to know each other, I found out that Gregg proposed at Abbey Road in London because Amber is quite the Beatles fan. Hmm... I'll let that go. After all, not EVERYTHING I like about a couple has to inspire their cake.

What else did they have planned? They had picked a florist, Amber had a beautiful dress, and a great photographer. And, they had a Beatles cover band for the reception. Maybe I didn't word that well enough, because, how it really went down, was that they were bouncing in their seats with excitement when they told me about the band. Hmmm...

So, we designed some very pretty cakes, perfectly suitable for the Graves, and they came in a week or so later to pick up their cake samples. Meanwhile, I got my new invitation album in from Oblation Papers. Every single design in that album screamed for a wedding at the Graves. One, however, jumped out at me. Although, it came in a portfolio of invitations called "The Black Album", it was blind debossed, white on white...completely remniscent of the Beatles "White Album". I couldn't resist! So I showed them to Amber's mom, who picked up the samples (mom's usually hate invitations that have fonts that are difficult to read, so I was a little apprehensive to show her invitations printed WITHOUT INK). However, being insanely fashion forward, she loved them...and so did the bride and groom.

So, we ordered them, and I'd bide my time...

Once the invites came in, I got an email from Amber. She really didn't want to be a pain, and really loved the cake designs, but...could we maybe...if it's not too much trouble...design a cake that maybe...kind of...relayed the Beatles feel that the invitations had. Hah! What took you so long kid?

Well, the rest is self-evident on the cake. We had a great time designing it, and even laid out "The Rohdes" as the topper (Gregg's last name). Amber designed the amazing programs using that logo, and finally, we succombed to the idea, and let our Fab-five fly! They picked out their favorite songs to Name the tables, rather than boring old table Numbers, and we even found the most adorable, and kind of groovy "love" chocolate mold for the favours. Again, courtesy of Amber's amazing creativity.

This is truly they kind of creative process that explains why we do more than simply cakes. Every time these guys came in, we added another layer to the overall reception design. It was a joy to be able to see the whole thing Come Together...hah, one last reference!

By the way, thanks to J. Stoia for the incredible photos!

Lobsters Mate for Life

2011-02-06T17:11:00.006-06:00

Sarah and Andrew have impeccable taste. Their wedding colors were antique gold with accents of pumpkin orange and fuchsia. Their aesthetic, classic and timeless. Their invitations, letterpressed brocade (one of our favorite custom invitation jobs of the year, so elegant). Sarah looked the part of Audrey Hepburn at her wedding...classic...timeless.

Now, when it comes to cake, these guys get it. The cake introduces the start of the reception. It announces that the party is about to start, so what better than to cover it with edible confetti? Keeping in the same color scheme that we used for their invitations, menus, place cards, etc. we made the cake antique gold, soft white pumpkin and a tiny bit of fuchsia. So still incredibly classy, but fun!

So when they approached me about making a groom's cake that was in the shape of one of the buildings on the college campus where they met, I was intrigued, but felt it was a bit stuffy to be sitting next to our confetti cake. After all, these guys were young, energetic, and quite a lot of fun to hang out with. Then, Sarah mentioned that she calls Andrew her Lobster. A little strange, yes, but there's a cake in there for sure! Turns out, Lobsters mate for life. Who knew? Well, I guess Sarah and Andrew. So when I pitched the "lobster hot tub" cake to her, she was all over it. More importantly, it was too good to share with the groom just yet. So we surprised him with the cake.

I will say, it was a challenge to make the little crustacean couple "cute", so once we completed sculpting them, and attached their veil, bow tie,and a glass of champagne and gin and tonic in their little claws, we decided that they were best described as "cugly" (cute, ugly, you get it). Sarah agreed when she stopped by a few days before to pick up her programs, and take a sneak peek.

Speaking of sneaking, we love that photo that Shelly Mosman sent us of Sarah sneaking a taste of her wedding cake. I've never seen a more adorable bride. Thanks Shelly for all of these great shots!

We're Bringing in the Celebrity Endorsements

2011-01-10T14:26:00.007-06:00

It's been another great year for us at Gateaux. We made some incredible cakes, worked with some fabulous couples, and are in the process of taping our first season of "Amazing Wedding Cakes" for WEtv. What could possibly be the icing on this cake? How about that ever-elusive title of
Minnesota Bride Magazine's "Best Wedding Cakes"?
The winner is decided by online voting, and there are bakeries in the Twin Cities that do more wedding cakes in one weekend than we do in several months. So, every year, our loyal clients and fans vote, and every year, we get nominated, and (almost) every year, we...fall short. So, in an attempt to motivate the troops, we've turned to our good friend Bill Murray to say a few words of motivation to inspire our team of underdog voters.

So, if you love good cake as much as we do, please take a few minutes and go to Minnesota Bride by clicking on the link below to vote for the Best of 2011. You must vote for at least six of the categories in order for your vote to count, so this gives you the chance to give a nod to your favorite florist, restaurant, hotel, etc. too. Or simply vote Gateaux for Cake, Best All Around Vendor, Invitations, Favors, and, well, I guess you'd still need to vote for two more.

If your guests were impressed with your cake, and your in-laws were wowed, forward this email to them. If you've ever had our cake and thought if only I could do something to tell the world how good they are! Vote. Hell, if your dog got the leftovers, have him vote (only if he has a valid email address, but what self-respecting pooch wouldn't?)

Taj Mahal, no really.

2011-01-02T18:06:00.004-06:00

Those of you who have been following the cake log for a while, know that we are no strangers to requests for Taj Mahal Cakes. What better physical representation of a man's love for his wife is there? So, we've tinkered with this in or years of decorating. The first was a Taj Mahal Edible Cake Topper for Lynn and Himanshu, the rest of the cake was decked out with gold patterns from the Bride's and Bridesmaid's Saris. A couple of years later, we made our "Taj Mahal Deja Vu" cake as a step closer to that ever-requested scale model replica.

Well, finally, Yesmin walked into the shop, and would accept no excuses. She and her fiance wanted a cake shaped like that beautiful monument. So we took our favorite elements from the previous Taj-inspired cakes, and took to some "Cakeitechture".

Of course, Magic Phil hooked us up with some incredible little lights that he rigged on posts for us to light up the minarets, that just goes without saying. But he also built us a water-tight stand so that we could build our own reflecting pool in front of the cake.

One thing I've never seen in my 15 years of doing this...the bride had stanchions set up around the cake after it was set up. We've joked about doing this for years, you never know who's going to give into temptation and test out the cake's authenticity before it is cut. Yesmin wasn't about to find out!

Ann and Jon

2010-12-19T18:37:00.005-06:00

Ann's mom Linda called me about cakes for the wedding, but before we knew it, we were discussing invitations. Sometimes, I work in reverse. Anyway, Ann and Jon wanted something clean and classic, but Linda wanted something with a little personality. Once I met Ann, it became clear...this girl was refined, elegant, but way too much fun for a boring traditional invitation. We chose several different stripe motifs, and a pair of love birds, from one of my letterpress albums, then let their designers run with it. Much to my surprise, Ann chose pieces featuring different stripes, and motifs, rather than having the entire invitation suite match. The cake lady is entirely too "Type A" to have seen this as an option, but once the set came together, it was delightfully non-matchy match. I'll be encouraging others to do the same!

Now, onto cake(s)...

How can a girl possible settle for one cake, when she has all of these beautiful invitation motifs to play with? Luckily, Linda brought in a photo of a most interesting wedding cake display. Not one cake, but 5 wedding cakes, some single tier, some two tier, and one three tier in the center. I quickly sketched up my dream cake buffet for them, and they let me run with it!

Linda decided to nest the cakes in a bed of Hershey kisses rather than a fussy display of floral, making the display, once again, clean, tailored, but FUN!

The only downside to this business, is that once the wedding is over, your busy with a whole crop of new weddings. Some people need to have multiple weddings so that I can work with them over and over again. What do you say Linda?

Lace!

2010-11-07T17:25:00.003-06:00

Ashley's dress was a beautiful overpiped lace...and no, it wasn't pale teal. Funny, her bridesmaid's dresses weren't that color either. It was an accent color to the Hot Pink Bridesmaid's dresses, and when she expressed interest in letting us combine it with her dress lace on the cake we were thrilled!

As those of you who follow our blog know, we're pretty good at matching lace in frosting. Each lace has it's own signature pattern and technique, so each lace cake is a unique opportunity for me to obsess over the fine details and intricacies of what makes that particular pattern unique. That way, we're not making just a lace cake, but a cake that is an exact match to the wedding gown. And, yes, people do notice it!

Especially nice, was the fact that Ashley's groom, Matt, took the time to come back to the shop to give me advice on where to go and what to do in China! He lived there for a year, and knew all about it. I just love my endless resources with these incredible clients of mine!

Ants on a log

2010-10-24T19:19:00.003-05:00

I knew I'd like Chris and Megan as soon as they told me their wedding colors. Not necessarily because I'm an enormous fan of "Raisin"(a dark, purplish brown) and "Celery" green, but because they added "If we add peanut butter, we'll have Ants on a Log!"

Come to think of it, it must have subliminally affected my designs, because I drew them a cake in the same formation of the "log" cake that we made for Christopher and Santhi (a few posts down from this). While I didn't have any pictures to show them (Christopher and Santhi hadn't been married yet) I did sketch them up a little thumbnail of the layout.

They loved it as much as I did, so we went with that layout, their delicious color scheme, and added in ferns and frosting fiddle-heads to complete the look.

One minor detail...they don't make cake stands in that shape. So we enlisted "Magic Phil" to make us a beautiful oak stand in the shape of a "ladybug". I think the wood came from my sister in law's old dining room table. I love how that man recycles!

Thanks to Bullis Photography for the beautiful photo!

Toile!

2010-10-17T19:24:00.004-05:00

My husband and I went to Paris for our 10th wedding anniversary. It was our first trip to Europe. When looking for a hotel, I wanted a room that made me realize I was in Paris as soon as I opened my eyes in the morning. While searching endlessly for the perfect accommodations, I was finally grabbed by the Hotel D'Angleterre on Rue St. Jacob. The room entrance was across an inner courtyard of the hotel, and it had a french painted tile bathroom, but what sealed the deal, was that the entire room was wallpapered in toile fabric. Actually fabric...actually where we were going to stay.

I swear, this is going somewhere.

When I met with Misha, she hadn't decided on many details for the wedding yet. We designed some rough sketches for her with the details to be filled in later. A month before the wedding, she arrived for a design session to finalize the cake. She showed me her amazing invitations, complete with a hand-sewn fabric flower that was so three-dimensional, that the invitations had to be mailed in beautiful little slate grey boxes, rather than envelopes.

We looked through her earlier designs, and saw that one of them incorporated horizontal fondant bands, and an oversized fondant flower as the focal point. That being the design that worked best, we messed around with what the fondant bands should look like. We played around with the background texture of the invitation, and were pretty happy with it. It wasn't until we were about to wrap everything up, that she mentioned her reception decor. She had ordered in bolts and bolts of toile upholstery fabric to have runners and napkins sewn for the tables.

