Vanilla ButterCake covered in Vanilla Marshmallow Fondant

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and below

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Lemon Cake filled with Lemon Curd Buttercream

covered in vanilla Buttercream icing

Well, the first week is done, as are the first cakes of June. As you can see by the photos there was a lot to be done for the purse cake. The first set of handles I made were done in the wrong direction so there I was on Thursday suddenly realizing I had to remake the handles and pray they dried stiff enough to stay upright for Saturday morning. Also to be made was the tassle, the zipper, zipper pull as well as all the lettering for the handbag and cake board. Having to remake the handles made for a much longer Thursday but in the end they were perfect. I ended up having to support them with plastic wrap so they could actually dry ON the handbag and removed the plastic at the last hour before delivery.

We arrived for the luncheon tea a few minutes before the birthday girl and the staff at Lisa's Tea Treasures in Santana Row in San Jose very kindly took the buttercake filled with vanilla buttercream from me to hide it until presentation time. The tea was, as usual, quite lovely and at the end of it they brought the cake out and presented it for me to the guest of honor. It was fun to hear the buzz in the room of "THAT's a CAKE...NO...that CAN'T be a cake!" LOL! But more fun was to see the look on my daughter's face when she saw it was a small Coach Handbag and PINK! She loved it. The staff took photos of us and then wisked the cake away and served the slices on strawberry drizzled plates adorned with sliced strawberries and tiny mint sprigs. Wonderful!

The Anniversary cake was not so easy. First of all Friday was a VERY humid day and it made the job of icing this cake almost impossible. I wanted a very smooth finish but due to the humidity in the air (what weird weather we are having) I had to wait 3 times the normal amount of time for the icing to crust (stiffen up) so I could smooth it out. That made for a very long Friday and I was much relieved to have it finished at the end of the day and safely in it's cake box.

I have a rule of thumb not to make buttercream iced cakes after May 15th since it can get to way over 80 here in Northern CA but this was a surprise for my daughter's husband. It's a re-creation of their wedding cake two years before, down to the lemon with lemon curd filling, as a gift to him. They married in Las Vegas so there was no way for me to do the cake there and here was my chance to do it for them. Unfortunately part of the cake started to melt on the way there. Even with the A/C on full blast in the car it was still an over 90 degree day and keeping the damage at a minimum was all we could hope for. Thankfully we were able to cover the damaged area and the rest pretty much held up for the over 2 hour car ride and the "groom" was very surprised! It was presented with much fanfare at their anniversary party and was quite the hit. Two cake homeruns in one day, what more can a caker ask for?

This upcoming week brings a Bon Voyage cake for a young father on his way to Boot Camp for the Air Force Reserve. I'm very proud to be making this cake for this new soldier-to-be. I'll post next Sunday how it all went!

Cat