That's the reason I usually like to have plenty of notice for any orders. It gives me time to plan, to make any pieces in advance that I might need, and to sleep. Sleep is very, very important.
Occasionally though, I'll get one of those last minute requests...often times I limit the design to something I know I can crank out quickly. This always makes me a little sad because I am definitely a details person and want the time to add all those little things that make a custom design, well, a custom design. But, there are those times when I punish myself and accept the challenge of making a complicated/intricate cake in hours, rather than days. For example, this one:
I received the call for this designer purse two days before the client needed it. Under normal circumstances, I would have said no, but I admit, I wanted the challenge, and it is hard to say no to a client who is one of my best patrons! Everything on the bag is edible...the zipper, the logo, the handle. And I was only up until 3 AM finishing it...never mind I had to go to work at 7 that morning! There are some things about it I would have liked to "detail up," but time and exhaustion were working against me. Still not bad for 48 hours (only about 28 of which were available for either cake making or sleeping!)
Oh, and there were also matching cupcakes to accompany the purse! Chocolate buttercream icing, edible gold glitter and dragees, all atop a white almond cupcake. Yum-o!
That wasn't the only creation from this past week though. I also had several others, all of which I had quite a bit more lead time on, thank goodness!
The birthday girl wanted a Mustang for her birthday....turns out she got 3. Hehe! The Mustangs around the base were edible images applied to gumpaste, while the pony was handcut from gumpaste, then painted with an edible silver glaze.
This cake was an fun request to take on. The client was having a large celebration for 3 members of the family - a 16 year old, a 21 year old, and a 70 year old - but only wanted one cake. My solution, as you can see, was to do 3 smaller cakes, yet place them all on the same board to form one large "collage" type cake. I was able to work on my bow making skills, as well as try out a new bow technique - the blue and green one on the front cake.
These last cakes were in celebration of my grandmother's 85th birthday. Between the main cake (above) and the two sheet cakes (one is pictured below) there were 200 servings of cake! I didn't start out too worried about these, but then I had the "lighbulb" moment where I realized I was essentially making the equivalent of a large wedding, just without any stacking! This was the first time I had ever had to section a cake into serving sizes as well...I contemplated how best to achieve this while still creating a nice design that tied in with the main cake. I'm glad I went with a floral motif!
'Til next week,
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