Perfectly Lit Candles

It's uncertain of the origin of this story but I remember hearing that if you drop your ring through a birthday candle and blow the candle out after making a wish, the wish will come true. I probably have a partial of the story remembered but couple years back when this photograph was taken I remembered the story clearly and told my friends. When it was time to blow out the candles, couple of my friends dropped their rings, hoping the birthday girl would make their wishes come true as well.

Last post I shared how to turn a simple cake seem more special and today I wanted to show you how candles could make a big difference. Although you cannot see the details on this white meringue buttercream covered cake, if it weren't for the candles I think the cake would have looked more plain. This white cake had pink iridescent gumpaste ribbon with the same colored pearl shaped balls scattered around and the number "22" piped in royal icing then sprinkled with pink sanding sugar. It was an inspiration from a Cynthia Rowley dress I wore that night. The lighting in the restaurant was terrible so I wasn't able to capture the details but I feel the blue and white candles brought out some warmth to the otherwise washed out looking cake. Next time when you spend hours making a cake, remember to spend some time choosing the appropriate candles instead of just picking the multi-colored dull ones from your nearest grocery store!

Simply Green Cake

Until recently, I had not experienced much gum paste experience. I was a home caker who played around with gum paste but had no formal background or knowledge of making gum paste flowers. So I tackled the simplest forms of flowers or flower like shapes. I had just returned from a week long trip and had little time to make a cake for Bo. And I had bought these Juliska cake stands that I was dying to use. So I killed two birds with one stone. My small simply green cake was presented on the Juliska cake stand thus making the humbly simple cake look more special. A lot may depend on the cake but I think presentation carries a big weight as well. If I had put this cake on a plain cake board or even worse on a plastic plate, this cake would look sloppy and boring. The delicate glass stand made this tiny cake look more extordinary. If you have a great cake stand or find something special always remember that that could be the special touch that would make your cake from ordinary to extordinary. It doesn't necessarily need to be a cake stand, anything could be substituted as a cake stand so I stress again to be creative and think outside the box. Did you know that the Thirty Cake's stand is actually a piece of mirror bought from Ikea placed on top of a flower pot?

Character Cake

For some reason I prefer round cakes. That is why most of my cakes... almost all my cakes are tall round cakes. I then design within this round surface. My friend B who was turning twenty-three, has the cutest smile. She's the quintessential happy person who always has a grin on her face. Because she is such a happy person she reminds me of cartoon characters. No one in particular but just general cartoon figure. Thus I made a small gum paste figure to resemble B and her outfit for the night. She had told me that she would wear a white lace dress so I dressed her mini-me in a white lace dress with glittery red shoes. Then I put a small basketball by her side. The inside story is this- couple months before her 24th birthday she met this perfect boyfriend. To congratulate her on her birthday and meeting the perfect boyfriend for her I added a basketball because his nickname is from a comic book called Slam Dunk. And to prop the figure I added a crystallized ribbon and on the sides I placed simple ribbon flowers made from gum paste. The side walls of the cake was painted in pink shimmer and I piped royal icing to separate the colored from the non colored areas and made it look like some sort of wallpapering. The flavors of this cake was white-choc-white sponge with vanilla buttercream. I loved the simplicity of this cake with its very squared off edges. So my advice is this, even the simplest cake should begin with a cleanly cut cake where the edges are crisp and sharp. This will make your cake look more professional and make any decoration look even better.

A Birthday Brunch Cake

Last Summer I joined a large group of just female friends for a Sunday Brunch in the West Village. I am blinking out so I cannot remember the restaurant's name but it was very suitable place for a Sunday brunch birthday celebration. So unlike my bright and fun cakes I like to present for birthday celebrations, I decided to go for a low key but something lovely and sweet for Audrey's 25th. The cake was a mildly sweet banana sponge with honey-cinnamon buttercream. I thought that a banana cake was the most breakfast-like cake and I didn't want to overwhelm the other guests with something overly sweet so banana cake in my opinion was the way to go. And instead of fondanting I chose to buttercream the cake with the same buttercream I filled the cakes with. When Audrey told me about her birthday brunch I automatically thought of large windows and a room filled with sunlight. I wanted to work with a soft palette of colors and make a cake that was natural and just lovely. You see, Audrey is very lovely, sweet and down to earth. So I wanted to portray a cake with blossoming flowers that were natural but pretty so I tried out dogwoods. Dogwoods are one of my favorite flowers, the way it lights up a dull tree with flowers is so enchanting. They may be less vibrant and familiar than cherry blossoms but the woodsy and lightly hued dogwoods are my favorite. The abundantly topped dogwoods went naturally with the cinnamon specked ivory buttercreamed cake. I piped some green tinted buttercream to make vine-like growth on the sides of the cake and added the same hued leaves here and there. This would've been almost like a wedding cake top tier but in my opinion I thought I had created a lovely cake suited for my lovely friend on a very lovely Sunday morning.