Errrrrghhhh. Stop right there. Toile? Gimme.

I had just started messing around with screenprinting in frosting a couple of months prior, so all I could have shown Misha was a frosting Spider Man comic book to illustrate the technique. To avoid giving her pre-wedding nightmares involving super-heroes, I refrained from showing her that particular example. Luckily, she trusted me enough to let me go ahead with the screenprinting without seeing an actual sample. I love this girl. And her cake. Et Paris. Ooh, ooh, and those Nutella and almond filled giant crepes that they sell at every street corner...the view from Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Musee D'Orsay, Jardin Luxembourg, the fountain at St. Sulpice, St. Germaine des Pres, the bookstalls along the Seine, mimes...wait, not mimes, they can keep the freaky mimes.

Christopher and Santhi

2010-10-02T23:40:00.006-05:00

When I met with this couple, they requested a more sculptural, natural-looking cake. As we discussed the wedding further, it became clear that there was no other option for them, or me. It was a perfect marriage (excuse the pun) of cake and wedding. They would be married outside, with the reception in a room showcasing that same beautiful landscape through an entire wall of windows.
The cake would need to bring the outdoors in.

Funny, when I heard the word "sculptural", I instantly thought of a cake layout that I'd seen recently, and been dying to try. I sketched the layout on paper and they loved it too! Then, I took a chance and suggested that we make the cake look like tree trunks, complete with bark and tree rings on the tops of the tiers. They loved it, and even produced a copy of their invitation (self-designed) that had a concentric ring pattern motif that was a modern art representation of tree rings, even overlapping in a way that looked like a top view of the cake I had designed. Spooky. But AWESOME!

We stole the color scheme from the invitations, added some flora and fauna, and we were ready to roll. Only question was how to top such a fabulous cake? I suggested a frosting bird's nest, Christopher thought a little house for the animals. I drew a little mushroom-capped gnome house (thank God for Google) and we had our topper.

Luckily, their wedding landed on one of the very few weekends of this summer where there was niether rain, nor sweltering heat. We set up the cake elevated above a bed of moss that they got for us, and even got to overhear part of the ceremony before we went on our way.
Thanks to Graddy Photography for the enchanting opening image!

Duluth! and China.

2010-09-26T01:24:00.004-05:00

Just how cold can an SUV with the Air conditioning on full blast get in three and a half hours? Really, no...Really cold.

When we met with Shefali and her parents to design her wedding cake, we knew we were in for a drive. The wedding would be held in Duluth. We've done long distance deliveries in the past (our record is 5 1/2 hours away) and we carry cakes onto airplanes for magazine shoots quite often (but those are dummy cakes). So, traveling with a real wedding cake...for a real wedding, is still a stressful (and downright arctic) experience.

Shefali's wedding cake would imitate the rich palette of her decor (bright oranges, yellows, pinks, etc.) and with an armful of Sari's, her mom Anita brought us enough pattern inspiration for three cakes. So we designed a beauty.

Then...serendipity, in the form of a trip to China, intervened. As many of you know, the evil cake genius is an avid traveller. Even more, an avid amateur photographer. So when I returned from a lovely trip to China this April, I noticed that I had accidentally cleared all of my SD cards for the trip, without backing them up properly. I really could have sworn I'd done this, but to my embarrassment, the photos of those Sari's were nowhere to be found. So, I emailed Anita, who promptly emailed me photos of Shefali's wedding Sari.

They didn't have her Sari when I first met with them, so this was all new material to me. She was about to send photos of the original sari's when I mailed her brand new sketches, using the bride's actual wedding dress as inspiration. My favorite detail being the repeating motif of embroidered Peacocks!

Needless to say, Anita didn't need to send us the original photos again. And even though I found them on my computer several weeks later, I knew that their two month hiatus was one of those instances in which the universe has a better cake plan than me.

That woman can paint!

2010-09-17T22:55:00.003-05:00

Colleen and her groom wanted an argyle cake. We're in!

We had a great time working up some sketches of Argyle cakes at their appointment, but once they got a load of some of our previous cakes, they simply cut loose. How about houndstooth, a bow tie, perhaps, pinstripes! Best part was, that Colleen's mom had painted them a card box for the reception in argyle, checks, and the most beautiful gold-edged stripe. Once they pulled up a photo of the work in progress, I was sold. That woman can paint!

Once the cake began to take shape, the groom suggested making the whimsey orange flowers come to life by giving them faces (a la Alice in Wonderland). But knowing that the couple had two little Dachshunds at home made me giddily suggest that we wrap the weiner dogs inside two of the orange flowers (dog's in a blanket style).
They agreed, and we added two flower-dogs, resulting in another donation to the ASPCA, our "Pet" Charity at Gateaux.

When they came in to pick up their cake samples, they brought the box along for me to see. It had an Irish wedding blessing painted on the inside of the lid, that we just couldn't pass up. So, we made a fondant ribbon with the blessing on it, and added it to the top tier.

When we got to the reception, the cake was set up in the main entry, right next to the card box. And, while the cake lady rarely gets to see the guests of honor on their special day, she does get to see the reaction of the banquet staff while setting up the cake. This cake got the best compliment I can remember receiving in some time. We hear lovely things from people all the time, but how often do you get to hear that your cake is "Bad Ass"? Not too often my friends. But thanks to one poetic server, this baby earned the title. So thanks Colleen and family, for helping to design one Bad-Ass wedding cake.

Kimberly, Bob, and gang.

2010-08-29T19:05:00.005-05:00

We first heard from Kimberly by way of her daughter/wedding planner Clare. It was going to be a wedding that brought together the bride and groom, but also their six, count 'em SIX children. Best part about it, all the kids (mostly adults) genuinely liked each other.

To celebrate this unusual wedding, Kimberly found invitations that included little cartoons of the kids, herself and Bob, and even the two family dogs (who also got along!)

Now, cartoons...that's something I can't pass up!

We designed several cakes, but all of them had one thing in common, frosting renditions of each family member. Only we decided to make them in color, and add their wedding attire. The girls at Flutter dress boutique were kind enough to get me swatches of the fabric from each of the girl's dresses, and Clare gave me email descriptions of the necklines, so that we could give them a little cartoon couture.

Finally, we added matching frosting hydrangeas, and stripes to make the cake as fun as its inhabitants.

Don't forget Maggie and Buster, who were hanging out in their own hydrangea puffs towards the back of the cake.

My favorite part, was watching the daughters and sons find themselves on the cake as they entered the reception site for photos. They really were a fun group. I'm glad to have had the chance to work with them on such a great occasion.

Carly, Mike, and JR

2010-08-22T18:02:00.004-05:00

When Carly met Mike for the first time, she mocked him for his designer sneakers. Intrigued by a girl who wasn't afraid to mock Gucci, he asked her out. Fast forward a few years, and we get to make their wedding cakes, complete with a fully designer groom's cake!
Of course, we made those fateful sneakers out of sugar, but added a few of his other favorite things to the frosting mix...his watch, favorite cigars and some champagne corks. We've done single shoes before, remember "It was the shoes...", where we recreated Jan's leopard skin pump and Brian's van sneaker? But we've never had to complete a matching pair before. Those Italian shoemakers have my respect...matching pairs are a bitch to pull off!
For the wedding cake, we went with chic horizontal stripes. A tricky maneuver in it's own right, but loved the concept, so we went ahead with it. And covered the cake with frosting peonies, ranunculous and hydrangeas. Add a frosting version of they're beloved JR (look closely on the upper left ledge) and we get to make another fifty dollar donation to the ASPCA!

Unable to bring JR to the reception (unfortunately, canines are still discriminated against in black tie affairs)he, instead sprung for the favours. Each sweet little box included two chocolates molded in the shape of Milk Bones, and a note from JR. I just love the doggy people!

Kari and Mike

2010-08-15T19:57:00.004-05:00

Sometimes the tiniest detail can turn into an amazing design scheme. This one started with the table linens. Kari didn't like the traditional white or Ivory linens that she'd seen at other weddings, so she chose a beautiful metallic taupe linen for her reception tables. That, coupled with the black bridesmaids dresses and touches of emerald green intrigued me enough to show her invitation options even though she had already chosen her wedding invitations (chosen, but not ordered). Once we switched the paper to a metallic taupe, letterpressed in black, and coordinated the menu cards, table number cards, etc. she was all ours!

The best part...I'd been wanting to make a cake in that same color scheme for several months. I'd seen one by a company in Hawaii, and loved it. So the chance to copy Kari and Mike's invitation motif in black, onto a metallic taupe cake was one I didn't want to miss. Lucky for me, they let me play, so I added a vintage-looking pinstripe to the other tiers to really play off of the modern stacking that they chose.

Add a few emerald green rhinestones, and their Fleur de Lis monogram, and there you have it. The most drop-dead glamourous cake I've done in some time!

Gateaux in Grace Ormonde Wedding Style

2010-08-08T17:19:00.002-05:00

We're thrilled to have Dana and Idris's wedding cake featured in Grace Ormonde Wedding Style! The red and orange detailing was based on Dana's wedding dress embroidery (only her dress was in white and silver). Once we turned it into a line sketch, we realized that it looked like molecules. Pretty appropriate, as Dana is a Chemist! She even showed us videos of an exploding sink to prove it. I knew she was one of ours after that!

City Lights

2010-07-31T16:38:00.005-05:00

Jaime and David had the coolest Save the Date Cards. That's how this whole thing started. Knowing that their reception would be held at the top of the IDS building downtown Minneapolis, they had the city skyline printed on the Save the Date cards. Best of all, they had it printed in negative, so that the buildings were black, with the lights of the city reflected below (the Mississippi River suggested in the reflection). Just try to stop us from making a cake out of that!

We started with the black buildings, and copied the reflected lights on the bottom tier. We really wanted to create the illusion that the windows on the buildings were glowing. This is where the groom always gets me in trouble...and David didn't disappoint. He suggested that we actually make the buildings glow by stashing little LED lights behind them. Okay, I'm down with that. We decided to top the cake with a frosting replica of the Cherry and Spoon sculpture at the Walker Sculpture Garden. A perfect topper, except for one thing. It needed to light up too. That's where my lighting/electronic expertise runs out. It would need to be wireless, and more importantly, light enough to avoid snapping the frosting spoon in half when attached.

I put that ball in David's court, assuming that he'd happily forget about it by the time the wedding rolled around. Much to my shock and amazement, he showed up at my shop about a month before the wedding with not one, but three wireless light-up cherries. They were perfect!

Such a groom deserves an awesome Groom's Cake. Jaime knew from the start exactly what she wanted for this. Turns out, the couple had lived apart for some time, and took to mailing candy and other goodies to each other. The box, heretofore referred to as the "Nummie Box" has remained with them now that they live in the same area, and has been beat up and moved around, but has been retained for posterity.

