Quick and Beautiful Christmas Cakes

Ok, folks. Christmas is quickly approaching. If you've thought about bringing a festive cake to your family celebration, you better get baking soon!

But you don't have to spend hours and hours on a cake for it to look gorgeous, elegant, and Christmas-y!

Make a cake that looks like a gift!

Here's one I did for my friend Nikki's office holiday party:


It's a simple buttercream-iced cake with a fondant bow. You could slap that together in a couple of hours, right?!

Here's a close-up of the bow and the gift tag:


Next up, here's a display cake I made for the showroom. It's covered with fondant and airbrushed gold. Again, the bow is made out of fondant.


Here's a similar concept, where the cake was covered in white fondant and topped with a big loopy gift bow. Here, you have to have a little more time because each of those loops has to completely dry before you can assemble the bow.


And, if you're feeling particularly ambitious or you're trying to feed a small army, here's some inspiration for you:


That's 4 cakes covered in white fondant and decorated with blue fondant box tops, ribbons, and bows.


Will you be making a cake for your get-together this week?

A Tuxedo-Themed Wedding

Last week, we had the opportunity to make a cake that a bride dreamed up. Seriously, she designed the cake - in detail - in Photoshop and brought the picture to us. Of course, she imagined an 8-tier cake so we had to scale it back a bit to fit her guest count and budget. She ended up with a 3-tier cake that perfectly matched her wedding!

Her wedding was tuxedo-themed where eveything was decorated in black and white, with splashes of red.


The cake itself was a perfect example of teamwork in the bakery. Of course, Gail baked and filled all the layers. I covered them in fondant, made the top hat, and put the 50 red roses in place at the reception. And Debbie decorated the tiers!


The top hat was made of Rice Krispies Treats and covered with black fondant. Then we put the couple's new last name on the white band around the base.


The wedding was at the Thomas Center. I just love how they set the cake right in front of that fireplace! And all the roses were provided by Betsy at the Plant Shoppe.

Red & Black Zebra Cake

We made this birthday cake for a young girl celebrating her 31st birthday. She'd spent her 30th birthday taking care of sick family members so she really wanted to go big this year!

She came in, sat down with Debbie, and picked out her own cake. She really liked the Pink & Black Zebra Cake we'd made for a 1st birthday party, and she wanted it to look elegant, mature, and glamorous.


Her party colors were red and black so we changed all the pink to red:


We topped the cake with red ribbon roses and pulled the zebra print pattern all the way over the top of the cake, rather than stopping at the top edge.


And we gave her a giant red bow on the second tier.


Isn't it funny how just a couple of simple changes can take a fun 1st birthday cake and make it into a mature, elegant 31st birthday cake?!