Little Prince Cake

I've got to admit that I am really bad with recording my work of cakes. It's been a recent routine that I take pictures of my cake and I still do it with my cell phone (at least iPhone takes good quality pictures). This Comet Cake was actually a Little Prince themed cake. Is everyone familiar with the children's book? I baked a cake in an oven-proof bowl then tinted my white fondant with black to make a gray color and added some blue and some black gel food coloring and created a marble look to it. The cake was chocolate and the buttercream had chunks of Oreo which gave a rigid covering to the cake and when fondanted the fondant didn't need much tackling to get the rough look of the comet. Then I stuck some small silver and gold dragees to imitate the comet Little Prince is usually seen on. My friend had asked me to make this cake for her for her boyfriend, Alex. Alex is tall and has fair hair and he had always reminded her of the Little Prince. To complete the theme of the cake, my friend printed an image of Little Prince on regular paper and laminated it and we stuck a toothpick to insert this figure to the Comet Cake. Too bad I don't have the finished cake to share with you all but the cake and a book of Little Prince completed this themed birthday party for Alex's 30th.

Pink and Bubbly Cake

So I lied... If you have been following my posts, I am caught online with my first blog lie. I said I wouldn't mention pink and gold combo for a very long time after the Martha Stewart Weddings 15th Anniversary party but I wanted to share how I design cakes and come up with inspirations. Not enough of a good excuse but here I go... It was back in September and a really close unni's (unni means sister in Korean but we Koreans refer to older girlfriends as sisters eventhough we are not related) birthday was fast approaching. I went to Kate's Paperie to get a birthday card for her. Instead I left the store with a picture of a birthday card that I took on my iPhone. It was my inspiration for her cake! As you can see below, I wanted a very celebratory feel to the cake with champange reminicing bubbles. The card was pink in various shades so obviously my cake had to be pink as well. To mimic the effervescent bubbles of champagne I rolled gum paste into balls varied in sizes. Each ball got a piece of florists wire so I could arrange them as a topper. To get the pin-strip pattern on the top tier I found a great plastic liner that I imprinted onto rolled fondant then gently applied white liquid food coloring onto the imprinted fondant. The reason why the cake was two tiered was because I could easily take the top tier off and serve the bottom tier to the guests at the party. Then the top tier could be taken home to be eaten later! For this cake I could not find candles that I liked. Thus I made some candle holders with gumpaste and pearl dusted them. These received sparkling candles that went perfectly with the cake. So you see... after shopping for a birthday card I ended up with an inspiration for my cake. Truthfully I get inspired by my daily routines such as walking around the city or by anything unique, pretty or just plain inspiring. I hope my methods of inspirations could inspire your next birthday cake.

Golf, Pizza and mushroom Cake

Sophia is a golfer, a pizza lover and highly allergic to mushrooms. These three traits are what makes Sophia so unique. It's a little inside joke my friends and I share. I personally don't like the taste of fondant so this time I mixed corn syrup with melted semi sweet chocolate which then turns into a softer version of fondant and plus I didn't have to add tons of brown food coloring to mimic the tree bark color. Then I used some green fondant and rolled out two circle rounds and trimmed the edges with scissors to make it look like layered grass. With flowers, mushrooms and a "S" for Sophia, I adorned the cake and stuck a wire with dried gum paste that looked like a flag pole- it was her 26th birthday. And a slice of pizza (gum paste) topped with various sizes of golf balls that read either "Sophia 26," "Happy 26" and other variations. To make the grass more realistic, I dusted it with darker shades of dusting colors and the shine on the "S" and the mushrooms was achieved by steaming then with a small iron. And although I don't have a picture of the inside of the cake think green! A pistachio sponge cake with white chocolate mousse... Enjoy!