So, we designed a cake that lookes like a U-haul shipping box, complete with shipping labels, for the groom's cake. Originally, we were going to load up the board around the cake with the types of candies and goodies that they frequently mailed to one another, but then they suggested that the candy be frosting replicas to keep with all cake theme. So here you have it...
Nummie box cake (complete with shipping wear and tear)with an assortment of fondant, gum paste and royal icing "candy", and yes, you can eat the wrappers and boxes...all frosting. I gotta admit, those Ho Ho's tricked me several times while they were drying on my baker's rack.
Thanks to Ruth Harper of Happily Ever After photography for her wonderful photos of these guys and their cakes.

10,000 Lakes to Ski

2010-07-25T00:19:00.002-05:00

When Calley called, she told us that she wanted a cake with a frosting bride and groom...waterskiing on top of the cake. Well, we've never done either of thes things before, so...okay.

Turns out, her and the fiance love waterskiing so much, that their save the date card was a photo of them waterskiing. Not just waterskiing, mind you. Waterskiing in a suit and wedding dress (short version) complete with veil and bouquet. If this seems foreign to you, imagine how foreign it is to this cake lady, who almost drowned in four and a half feet of water at the aptly named "cemetary reef" in Cayman out of sheer fear of water and lack of large motor skills. Cake ladies don't float. Never fear, once my husband shouted for me to put my feet down, I was saved...but I, as usual, digress.

Once I had a chance to meet with Calley, we discovered that these two were avid Minnesota "lake people". So we decided to modify and recreate a cake that we made for Minnesota Monthly Magazine. This time, we focused on the lakes (and river) that the bride and groom frequented with their skis. We decided that the ski-rope should spiral down the tiers, and attach to what else, a frosting boat.

And they skiied off into the sunset.

Pearson Acres

2010-07-17T00:42:00.014-05:00

Seriously Green Acres people!

That's how Dawn first described her relationship with her darling Marvin. Now that's something I can work with. City girl...farm boy. She even had a goofy little version of the Green Acres song that was customized to their story.

Let's start there.
How about a sing-along Save the date card? We printed the lyrics, along with three vintage photos that Dawn found of Marvin's family farm as a two layer save the date card tied with green striped ribbon. And that was the tip of the beautifully detailed iceberg!

Turns out, our city girl has an amazing gift for decor. Having owned an antique store, her design aesthetic was perfectly vintage country. She would show up with rubbermaid containers filled with vintage wallpaper(used for the table number cards and place cards) postcards(that we reproduced for the favour cards and thank you notes)

and finally, her Grandmother's Hull Pottery Vase.

We immediately designed the wedding invitations and programs to imitate the bow-knot motif on the vase.

Then, we began designing the pottery inspired cake.

It was a given that we'd make a frosting replica of the original vase for the cake topper, but what to put in the vase? Of course, Dawn came up with the most brilliant, creative answer to the problem. She had planned on having a bouquet made completely out of vintage brooches and earrings to carry at the reception. She had been collecting vintage costume jewelry to make each guest's napkin ring a unique favour (did I mention how much I want to be a guest at this wedding?) and had plenty of pieces to spare. She wasn't kidding...she showed up with shoeboxes full of the most beautiful vintage jewelry I've ever seen. Some of the pieces were her mothers, others, she had found here and there, all of them were beautiful. So we wired the pieces, and arranged them in our frosting vase, creating my favorite cake topper of all time (now that says a lot, I've used some pretty diverse and incredible cake toppers in my time, including Frosting frogs, Mario and Princess Peach, two frosting bumblebees wearing a top hat and veil, and even a frosting leopard skin shoe and Vans sneaker).

Tnanks to the Red Shoe Gallery, we have so many beautiful photos of Dawn's wedding, that we'll just pop a few more here for your viewing pleasure. Just sing along with the cocktail napkin, and enjoy!

Spider Ben!

2010-07-12T14:00:00.003-05:00

I really dig this kid...
When I met with Ben to design his Graduation cake, I instantly liked him. He gave me a list of new video games to buy (on the off-season of course) and cracked me up with his College entrance Essay topic..."Benism". I might have to convert.

Anyway, being the voracious reader that he is, designing a grad-cake for him was a snap. He listed off some of his favorite books, coupled with a few nods to Nintendo DS, and his favorite Comic Books, and we were ready to roll.

I love a man who's into the classics, so I was thrilled to hear that "Spiderman" was his first choice for the frosting comic book that we were to create for the cake. Personally, I think it's the coolest of comic graphics, so to recreate it in Gumpaste and royal icing was a joy.

Jenna was kind enough to bring in her DS as a model for the Gumpaste on on top of Ben's cake, and I'm sad to report that I'm now hooked on some word game that she has on the damn thing. It's just one of the many sacrifices that I'm willing to make for my clients.

Can't wait to see his College Graduation Cake!

Cowboy!

2010-06-26T18:19:00.005-05:00

Now here's something we've never done before! All of you avid cakey followers will soon find, that this is "Graduation Cake Year" over here at Gateaux. Typically, we're too booked up with weddings to do Graduation cakes, but with the all-depressing "E" as in "conomy" word banging on lots of bride's and groom's doors, we've had a more open schedule this spring. Making lemon-cake from economic lemonade, we got to meet Derek!

Yep, a real cowboy! No kidding! He just graduated from high school, and they wanted to celebrate with a great-big party, and (where we come in) a great-big cake!

Seeing as he lives on a functioning family farm, complete with cows, pigs, tractors and the such, we were asked to make a John Deere-themed cake. Once we met Derek and family, we discovered that he's really, in my opinion, more Cowboy than simply farmer. This kid can rope (although he claims his little sister is better than him) ride, and run a farm. He has the PBR belt buckle to prove it!

Quick note for those city-types like myself...PBR does not, to my surprise, stand for "Pabst Blue Ribbon". It apparently stands for Professional Bull Riders. I'm always learning something on the job here!

So, if our grad gets to wear a belt buckle and cowboy hat, then his cake should get to wear one too! We carved the top tier hat, and molded a gum paste brim, all edible(did you even have to ask?) and the best part...a frosting replica of that awesome, wish I had one for myself, belt buckle! All supported on a John Deere crate cake and our first ever tractor tire cake!

A quick trip to Seaforth, MN, population 47. And we were good to go! And here's a picture of Jenna with our Grad...

Congratulations Derek and family... a nicer cowboy, you'll soon not find!

Liz and Doug

2010-06-20T01:07:00.006-05:00

We met with Liz, Doug and their two moms for our initial design session. It was such a fun collaboration. Once the wedding cake was decided, we moved on to their fabulous dessert and candy buffet and the top-secret groom's cake (complete with a cigar-smoking Pomeranian). Liz even snuck Pom Pom over to the shop for us to get a better look at her for inspiration (one of our favorite types of visits).

Best of all, her photographers from Harvest Moon Photography shared some beautiful photos of the couple with us! Just love the feathers Liz, pure glam!

Who knew a barn in the middle of Wisconsin could be so beautiful?

2010-05-30T20:39:00.006-05:00

Let's get this out of the way. The Gateaux ladies aren't outdoor-types. Especially yours truly. I am a city girl through and through. Not to mention, you should see Miss J. around any flying insect..it ain't pretty.

So, when we met with Madie, we knew that her barn wedding reception would be beautiful, but its location (about 20 miles from the middle of nowhere) would give me the willies.

Oh, how wrong we were! We pulled up to the Enchanted Barn, in Hillsdale, Wisconsin to the sight of our bride in a field having her photos taken with the most idyllic background of grazing horses. Once we got into the barn, it was beautiful, with hundreds of candles hanging from the ceiling, and an entire wall that opened up to that same amazing terrain. It was downright...well, Enchanting.

Anyway, with the barn inspriration in tow, when we did her wedding invitations, Maddie thought it would be cool to incorporate a woodgrain motif. Her colors were bright pink, orange, apple green and black (also, not your typical country wedding colors) so we decided to do black woodgrain, and a vintage-looking country font. It was a great look!

The cake would be covered in bright pink and orange flowers. Each one, hand cut, colored molded, and wired by my happy little staff. I have to admit, color isn't my strong-suit, and I'm a bit apprehensive of such a bold combination, but this little sweetie just worked! We hijacked the guestbook table (they tried to give us a cocktail table with a white linen) to finish the look, snapped some pictures, set up a monster candy buffet, and headed back towards civilization. Can't wait to see pictures from the bride! When we do, we'll be sure to post them!

Amy and Miles

2010-05-22T23:51:00.004-05:00

Amy and Miles wanted an absolutely minimalist cake design. They really wanted the cake to feel sculptural, with some room between the tiers for their florists to pack in solid red flowers. Therefore, the cake needed to be clean, elegant, and non-fussy. What they really wanted, was a completely plain cake, which, we could have accommodated, but then...

It turns out that their inspiration for "sculptural" was based on the fact that they were planning on being married in Miles' grandmothers garden. Once we started talking, I learned that this is not your typical "granny's flower patch". He pulled up some pictures on his phone, and I realized that this woman had some serious style! Her garden was filled with beautiful, modern sculptures.

Once my enthusiasm for the art was made apparent by my squeals of delight, they realized that there were far more possibilities in wedding cake design than they had formerly realized. They pulled up several scuptures for inspiration, and we sketched up several cakes.

It wasn't until they had a photographer capture this photo of one of the sculptures, that we really understood what the cake should look like.

I have to admit, it was really hard for a cake lady who is obsessed with perfectly smooth fondant, to deliberately deface a perfectly porcelaine-like fondant cake. But once I got over the initial discomfort, we really go into it. And once we set the cake up with the beautiful red orchid separators that Bastian*Skoog assembled for us, we absolutely fell in cake-love with it!

Fortunately, the couple felt the same. Amy even mentioned that Miles' family caught the reference to the sculpture instantly! She even sent me a couple of cake cutting photos (check out her niece on the right side of the photo, in a state we like to call "Sugar-nirvana".

90th Birthday!

2010-04-28T23:22:00.009-05:00

Sorry for the hiatus blog-friends, but the Evil Cake Genius has been in China for the last two weeks, where, she learned that...Chicken feet and whole turtles aren't just for breakfast anymore, and...there's another Gateaux cake shop out there...in Beijing! We stumbled upon this little shop in an old Hutong neighborhood that has become a shopping street. We exchanged business cards and a very limited conversation with lots of miming to try to communicate how cool it was that we had twin companies on opposite sides of the globe.
But on to more cakes! We got a call from Give My Regards To...Event Planning for a 90th Birthday cake. Sydney, our birthday boy has lived many lives in his 90 years, so the only way we could make it into one cake was to Box it up!Any of you who are from the Minneapolis area would recognize the top tier, and hopefully make the connection to the guest of honor's name. Yep, he was the owner of the Sydney's Pizza Cafe's that were dotted around the Twin Cities not too long ago. The pizza box and frosting slice of pizza were the obvious nod to this chapter of his life. The Hamm's Beer Case tier and Frosting Goodie Pop bottle on top of the cake referenced his years in the bottling business, and the crate tier covered the rest of his business endeavors as well as his love of travel. We added the fishing lures and Chris Craft boat flag because he's not all work! As usual, it's all edible!And the fortune cookies...when asked what he wanted to serve at his party, he chose Chinese food. Why not? And yes, it true Gateaux fashion, we made it harder than it had to be...the fortune cookies are frosting, and the fortunes too!The planner let us know that they had to put a sign on the cake table that said "Birthday Cake" because nobody knew it was a cake. We just love to hear that!

