Nicole, Jim, and Cake Kismet

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!

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

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

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?

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

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

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.