Shooting Star Cake

I have a friend whose nickname is "Something"-STAR. That something is her last name so I will keep that something private because she's a very shy person. Well, for my STAR friend a star studded cake was obviously the way to go. She loves pink so I buttercreamed a two tiered cake with pink buttercream and piped stars with royal icing on parchment paper. Some stars got florists wire while others didn't. Then I planted these fragile royal icing stars on the cake. Imagine shooting stars and comets and something plain fun. This was the emotions that I intended people to get when they experienced this cake. So naturally I opted for sparkling candles to match this cake. My advice to cakers is this- birthdays are supposed to be fun and happy thus when creating a cake for your special one comes along, imagine outside the box. Try to make it more personlized by creating a design that goes with their personalities or their favorite things. Having this in mind I am sure you will come up with something very original and something very exciting.

Fluorescent Flower studded Black Cake

For my sweet eccentric friend, I thought a black fondanted cake would be perfect. I knew in advance that she would wear a blue glittery dress because if you are a female you would know that even these intimate details are shared and planned together but back to the cake, I thought that multi colored flowers dusted in shimmering powder would go great with her dress and her personality. This friend is very bright, fun, artistic and back to eccentric. I chose to make ribbon flowers because they are easy to make and gives a modern look to a black cake. If you where with us while we cut into the first slice of this dark and mysterious cake, I am sure you would've been suprised by the hot pink buttercream layered between the dark chocolate sponges. In my opinion this was what a fun cake meant, full of suprises. So... I know that the picture above is a bit shaky and my friend Inez told me that my picture qualities weren't very great but I wanted to share the look of my friend's face when she saw her candle lit birthday cake. This is what people call a Kodak moment... I don't have Kodak btw.

Blake Lively's 21st Birthday Cake

For the past week at work all I could think about was pink and gold which reminds me of Blake Lively's 21st birthday cake. We were taking part in the Martha Stewart Weddings 15th Anniversary event and the theme was pink and gold. So we scrambled to get as many candies we could in pink and gold. I also did some little cakes in pink and gold but they are not birthday cakes so you'll have to see them elsewhere, for example at http://www.amyatlas.blogspot.com/ or at the Martha Stewart Weddings Blog under the 15th Anniversary dessert table. Well, since ten in the morning until two hours ago, I was surrounded by more pink and gold at the Plaza, the venue of tonight's event. So it only makes sense to post a pink and gold birthday cake. Although I did not make this cake, I did watch the Ron Ben Israel team make this from start to finish ( I was working on a Peacock cake!) Truthfully I haven't seen much just pink and gold cake but if I had seen a hundred pink and gold birthday cakes I am positive this cake will still be my favorite pink and gold cake. If you are an avid tabloid reader like me, you probably would have seen it last year just around this time. Blake Lively's 21st birthday. The theme being art deco, the pink cake gilded with gold art deco ornaments was amazing. And I've got to say I am very lucky that I saw this cake in person. But I guess Blake is the lucky one for no 21st birthday cake could top this one off! I am finally off to bed and I can promise that after tonight there will be no mention of pink and gold for quite some time.

Dear Margaret's Cake

My dear friend, Margaret turned twenty-six. I usually try to make the cake extra special by drawing out a sketch first of what I plan to make. There are lots of things I put into consideration while designing- what they'll wear the day of the party, their favorite colors or things and most importantly what comes to my mind when I think of them . Margaret is one of my closest friends in NYC and we have spent many many hours with eachother shopping, eating, drinking and just wandering around the city together. It may be due to her former wardrobe collection or her very femine name but when I think of Margaret I know she'll prefer a cake with flowers and pastel colors. This year I made a box like cake with hydrangas peaking from its lid. The lid is styrofoam covered with fondant and the bottom is real cake- light chocolate sponge soaked with Dissarono and cinnamon chocolate buttercream. I've got to say that the cake and the buttercream went great with eachother (if I get enough requests I'll post the recipe). A bow and a tag that read "Happy Birthday Margaret" cake was lit with trick sparkling candles that night. I am assuming everyone had a great time because at the end of the night with plenty of food, champange and wine, the cake was more than half eaten and somehow there were wine splatters on the cake- imagine wine glasses cheering over and over again. That how much people were celebrating!

The Thirty Cake

To my sister who turned the big 3-0, special attention was needed from my part. Since we seem to be continents away during her birthdays, I am in New York while she is in Korea right now, I never had the chance to bake her a birthday cake. So this year I made a cake dummy (a fondant covered styrofoam round) and sent her a video clip of me singing happy birthday holding up the cake that read the "World's Best Sister." I also wanted to stress that she entered a new decade of her life so I shaped a piece of florists wire to read "thirty" in cursive. And since this cake is fake and my sister is far away, I thought it would be weird to add candles and blow them out myself. But next year, I'm hoping I get to wish her happy 31st with an edible cake lit with candles she can blow out.