Maria's 60th Birthday

2010-04-10T18:24:00.004-05:00

I've met some pretty fabulous people in my career. I'm lucky that way. Maria, was no exception. She emailed us about a cake for her 60th birthday party. It would be a beautiful affair celebrating her life "while I'm still around to enjoy it" as she told us. The more I got to know Maria, the more I loved her. She's an amazing woman, an educator at Mankato State, an independant, funny, successful woman, who isn't afraid to don a tiara for her birthday party. That's my kind of lady.

We made the cake opulent and striking, using her decor of gold, roses and grapes as our inspiration, I drew up several options, and she was immediately drawn to this one. A beautiful three tier Oval cake with hand-painted peach accents and 23 Karat gold painted scrollwork.

When we arrived to set up the cake, she was there with her family putting the finishing touches on the room, so we had the priviledge of spending some time with them. Maria is preparing for a trip to Africa to finish her Thesis on the multiple roles/identities played by African American Women in their lives. I'm sure I'm not doing her project justice, but really guys, I'm a cake lady, hardly a scholar. All I do know is that I'm fully on board for her 70th!

It better be a girl!

2010-03-27T23:05:00.003-05:00

We met Cindy a few years ago, when she was hosting a baby shower. We made the most adorable patchwork jungle animal themed cake and cookies for that event. So, when she called this year, we knew we had our work cut out for us. This time, the shower was for her daughter...Cindy is going to be a Grandma! They already know it's a girl, and this shower is going to celebrate all things frilly, girly, pink, and precious!!

I'm in.

Cindy sent me a picture of a cake with three layers of garrett frills in varying shades of pink. It was a single tier cake and it had a frilly bassinette piped on the top of the cake. The cake was the perfect starting point to launch an amazing baby-girl-fest cake design. We changed the bassinette into a three dimensional bassinette, then decided that maybe the entire top tier should be the bassinette. We added a white teddy, a rattle, and a middle tier covered in hand-cut and piped eyelet.

There are so many times when I have to restrict myself on wedding cakes. After all, they can't be too girly, there is a groom, after all, and the kiss of death to a wedding cake design is if I deem it to be too "baby showerish". For that reason, we had a blast, unleashing all the too girly, too delicate, and too pink for a wedding cake ideas that have been swarming around my cakey brain for too many years.

Add some precious bassinette shaped cookies, and some teddy bear ones (for the men at the party, a little less frilly, but just as delicious) and we were ready to roll.

Now, I've seen some pretty awesome reactions to cakes in my day, but Cindy, well...she takes the cake. While trying not to peek until the cake was completely stacked, she accidentally looked up from her gift wrapping and caught a glimpse. The only reason I know this is because she let out a little shriek, and ran from the room. When the cake was ready, she came back in and was positively giddy. On the car ride back to Minneapolis (we delivered the cake 2 hours away) Jenna, my coworker, pointed out that she'd gladly drive every cake we ever made 2 hours away for a reaction like that. I can't help but agree.

Kristine & Derek

2010-03-14T18:04:00.005-05:00

Kristine and Derek were married in Stillwater on the most beautiful winter day. While there were no snowflakes falling from the sky, there was plenty of snow on the ground, and we made sure there were plenty of snowflakes, icicles, and sparkles on their beautiful sparkling wedding cake.

To finish off the theme, we provided snowflake cookies with silver sugar details as well. Our new recipe, my husband's Grandma Harriett's Casbah cookies. We don't know the origin of the cookie's name. Personally, I think it's because they "Rock the Casbah"...so delicious.

Thanks to Chloe Photography for these beautiful photos!

My Niece and Brides Magazine

2010-03-08T19:03:00.005-06:00

We're so excited to be featured in Brides Magazine's latest cake article. It's on the news stands now, but we've been waiting what feels like a lifetime since the photo shoot in October.

We've had cakes featured in Brides before, and really get a kick out of having our little beauties show up in such a great magazine. This one was particularly satisfying for a couple of reasons. First, they weren't promising that any of the cakes that were brought in for the feature would make it through to the final layout. Last time we brought one to them, it was in an article called "America's 50 most beautiful cakes". This time, they still had 50 brought in, but (much to my surprise) the cover of the magazine called this article "23 cakes we love". We're honored to have made the cut!

But mostly, we're excited to have this particular cake featured. You see, we often get calls from magazines asking for cakes, but they are usually tied around a particular theme. Rarely, are we allowed to simply submit whatever our little cakey hearts desire. This was one of those rare opportunities. Turns out, I had just seen pictures of my Niece, Megan in her Homecoming dress about a month before the shoot. I fell in love with the pattern on her dress, and seeing as she is completely awesome, I thought it would be fun to base a cake on her.

Of course, as all of these grand ideas go, there were a few bumps in the road. Well, not so much bumps, as just a really, REALLY long road. All of the Applique on that cake had to be cut by hand, with an exacto knife to properly imitate Megan's dress. Doesn't seem too daunting, until you start cutting out each individual petal, and then have to take them all apart, and try to eyeball them back together on the side of a cake. About 60 hours of labor later, Voila!

And you should have seen my face when the box containing one of the tiers got jammed in the x-ray machine at MSP international airport. Not a pretty sight (or sound) but the cake made it just fine.

Food and Wine...and Cake

2010-02-22T17:13:00.005-06:00

No really, it's all edible. We really should have charged a buck everytime someone asked us that this weekend. After all, there were around 10,000 people at the food and wine show and I really think every other one asked us that!

Those of you who faithfully follow the blog know that we figured out how to make incredibley realistic wood grain this summer, for Magic Phil's 70th Birthday. So, when the Food and Wine show contacted us for their first annual "Cake Czar" challenge, we couldn't help but use our new favorite technique to create crates of what else?...Food, and Wine. Don't worry, though, we didn't get off that easily. We had to figure out new techniques for standing the top wine bottle cake up on end, and for creating realistic looking scallops, clams, Pinot Grapes, and Caviar.

Overall, we were pretty happy with our entry, and are even happier to report that Gateaux is Officially the Twin Cities' first annual Cake Czar!

Best part of the whole experience, is that we created a new cake flavor for the event, that we are adding to the menu for our future Brides and Grooms. Our own version of a Black forest cake...Devil's food cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache and Vanilla Mousse surrounding a layer of Tart Cherries in a Port Wine Reduction. Yeah, it's pretty amazing! Took us three tries to make it go from "delicious" to "Crazy Delicious" (or some other descriptor that one of my favorite 2010 brides used to describe it) but hey, this is a family friendly blog, so I'll keep that one to myself.

Anne and Colin at the Walker

2010-01-31T18:38:00.004-06:00

I met with Anne and Colin while they were in town on a wedding planning whirlwind tour. It's difficult enough to plan a wedding, but to plan one from a distance is a whole other complication. Luckily, they made an awesome team. I met with the two of them, then finished up the design session with Colin while Anne moved on to her next meeting.
It's not too often that the groom is involved in designing the cake, but (as I found with Colin) most guys really get into it if given the chance. We had good source material...their invitations had a beautiful floral vine motif, and the reception was at the ultra-modern Walker Art Center.

These two elements dictated a clean, sophisticated design. We sketched up several options varying the pattern from black to pale silver, and playing around with round vs. square tiers. The design finally evolved to a square fondant-panel cake with the pattern on alternating sides of the offset tiers. Colin came up with the coup de grace...the color of the pattern would deepen on each tier from pale silver to black. The cherry on top? Well, we were at the Walker, so how about a frosting version of that Iconic Cherry and Spoon Sculpture right outside the venue?

Everything was in place, until about two weeks before the wedding, when I laid out some cake pans to figure out the placement for the cake plate centerpost holes to be drilled. The original design was a three tier cake, but once I stacked the pans, it just didn't work. So, I emailed Anne, told her that I didn't like the silhouette, and changed it to a four tier. You'd think a last minute design change might make a bride a little jumpy, but she was all for it. And happily, all three of us got our dream cake!

They like us...they really like us.

2010-01-28T23:34:00.003-06:00

Just got the word that we're a knot pick again this year!

Congratulations! Every year, brides on TheKnot.com vote for their favorite local wedding professionals, and this year, you were voted a Best of Weddings winner!

Black tie...pinstripes, buttons, and houndstooth.

2010-01-16T17:57:00.003-06:00

Here's something refreshing! I've done my fair share of cakes that imitate wedding dresses, so when sitting across from these two incredibly well-dressed guys, the answer was simple. Create a cake entirely based on men's fashion and textiles. Why not? It fit their beautiful black tie wedding to a T! With a touch of yellow to make the decoration pop, this was one of the most striking cakes of the year.

A word to the fashion-wise...black tie is ever-evolving. Their invitations were done in my all time favorite alternative to black and white. A gunmetal silver and metallic yellow color scheme made these invitations sophisticated but completely unexpected and unique! We just love working with people who aren't afraid to take a risk...the payoff is so worth it!

Damn these Bitches can Bake Part II

2010-01-10T00:47:00.009-06:00

Those of you who have loyally followed the blog already know what's coming next. First comes wedding season, then the Holidays, then...wait for it...Shameless self-promotion time! Hooray! Allright! Yeah baby! Woo and or Hoo.

So here it is. The Minnesota Bride Magazine "Best of 2010" Voting is now open to all who wish to vote. Simply go to Minnesota Bride's website, or click on our beautiful propaganda banner above to vote for Gateaux as your favorite Wedding Cake maker, or for our awesome invitations, favours, or if you really think we're neat...all around wedding vendor.

Last year, we had an incredible response from our clients to our pleas for votes. Alas, we were still edged out by a bakery who does over triple our volume of wedding cakes in a year. That's a whole lot more people to vote for you. Now, we're not being sour pusses about it...they're a plenty nice cake company. But this year, we'd like to take home the shiny, pretty plaque and the awesome publicity. So, if you like what we do, spread the word! Vote for us, and pass the word on to other fans that you know of. In the meantime, we'll stick to our "only three weddings per week" rule. While it may not get us the volume of votes, it sure gives us the time to make each of our wedding cakes as beautiful as it can be!

Britta

2009-12-26T23:17:00.003-06:00

Sometimes the best cakes are the most simple designs (simple, by the way does not equal easy). Britta's aesthetic was clean and monochromatic, with the accent on texture rather than a bunch of color. We obliged by modifying a tier of Darcy Miller's (editor of Martha Stuart Weddings Magazine) wedding cake, then topping the design with one magnificent, enormous hand-made and oh, so fragile, gum paste rose. This follows my rule of gumpaste floral...if you want a realistic flower, use a fresh one. If you want frosting flowers, make them dramatic, exaggerated, stylized, something that you can't get from mother nature.

Quinn and Mike

2009-12-18T23:17:00.004-06:00

Quinn and Mike were married at Chambers hotel in downtown Minneapolis. We decided that the silhouette of the wedding cake should be a spiral so that the bubble decorations could flow effortlessly to the top. It was a challenge to get the angles of all three cakes consistent across three diameters, but the final effect was well worth the effort. Thanks to Studio 306, I have this incredible photo to share with you all.

I had to snap this picture, myself, to show off the crazy cool art hanging in that room. I've never had a better backdrop for a cake.

Mike's groom's cake was a riot to make. The pizza box cake was a first for us, and en entirely confectionery slice of pizza and "greasy" napkins were pure entertainment for us in the kitchen.

Once the whole thing was set up at the hotel, the gracious groom saw shorty-cake me struggling to get an overhead shot of the cake. When I returned from talking to the caterers, he had snapped this awesome top view with my camera for me. Thanks Mike!

Tamara

2009-12-05T11:57:00.002-06:00

Tamara's wedding was held at the Weisman Museum at the U of MN, so the cake had to be a work of art! Luckily, she had a beautiful scroll pattern and matte gold circular details on her invitations that would translate nicely onto the cake. The one problem...the scroll pattern was very assymetrical, and wouldn't fit on a tiered cake without going off the side. So, we stacked the cakes all to one side to accommodate the pattern, dropped freestanding frosting circles onto the ledges to counterbalance, and we have a winner!

Twin Cities Icon Awards

2009-11-27T18:42:00.002-06:00

We were so excited to see an industry award based on submitting work and independent judging. As most of you know, Gateaux remains "stubbornly small" taking only three event cakes per week. That leaves us with a pretty small client base. With most "best of" awards based on public votes, we always get creamed by the bigger bakeries. When we heard about the Icon awards, we were thrilled to submit five of our cakes from the past year for judging. The hardest part was narrowing it down, we had so many unique and amazing couples this year! We finally did manage to narrow it down, and are happy to report that we won the award for Best Wedding Cakes. It was especially cool to hear that Sylvia Weinstock was the judge. She's amazing!

Molly and Kevin

2009-11-23T11:28:00.003-06:00

Molly and Kevin were married in early October. They had lots of beautiful elements planned for their wedding, so designing a cake was a breeze. Their color scheme of Green and Eggplant was a unique and beautiful starting point. Then, they showed me their beautiful invitations from A Milestone Paper Company, with a graphic scroll design in those same colors.

Once we decided to stencil the invitation pattern onto the cake, we finished it with gumpaste peonies in Ivory with green tips, and Eggplant Hydrangeas to bring in that beautiful deep tone.

A few weeks later, Molly came up with the fabulous idea to have us create sugar cookies frosted to replicate the cake. Each one was tagged with a place card, so each guest had a tiny little version of the beautiful cake to take home with them. You know what that means...Mini Stencil! Luckily, one of the Gateaux girls, Jenna got the hang of stenciling cookies right away. I, on the other hand, will stick with the hand-piped stuff.

Holiday Goodies from Gateaux

2009-11-16T11:39:00.004-06:00

Well, after 13 years of resisting, we're finally giving in. We've had so many of our awesome former clients ask us to do Holiday goodies for them to share with their friends and coworkers that we had to do it. So here it is...the first annual Gateaux amazing treat boxes! Just click on the link below to see the cuteness! And give us a call if you need some sugar!

http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs046/1102820648840/archive/1102827194402.html

Kari and Joey

2009-11-14T23:14:00.000-06:00

I met Kari and Joey when Kari's mom was in town from Philadelphia on a wedding planning trip. Bonnie seemed distracted at the meeting, so I didn't think it went all that well. Later, I found out that they were trying to make it to the State Hockey tournament that day. Now, that's my kind of mom!
Happily, they became our clients, and were dream clients at that! We got to play around with custom invitations featuring the Minneapolis skyline (their reception was on the 50th floor of the IDS Building) and even got to add the silhouette of the church that they were married in (also Downtown).

Even better, we got to build an incredible skyline cake for their wedding reception. Kari thought it would be neat to add some other neighborhoods of Minneapolis onto the cake, so we added the silhouette of the Cherry and Spoon sculpture at the Walker Art Center, as well as some sailboats to represent Lake Calhoun, and the Hennepin Avenue Bridge.

Kari was sweet enough to send us this picture of her and Joey seeing the cake for the first time. I rarely get to see my clients' reactions to their cakes, so this was a special treat for me. Joey's expression is priceless!

Now, for something completely different...

2009-11-08T22:49:00.000-06:00

I know you've all come to know us as a beacon of class and style in the Cake Business. So here's a quick reality check. I was just looking through some shots of our recent weddings for the next cake to post when I came upon this little number from a couple of weeks ago. You see, when it comes to cakes, we're quite good at taking on the design scheme, taste, and style of our clients. Happily, our clients tend to be incredibly stylish and tasteful ladies and gentlemen. Their Brothers, however...

It all started about two years ago. We were working on a wedding cake for Samantha and Andy. It was a beautiful fall color scheme with incredible burnt orange, burgundy and deep gold dogwood and branches. A true stunner. As it happens from time to time, a family member's birthday falls on the wedding day. This time it was Sam's brother Eric. We kicked around a few options for a birthday cake to surprise him at the reception. He happened to not only be a South Park fan, but also was named Eric. A Cartman cake was only natural. But not just any Cartman cake...Cartman dressed as his Big Wheel riding, "respect my authoritay" quoting obnoxious little self. We sent the bride to a local gift shop in search of anything with a sound chip so that our Cakey Cartman could talk. She came back with a bottle opener that we quickly frosted into the cake. When you pushed the button inside Cartman's mitten, he said a variety of phrases.

Fast forward two years. We get a phone call from Robin, Sam's mom. Turns out Eric is getting married now. Unfortunately for us, he's tying the knot in Las Vegas, so we can't make the wedding cake. But, Cartman must attend! So we whipped him up a tuxedo, packed him in a nice sturdy box, and he got to fly first class. No sound chip this time, might cause suspicion at airport security.

We got a lovely email that next week with a picture of our boy in Vegas. He made the trip without a scratch.

This isn't the kind of thing we're known for. As a matter of fact, we don't even do cakes this small unless accompanied by a wedding cake. But the picture that Robin sent me jumped out at me when I was perusing all of the wedding elegance that we have yet to post, and it made me smile. So I thought I'd pass it along. The more I think about it, in terms of class and style, I think this one makes the "A List".

Cake Buffet, Two Ways

2009-10-31T01:41:00.000-05:00

Cake Buffet...I challenge anyone to utter these two beautiful words together without following up with an Mmmmm.

Now there are two distictly different philosophies when it comes to cake, especially cake(s) en mass. Some believe you should hit them with the yummy factor immediately...come out swinging, make the the cakes look so unbearably delicious that the guests start making their plan of attack for dessert before the salad has been set in front of them. This was the method chosen by Jenny and Mike.

Let's just start out by saying that these two were awesome to work with. I had made Jenny's sister's wedding cake a couple of years earlier, and as I've found is usually the case with sisters, they had two very different styles in mind for the cake. Her sisters cake was a study in Mod. A sleek metallic charcoal beauty covered in varying circle cut outs for a fabulous look. Most importantly, it was delicious...and that's why Jenny and Mike called us when it came time to plan their own wedding.

We kicked around several options for a tiered cake that would look as delicious as it tasted. Several white chocolate techniques came into play, and we were about to sketch something, when Mike saw a picture in our album that changed everything. It was a table filled with gourmet cakes, each decorated to indicate what bliss lied beneath the frosting. So, instead of sketching a tiered wedding cake, we started sketching a dozen or so smaller cakes to display in a self-serve buffet at their wedding. We had everything from Turtle cake to our signature Cream Cheese Nirvana, Pumpkin Walnut, Banana Chocolate Chip, Coconut, Almond Raspberry Creme, and don't forget Key Lime Cheesecake. We finished the display off with a two tier Brownie cake wrapped in textured white chocolate bands and topped with fresh orchids.

Class dismissed. Mike and Jenny get an A plus on Gateaux's "Method One" cake buffet.

Cake Buffet, Two Ways, Part II

2009-10-30T23:07:00.000-05:00

So, just a week later, enter Ali and Marcus. They're having a formal evening wedding at the Carlson Rotunda. Color scheme: Black and White. Cake: Something unconventional, but chic.

Ali suggests a table with several smaller decorated cakes rather than a traditional tiered cake. But they still need to fit the decor, and brown and ivory chocolate, nuts, caramel and raspberries aren't going to work. So, Cake Buffet Method Two was born.

While just as inviting as Cake Buffet Method One, this option starts the guests out wondering if those little porcelain-like beauties are even real cakes. Then, once the caterers slice and serve them as dessert, bets are settled, and of course they were real...real damn good! I'd like to take the moment to apologize to my 3rd grade grammar teacher Mrs. Rhymer (her real name)and the many Sunday School teachers (who really did try) for that poorly worded, somewhat foul-mouthed attempt at a pun.

The best part about these two was their incredible faith and trust in the staff over here at Gateaux Inc. Like I tend to do, I decided rather last minute, that their cake designs needed a little kick. So I emailed Ali a few pictures of some new ribbon bows that I had recently created for another wedding. I couldn't help but think that they would be beautiful in black fondant. So I sketched up some new designs incorporating those onto some of the cakes, as well as keeping the giant frosting roses and monogram panels that we designed for some of the other tiers. I emailed them all to Ali who got back to me saying that I should pick whichever I think would be best, and just make it beautiful. Who does that? Certainly not me when I was a bride, or now, with anything, ever. But she did, and it was amazing to have that freedom.

So thanks to Ali and Marcus, for inventing Cake Buffet Method Two, and then letting us run with it!

Catherine and Vincent

2009-10-24T23:45:00.000-05:00

When I met with Catherine and Vincent, they immediately told me that "It's all about the taste". Now, anyone who knows us at Gateaux, knows that we can certainly wow with the looks of our cakes (that's what people tend to come to us for) but little do they know that it's the taste of our cakes that seals the deal!

These two were so very much about the taste, that they really didn't have much interest in designing the cake at our first meeting. So, we set them up for our next sample day, and casually flipped through our many albums of past cakes while discussing which cake flavors they should try.

If we successfully wowed them with our cake, the design would be classic. They were both drawn to our lace cakes, and Catherine was wearing a lace dress, so that most likely would be the basis for our design. We'd have to discuss specifics later, because she didn't have pictures of the dress yet.

Then, it happened...as Vincent casually flipped through our books, something caught his eye. I should have known. You see, usually fellow doggie freaks tend to recognize one another, but these two slipped under my caninephile radar. Vincent was looking at a most beautiful wedding cake in our book. A classic, elegant design topped with fresh orchids. But peeking out from behind those orchids was a miniature frosting pooch.

I quickly found out that these two were proud dog-parents to two Shi tzu's named Cosmo and Chili...

and the possibility of immortalizing them in frosting may just be the thing that made this couple realize that it is all about the flavor, but you can have an awesome looking cake too!

As it turns out, Catherine and Vincent chose a cake filled with Passion Fruit Bavarian Creme and Vanilla Mousse. I went to see her dress (a beautiful Melissa Sweet gown)

and realized that I was in for more than your typical lace pattern. As a matter of fact, my original plan of how I would reproduce the pattern on the cake only lasted until I had covered about a five inch area of the bottom tier with it. I took a step back, and did what makes my employees all simultaneously groan/grumble and moan...I scraped the design right off the side of the fresh fondant, and started experimenting with alternative techniques. Sure enough, once we all put our heads together, we came up with the perfect method(s).

This little number actually involved painting, piping, clay extruder work, and of course, my favorite, tweezer work! In toll, it took four of us a thirteen hour workday to complete the intricate pattern, a total of 52 hours of woman-power. That doesn't count baking, or the afternoon spent creating little fondant Cosmo and Chili.

So here's a riddle for you. How do you know you're on the right career path? Easy, when you can work a 13 hour day, and come back excited to do it all over again. I'll never tire of this. It's such a great feeling when a couple that you really enjoy chooses to include you in the plans for their wedding. Even better when they love the result. Add in the fact that I spent a full afternoon this year sculpting frosting dogs (as part of my JOB) and you'll not find a luckier girl in the world.

So here's to you, Catherine and Vincent, who have proven to all of us that you can, indeed have your beautiful cake and eat it too.

Bari and David

2009-10-11T01:12:00.002-05:00

Bari and David were married at her parent's home on the lake. There's nothing that terrifies a cake lady more than an outdoor reception in August, but we just couldn't say no. You see, Bari had such lovely details planned already that I simply couldn't pass up the opportunity to be a part of such a beautiful affair.

We based the cake design on their sweet little letterpress invitations. A topiary motif made up of tiny little graphic flowers was too much to resist.

Add Bari's idea to keep the circle motif in tact across the four tier cake, a few frosting bird panels, and tiny frosting bees and we had the perfect design.

When time came to order favours, Bari chose our hand molded truffles. We had just the perfect little green and white striped ribbon for the boxes.

When the wedding day arrived, we were ecstatic to find that Mother nature had decided to be merciful. Seventy degrees and sunny with a cool lake breeze kept the cake and truffles in perfect condition. Those two must be doing something right!

Much thanks to Shelly Mossman www.photomoss.com for the beautiful photos of the cake, truffles and programs.

Foodie Scientists who Juggle

2009-09-27T00:18:00.000-05:00

Our clients never fail to surprise me...

My first contact about Dana and Idris' wedding was with Dana's fabulous parents via conference call. They were doing the preliminary planning for their out of town daughter and her future husband. Their daughter and her fiance were both scientists, both "foodies" and the cake, above all, had to be delicious.

We set up samples for Dana's parents, and then a design session during Dana's next trip home. At the appointment I learned that there would be a "double happiness" character on the wedding invitations to honor the groom's heritage. I also saw pictures of Dana's beautiful wedding dress. What struck me instantly, was that the embroidery on the gown looked incredibly, like molecule models. No wonder why our scientist-bride was drawn to it!

By the time we put together the dress embroidery, double happiness, and fabulous color scheme of deep orange and red, we had a beautiful cake.

They narrowed the cake flavors down to our Fiore de Cecilia cake and our Brownie cake (only substitute dark chocolate ganache for the fudge filling) we exchanged email links between our exploding kitty cake and Dana's good friend's exploding sink/jello plume (scientists like to blow things up, just like cake ladies) and we were all set.

Now, I knew these people were fun. But when I got to the wedding to set up the cake, I got to see something I've never seen in my 13 years of cake deliveries...juggling groomsmen! How fun is that(mind you, only fun because it was in a completely different room than the cake)? They were warming up while waiting for photos to begin, but would move outside for the real show later that night. I've seen bored, fidgety, nervous, even slightly "alcohol enhanced...happy" groomsmen in my time, but never a room full of juggling groomsmen. Needless to say, I enjoyed a bit of their antics once the cake was set up. I would have loved to stay for the show, but alas, all good cake ladies are but a puff of powdered sugar in the air by the time the guests arrive. By then, we're at home juggling the remote control, a bowl of popcorn and a food obsessed Westie...now that's my kind of trick!

Rhys and Raj

2009-09-12T19:13:00.000-05:00

Rhys was one of those brides who thoroughly enjoyed the process of her wedding from planning to the actual wedding day. Every phone call or email from her was just plain fun. It was great to be able to debut our latest "Magic Phil" creation on her wedding.
You see, Rhys originally contemplated having a wedding cake shaped like an elephant in honor of her groom's heritage. Once we sat down and saw all of the beautiful elements she was incorporating into her wedding, there were simply too many to pass up, so the elephant cake fell by the wayside. Instead, I found this awesome gold elephant plant stand, and ordered it in especially for the occasion.

The stand was fabulous, but too tall to put on a table. Enter "Magic Phil" who happened to have a beautiful piece of walnut wood that he had no plans to use. He built us the base for the elephant (the steamer trunk hardware was his addition) and a custom fitted round cake plate that attached to the elephant (now named Lakshmi, for an elephant that Rhys rode in India).

We just loved the reaction photos that Studio 306 sent from the wedding. As cake people, we're gone before the guest's arrive, so we rarely see the guests enjoying our creations. I'm always amazed at the incredible artistry in all of Studio 306's work. They're amazing!

Magic Phil turns 70

2009-08-29T17:53:00.000-05:00

Anyone who knows Gateaux, knows that we take full advantage of those talented and supportive friends and family that we're blessed to be surrounded by. My own Mom takes great pride in finding me vintage cake plates at auctions, Jenna's boyfriend, Kyle is always around fixing things at the shop (I don't even know if his dad is aware that we have absconded with his band saw) and nothing would get done if it weren't for the incredible support of my husband (the Goo) who takes on the role of personal chef, dog-daddy, and personal therapist during the busy season every year. But one name stands out among many of our clients...Magic Phil. My retired father in law, who now spends his time helping everyone in the family with all things that may need fixing, is also a wonderful woodworker. He's been responsible for many of our cake stands, and has expanded his skills into stone mason, and Acrylic stand manufacture in the past several months.

Needless to say, when Phil turned 70, there had to be one hell of a cake!

We had the party in his workshop (something he finally built after years of dreaming about it). And what more suiting place for the handy man's party. Friends and relatives came in from all over the country, to hide in his workshop awaiting the chance to surprise him with a party and wonderful tribute to the guy who can fix anything.

We had a blast making his cake. First of all, how often can you make frosting duct tape and nails? Second of all, we got to actually wing the design, something that NEVER happens with anal-retentive me handling the orders. Everything was edible, of course, from the screw drivers and level, to the duct tape, peg board, and wood veneer. Best part was watching Jenna set up the cake with one of my nephews, Nick as foreman of the project (he's the one donning the hard hat).

The party was a good time. Best part was listening to people as we sat in a circle and they told their favorite "Phil fixed it" story. It's inspiring to hear how one person can touch so many, and make every one of us feel like he's all ours.

C'est le Gateau

2009-08-23T22:42:00.000-05:00

Haven't posted in a while. Turns out the cake universe decided to throw us a little curve ball in the middle of our busy season, so we needed to get a few things straightened out before getting back to the fun stuff.

Short version...good refrigerator gets repaired for not holding proper temperature...becomes CAKE KILLER. Thankfully, no casualties, but two weeks of incredible uncertainty and drama as to if we would be able to continue to create the cakes that we love without risking their soggy demise in every commercial fridge we've tried. Thanks to the support of our ring of talented, tenacious, and fiercely loyal friends, family, fridge-tech, and cake nerd/diva network, we seem to have figured out a solution to the problem. Much thanks to the support of the staff at Colette's cakes, Kerry Vincent, Todd the awesome Fridge Tech, Dave the other awesome fridge tech, the staff at Appliance Smart, Envirotech, Redco, and of course, my awesome husband, for driving all over the twin cities with test-cakes and hygrometers.

Now, back to the fun stuff!

Ingrid and Jason were engaged at the top of Sacre Coeur in the MontMartre arondissement of Paris. They called looking for a cake in the shape of that awesome cathedral, but having been to that part of Paris, myself, I knew we had much more to work with. Turns out...on a five day trip to Paris for my tenth wedding anniversary, my husband naively trusted my navigational skills to get us to the airport via the Metro. We were well on our way, until he realized that I was taking us to Orly, when we actually needed to get to Charles De Gaulle. Tee hee. The upside to missing your flight out of Paris...missing your flight out of Paris! We found another hotel, threw down our bags, and headed of to see MontMartre. Best accidental vacation day I've ever had!

Now back to our lovely couple. Turns out, they adored that particular neighborhood of Paris as well, so we decided to top the cake with Sacre Coeur, but let the cake represent the fabulous hillside that makes up Montmartre, complete with its open air art market and quaint cafes.

We added a couple of personal details, like the couples darling doggy "Polo" tied to one of the lamp posts, as well as the actual hotel that the couple stayed at in Paris and the Carousel at the foot of Sacre Couer that they took a spin on after he popped Le Quesion. All done in a new technique that we came up with while working on a cartoon-style groom's cake shaped like Texas.

It took a lot of vision to translate the little cartoons from the grooms cake into a Paris-themed wedding cake, but Ingrid and Jason really embraced the idea, and I must say, this was an absolute joy to work on!

We had such fun painting the panels, that while in "fridge hell" this past two weeks, I seriously considered retiring from cakes and taking painting lessons instead. Fortunately for my clients, employees, and the sanity of my husband, I'm still on the job.

I'll bet it was a prop!

2009-07-26T20:10:00.000-05:00

Christina was fun to meet with. She brought in several cake ideas from several sources, and we picked the best parts of all of them, combined them, and created our own over-the-top masterpiece. I love sessions like hers. What I don't love about sessions like hers, is that once she leaves, I have that moment of sheer panic when I realize that Cake Designer Robin has just SCREWED Cake Maker Robin.
You see, the main silhouette of this cake was based on a cake that Christina saw in the movie "27 Dresses". Easy, we thought...find out who made the cake for the movie, and they'll divulge where to find a stand that supports four tiers of cakey goodness while remaining virtually invisible. All of those little frosting scrolls between the layers look like they're holding up the next tier, but alas, they are merely gumpaste, and snap at the slightest provocation.
So I put my crack team of internet stalkers on the project. But everyone came up empty handed. It appears as if no one wants to take credit for the cake. We couldn't find any credit anywhere for it. So, we turned to our secret weapon..."Magic Phil". Now, anyone who knows cakes, knows that it takes a fair amount of engineering skill to pull off most designs, so how lucky am I that I married into a family with an electrical engineer. My father in law Phil is not only an engineer, but (and this is the important part) is also retired. The man can do anything, but most importantly, he loves a good cake challenge.

I gave him my wish list of what the stand needed to look like (invisible) and what it needed to do (hold about 75 pounds of cake) and he went at it. Two months later, he shows up at my house with an acrylic center post stand that looked like he'd been working in the medium his entire life. We set it up, oohed and aahed, and put it in a box until the week of the wedding.

The night before the wedding, we gave it a test run. The stand did exactly as promised. It held the cakes so that they were floating in mid air, it was spectacular...until anyone breathed near it...at which point it swayed like a jack-in-the-box. So after I regained consciousness, I sent the staff home, and called Magic Phil. What's better than an engineer? One who comes to your rescue at the drop of a hat. That next morning, he arrived with a load of various acrylic and steel tubing, and with four perectly sized clear supports for the 2nd tier, the cake was rock solid! We took that little beauty down to the reception, spent an hour and a half attaching all of its little frosting filigree "supports" and vowed never to do any cake that isn't a traditional direct-stack format ever again. Or at least until August.
Anyway, after all is said and done, I had a good friend look at the pictures who immediately came to the simple conclusion that the original cake on which we based this cake was probably a movie prop, and not a cake at all. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that it is true. Oh well, maybe if they need a cake for "28 dresses" they'll give us a call. We've got the stand all ready to go.

By the way, here is Christina with her cake. I've seen a lot of wedding dresses in my day, but Wow! This one takes the cake (no pun intended). She's an amazing clothing designer, and made the dress herself. The bottom of the skirt was removable for the reception (her own engineering project I'm sure)and the dress turned into this sassy little cocktail number.

Screenprinting!

2009-07-12T18:43:00.001-05:00

Most people would be shocked at how many "cake decorating" tools come from Home Depot. Fact is, I find the most incredible tools for my job at places that have nothing to do with restaurant/bakery supply. My newest adventure began when I met with Alex about her wedding invitations. We already knew that we would copy the incredible fabric rosettes from Alex's Monique Lhuillier wedding dress on the cake, but, once we picked the invitations, adding the beautiful motif and monogram to the cake became another priority.

I really had no idea how to transfer such a fine and intricate motif to a cake, especially if I wanted to maintain the delicate nature of the pattern. We've done lace and fine things before, but that is across an entire tier, and while this is one beautiful motif, it was just one element of an otherwise impeccably planned wedding, and we didn't want it to take over the entire cake.

We decided to just use the initials, and skip the motif. Until two days before the wedding, when I spotted something in my office that had completely slipped my mind. About five years ago, I was meeting with a bride who had bought a personal screen print machine in order to print her own wedding invitations in metallic gold. I was so intrigued, that I bought one, looked at how neat it was...and stored it in that great abyss that is my office.

But, its time had come! At eight o'clock at night, with purse-on-shoulder, about to leave...I dragged the thing down from the top shelf and spent the next two hours shooting a screen of Alex and Grant's motif, and figuring out how to completely misuse and abuse the poor little screen printer so that it would print with frosting instead of ink, onto fondant instead of paper.

It took a few tweaks, but eventuallly, it worked beautifully. I called Alex, who said 'kay, and we adjusted her cake design accordingly.
So there you have it, add screen printer to the resume. Thanks Alex and Grant, for letting me experiment on you!

By the way, I had the pleasure of seeing them at the wedding. I've been doing this for thirteen years now, and have seen a lot of brides. But something about Alex in her gown reminded me of what it felt like to be dressed in all of those layers of silk and crinolin all those years ago. I just love a bride! All that joy, love and possibility in one fluffy white dress.

Julia and Kenny

2009-06-20T22:46:00.000-05:00

Julia and Kenny were wed at the Calhoun Beach club. Now, usually we don't have the pleasure of seeing our brides on their wedding day (which is a good thing, as cake ladies are usually not too terribly presentable by delivery day, after a week of long decorating days/nights). Typically, we are at the reception site while the wedding is happening elsewhere. But every once in a while, we have a one-location wedding/reception, and we get to see our brides in all of their splendor. Now, Julia knew that we'd be hiding out waiting for the room turnover, to set up the cake, so she told us to go up one floor to "the library" room that overlooks the Boulevard room so that we could watch the ceremony.
Not many people know this, but I was not always an Evil Cake Genius. I started out as a photographer, and have seen lots...and lots of weddings in my time. Am I jaded? Guess not, as I still love that incredible moment, where two people get up in front of all of their friends and family and make that incredible committment to each other. I get choked up every time, and this was no exception.

Now, onto the cakey goodness...
Julia and Kenny's wedding was an elegant affair with a modern-tailored feel. It was a blend of lavish and simplicity in the same event (no, really, you can have both).

We based the cake on their pale silver and white color scheme, incorporated their beautiful monogram, and copied a beautiful brooch that the bride wore on her gown. The bow on top came from a pair of shoes that she was planning to wear, we fell in love with, and then they turned out to be unwearable...but still cakeable!

We made the brooch entirely out of gumpaste and silver dragees, and the bow as well, so everything on the cake was edible. Not only edible...delicious. These two came up with their own cake flavor combination, Devil's food cake filled with dark chocolate ganache vanilla mousse and fresh raspberries.
But the best part of working with these two was this...they really got it. Wedding planning should be fun! From our first appointment to when they picked up their invitations, to the time they walked back down the aisle, these two were grinning ear to ear and having the time of their life. It's a real pleasure to work with couples like this, and I will say that I get more than my fair share.

Like the Blog, Let us Know!

2009-06-18T23:26:00.000-05:00

Okay, loyal cake minions, here's your chance to share our little blog with other hungry minds! If you've got the time (hey, you're reading this, so let's just say that's a safe bet) nominate our humble little blog for a Bridal Blog Award on the WeddingChannel.com. Just click on the box above, and it will take you right to the nomination board.

Grasslands at the McNamara Center

2009-06-13T23:27:00.000-05:00

So if you've been to the McNamara Alumni Center at the U of MN, you know that it is one big sexy piece of architecture. But, it wasn't until I sat down with Rachel to plan her cake for her reception at the McNamara that I really "got it". The decor and structure of the building represents Minnesota in all of its elements. They've captured the Iron Range, the 10,000 lakes, the Northern lights, and the north shore. So, Rachel kept everything about her decor (including the cake) organic in design. We started with a magazine photo of a cake covered in shimmering frosting grass, but by the time she left, we'd made the design a little more, shall we say, Rachel (which, by the way, is happily, a lot more Gateaux).

By the time all was said and done, that cake contained individually cut blades of frosting grass made by a total of 4 people. In the weeks leading up to the wedding, anytime anyone had a spare second, they made grass. I have a newfound respect for mother nature on this one. Besides the grass, we added beautiful frosting Anemones, tiny ladybugs, dragonflies, caterpillars, a frosting cardinal, and (no, you're not seeing things) a pair of bumblebees donning a tophat and veil.

Never doubt my clients when it comes to FUN.

Parrot Head

2009-06-06T23:29:00.000-05:00

So I get this phone call from a bride looking for a wedding cake that will reflect the fact that she's marrying a Parrot Head. Now, I don't know much about Parrot Heads, but I know that love can overcome anything, even what sounds to be a horribly disfiguring disorder.
Okay, so maybe I was a touch off-base with the terminology, but much to my relief, a Parrot Head is simply the term for a Jimmy Buffett fan. Well, that makes the cake design a whole lot easier than I thought!

Ann and Tyler had a great party planned for their wedding. The reception would be held on a the Padelford Riverboat "Betsy" on the Mississippi on what turned out to be the most glorious late spring day of the year. The groomsmen wore hawaiian print vests of a black background with painted sage green tropical leaves and little Parrots, Cockatoos, and Toucans intermixed in the foliage. I immediately wanted to copy that fabric. The centerpieces on the tables incorporated bamboo and fuschia orchids...done and done! Add a couple of frosting flip flops, some seashells, and a two tier waterfall (the groom's idea) and we were ready to cruise!

But, a Parrot Head's cake would not be complete without a little hidden humor, so Tyler suggested that we add a bottle of Landshark beer, and a pair of board shorts and bikini top littering the back side of the cake (after all, they are married now).

My full-timer Jenna was all over these details, she hid the bikini top from me until it was finished so that I could get the full effect (or maybe so that I wouldn't micromanage, you decide) and it was perfect! Our new girl, Kim, came up with the method for shaping the bamboo, and she and Jenna had a stockpile of it by the time I painted the leaves for the cake.
Overall, it was one of those blissful decorating days, where, everything I was unsure of, just came together. Aaah, those don't happen too often. Must be that laid back Parrot Head vibe coming through.
Ann and Tyler finished off their reception with an all Jelly Belly candy buffet. They chose several Jelly Belly blend recipes, and we mixed full jars of them (you know, One Orange Juice jelly bean plus one Cherry, plus two Margarita beans equals Tequila Sunrise). It was quite the hit!
Thanks Ann and Tyler for once again, reminding me that I have the Best Job Ever.

Another Sweet 16

2009-05-29T23:16:00.000-05:00

How strange,
Two months ago, Gateaux had never done a Sweet 16 cake before. Now, we've done two.
Yara's sweet 16 party was a beautiful poolside affair at her home. The weather threatened rain, and it held off until 5 minutes before the party started. Being the high-maintenance cake lady that I am, I had the coordinator kick the caterers out of the only semi-covered area around the pool as soon as I heard the party was to go on outside despite the sketchy forecast. Paid off in spades! When the skies opened up, and everyone headed for cover, I hung out with this little beauty, and slid it back an inch at a time further under the overhang until the rain passed and the party started.
The rest of the evening was beautiful, and the party went off with no further hitches, and a bone-dry cake!

What inspired the design? A sixteen year old with impeccable taste! Yara loved the Parisienne cake on our website, but didn't want her birthday cake to look too much like a wedding cake. We were working through this problem, when she saw an elliptical shaped cake in our portfolio. We merged the two designs, added a ton of red rosettes (thanks to my awesome full-timer Jenna) and there it was! I just love, love, love it! Happy birthday Yara! Same time next year?

Sara and Freddy

2009-05-18T22:51:00.000-05:00

Classic Glamour. That's what best described Sara and Freddy's wedding. When I met Sara, she brought in copies of her beautiful wedding invitations for inspiration. Well, when they're that beautiful, we'll just flat-out copy them! All of the black detailing on the cake came from somewhere on the invitations. Note to self: black royal icing is NOT forgiving. Tell that to the top tier that had to be refondanted at 7:00 the night before the wedding.

Anyway, despite a few bumps in the decorating road, the cake is one of the most beautiful I've ever had the pleasure of taking credit for. We added the frosting bows to get the accent of Robin's egg blue incorporated into the cake design, and I can't think of a prettier finishing touch.

Thanks to the incomprehensibly talentedstudio 306 for their delicious photos of the cake, check out their blog for more pictures of this fabulous event!

Let's not call it "sweet" 16.

2009-04-18T23:45:00.000-05:00

For anyone who still thinks that sweet 16 parties are about cinderella coaches and tiaras, snap out of it! Zoe's 16th birthday party was quite honestly the coolest birthday party I'd ever seen (yes, it even surpassed my husband's surprise 30th party at Chuck E Cheese's in Edina, and mind you, that was cool. No really, it was.)
Her design scheme was everything a sweet 16 party doesn't bring to mind. Black and red decor, with grafitti panels on the walls, a (virgin)Bloody Mary bar, Oxygen bar, dueling DJ's and Cirque de Soleil style aerialists performing from the ceiling. I kept losing Jenna during the set up. She was glazed over muttering "coool, oh, cooool" for long periods of time.

Now, we knew this was going to be an awesome party from the first time I met her planners. So the pressure was on for THE MOST AWESOME CAKE EVER. So, based on a photo of a particularly well-vandalized alley, we began our design. It was supposed to be a skyscraper shape covered with airbrushed grafitti, until we decided to airbrush "grafitti skyscrapers" on the sides of the cake to create a skyline. The coordinators thought the statue of liberty would be a good addition to the design, so we Googled our fair lady and came up with the look for the bottom tier. Apparently some enterprising tagger has designed a stencil of the statue to quickly tag buildings with her likeness all over New York. So, we made our own Stencil, and drew up the sketch of the cake without ever considering how we would pull the look off (that's pretty much how we do it over here at Gateaux, if I only designed cakes that I knew how to do, it would get pretty stagnant creatively, and what fun is decorating when there is no imminent feeling of terror and "what the hell was I thinking when I pitched this?"

Luckily, the cake didn't only turn out exactly how I pictured it (rarely happens), but it was so fun to do that after airbrusing and painting the forty-odd frosting buildings for a day, I was disappointed that I didn't have more to make. I'll just have to hope for another girl as unique and cool as Zoe.

By the way...her reaction to the cake. My favorite cake comment ever... "That cake is SICK". For those of you as old and lame as me, that's a good thing.

Woodsy at the Graves 601?

2009-04-09T22:44:00.000-05:00

There are many adjectives that come to mind about Graves 601 Hotel in Minneapolis, Chic, Modern, Elegant, Sophisticated all come to mind. "Woodsy", not so much. So what do you do when you're an outdoorsy couple who embrace all the wonders of nature but you also want your wedding reception at one of the finest locations in the Twin cities? You hire Mimi designs, and book the Graves. I was astonished with the transformation of what I'd always considered the Ultra-Mod hotel for this event. The Mimi's (as we like to call them) created the perfect blend of natural design scheme with the modern understated elegance of the space. What resulted was the first "urban woodland" wedding I had ever seen...and it was stunning!

Onto the cake. In staying true to the woodland theme, the bride brought us a photo from Martha Stewart Magazine of a chocolate panelled cake that had been textured with a woodgraining tool in white chocolate. The bride decided to reverse the colors so that the cake would look more birch, and less like realistic wood to lend itself to the urban setting. As is common at the shop, we created every last chocolate panel using the tools and instructions from Miss Martha's magazine. Then, after they were complete, I went home, looked up alternatives on line, and decided to remake every one of them using a different tool, technique, and material (yes, I'm a joy to work for). The final result was an Ivory fondant, painted with woodgrain for a much more stylized and modern feel. Of course, I sent a photo of the two panel options to the Mimi's who hands down agreed with my choice (little did they know I had already completed the first round of panels, but they wouldn't be surprised at all, they know I'm neurotic).

Anyway, the final result...one of the most interesting and Graves 601-Worthy cake I've ever produced. The best part, the awesome catering crew at the Graves cut the panels into strips and garnished each slice with a pristine strip of wood-grained fondant. I just love it when the caterers carry through the look of the design in such a creative way. Kudos guys!

Justin and Krista

2009-03-22T19:22:00.000-05:00

Okay, this was just about the coolest take on a "black tie" wedding I've seen in awhile. When I first met with Krista, she showed me a picture of her dream cake from a magazine. We, of course had to tweak it to make it her own, so we changed the colors of the cake to match her Black, white, and red color scheme. We also turned the cake into a torted five-tier tower, and topped it with a frosting monogram.

It wasn't until a couple of weeks later, that she mentioned that maybe the cake should be black with white details and red flowers. Now you're speaking my language! The upside...an amazing, unique and dramatic winter wedding cake. The downside...turning 20 pounds of chocolate fondant black. Needless to say, Jenna and I got quite the upper body workout, and had food-colored hands for 3 days straight(that stuff colors more than just food). But it was all worth it. This was hand's down one of my favorite cakes in years. I just love the chance to produce the unexpected, especially when the unexpected is so incredibly tall that it is visible clear across the ballroom! A ballroom impeccably decked out under the guidance of the coordinating genius of Joan from Ambiente Design Group, one of our favorite planners (and mom to Max and Coco, every one who knows Gateaux, knows we're a collective puddle when it comes to cute doggies).

Here's the best part...these guys were nice enough to let their photographer the fabulous Olive Juice Studios release photos to all of us hard-working vendors so that we could strut our(and their) stuff. Thanks guys, you're the best!

Justin and Krista Part 2

2009-03-22T18:33:00.000-05:00

But our bride wasn't done with me yet. A surprise groom's cake was in order as well. You see, the groom travels a lot for his job, is a native Canadian, and proposed to the bride, while in Hawaii, by writing his proposal in the sand. Sounds like a lot to get onto one cake, but when the cake looks like a stack of suitcases, it's hardly enough.

So we added a couple of frosting dog collars and tags peeking out of one of the suitcases to honor the bride's dogs who come along with them quite frequently in their travels. The top tier, let's just make it into a cake shaped like a crate holding another cake shaped, and hand-painted to resemble their favorite champagne. For Canada, we had to honor the great northern tradition of Ketchup chips (don't ask me, just google it)a favorite Canadian delicacy of the groom's. For personal affects, we included frosting replica of the groom's Minnesota Twins ball cap as well as a copy (again, frosting)of his favorite AC DC money clip, complete with frosting canadian money.

Set the whole thing in a base(hand made by my father in law "Magic Phil") filled with brown sugar and white chocolate seashells and you have it! Proposal and all.

Looks like he liked it.

Again, thanks to Olive Juice Studios for the fab shots!

Kristen and Luke

2009-03-14T22:51:00.000-05:00

This couple had such a beautiful, tailored event style that when Kristen mentioned her ideas for Luke's surprise grooms cake, I nearly fell off my chair!

Let's start with the invitations. We copied an engraved motif from their Kate Spade cake knife set to create a background graphic for their letterpressed invitations. Keeping with their chocolate brown and ivory color scheme, we dropped the motif behind the text in taupe ink. Once they were in, and stunning, we had to copy the same pattern onto their cake. We had sketched several designs for their cake prior to their invitation appointment (when the cake knife made its first appearance)but once we saw how beautifully the invitations turned out, I just had to offer them a matching cake design.

They loved the new cake design, so we switched over to it resulting in one of my favorite cakes of the year.

Now onto the craziness. Kristin wanted to surprise Luke with a cake in honor of his Alma Mater, so we sketched up a cheese-head shaped cake. As the secret appointment progressed, the cake developed quickly to reflect more about Luke than I ever thought a mere slab of cake/cheese could contain. We added the many sports he enjoys, their two pet cats, and then, the mob of neighborhood kids that seem to follow this poor guy around whenever he's out around their house. Kristen laughed about how Luke can hardly make it to their front door without several kids climbing on him asking him to come out and play.

I'll take it! With my usual caveat, that trying to make realisting people out of frosting can often result in just plain creepiness, I set off to make Luke (widow's peak and all) into a frosting cartoon. The random kids followed. Every time we walked into the shop there was a new face peeking out from the baker's rack at us. It took about two weeks to make all of the varying parts, let them dry, and then royal-icing them together. Needless to say, the day after the Groom's cake went out, I looked over to my favorite baker's rack peanut gallery and was saddened by the empty space. We really miss the gang, but I suppose that's just incentive to do an equally weird groom's cake again soon, if for nothing other than the companionship.

Melissa's Winter Glam

2009-03-04T19:04:00.000-06:00

I just love a girl who isn't afraid of a little drama in design. Melissa had the most beautiful sparkling snowflake wonderland wedding reception at the Saint Paul Hotel. We incorporated the pattern from her wedding dress bodice on the top three tiers with one minor alteration, we added delicate little frosting snowflakes to the pattern. To finish off the design, a dramatic cascade of not only sugared, but edible glittered snowflakes.

Melissa and her sister/coordinator were not only fun to work with, but they were one of the most amazing duos of non-professional coordinators I've ever run across. These girls didn't miss a step. From the little added touches in decor, to their handmade invitations, the theme was carried through impeccably. My favorite little touch...the State Fair inspired appetizers. The groom proposed at the Great Minnesota Get Together (which I'm proud say, my own amazing husband has teamed up with me to earn the Blue ribbon in Raspberry Jam) so it only made sense to bring this one touch of summer into this otherwise winter wonderland. Got to admit, those corndogs smelled awesome in the dead of winter!

A snowy delivery day

2009-02-14T22:47:00.000-06:00

I love winter weddings! Everything is less stressful for a baker in the winter. Our arch nemeses heat and humidity are on hiatus, and the cakes love it. Plus, there are less weddings per weekend, so we get to take our own sweet time and enjoy decorating the cakes at a relaxing pace. The only trick is when, as in this December and January, it seemed as though there was a snowstorm every Saturday. Okay, I take it back... I only like winter weddings. So, here are two cakes that, though the weather outside was frightful...made it to the reception on time.

Laura and Sandeep had a dreamy winter wonderland reception at the Carlson Rotunda. We met with them earlier in the year, and they really let me play around with unusual elements like using Oval tiers, offset stacked to one side, allowing the snowflakes to flutter asymmetrically down the side of the tiers. The hidden gem on this one, however, was a frosting replica (not to scale by a longshot, he's huge!) of their dog Captain. We gave him a pale blue frosting scarf for the occasion. You have to look closely, but he's there, hiding among the snowflakes on the second tier.

Dori and Andrew had their reception Downtown St. Paul that same snowy night. They were both here for the wedding from London where Andrew is a Grenadier. We just couldn't help ourselves. We had to pitch them frosted Grenadier cookies as favours, and they agreed, they were a must-have.

The cuteness was almost overwhelming, so we balanced it with a cake modelled after Dori's amazing wedding gown. We pleated the fondant and copied the lace and ribbon embroidery from her bodice. The vase on top was frosting, but it could still hold fresh flowers. We just loved the glamour.