The "Leslie" Wedding Words Cake. Covered in Vanilla Marshmallow Fondant.

All decorations edible.

Happy Sunday. As promised the second of the six Display Cakes for 2011 Bridal Faires is done! Yellow is a very popular color for this upcoming Spring and Summer Wedding Season so I thought I'd do a more modern take on this theme. The light Canary Yellow is accented with pure white accents as well as the white detailed trim on the bottom of each tier. The middle tier has four sides filled with words you would hear at a wedding like Love, Honor, Cherish, Family, Blessings, Happily Ever After. Each side carries three of these important words. Setting off the yellow and white theme are sugar paste yellow and white handpainted plumeria flowers. A perfect romantic compliment for this very romantic cake.

The "secret" on this one is that all of the pieces that decorate this cake, with the exception of the trim, had to be cut out at least a week earlier in order to have them dried solid before placing them upon the cake. Fondant starts out as a soft dough. Think of the consistancy of rich bread dough or pizza dough and you will know the feel of fresh fondant. When you cut out something like a circle it's very soft and will become oddly shaped the moment you touch it so you have to carefully cut them out, move them to another sheet and reshape then dry them hard so when you go to decorate the cake it's not so hard to have round circles. The words are exactly the same issue. The letters with stretch and break very quickly until they are rock hard so you have to do the same thing with them as you did with the circles. Then you need to just be careful when placing them on the cake. I always cut out two of each letter, thinner letters get three each cut out, in case of breakage...and yes, something always breaks! The trim is another matter. Those layered circles have to be cut out of fresh fondant and then immediately placed upon the cake edge. Layering so many of those circles took, literally, hours but the effect is so worth the time! It makes for an interesting texture without sacrificing a modern look for this cake.

Next week brings another birthday cake! This one is a 3D cake so there is carving involved as well as trying to match an item that exists in real life. Those are always hard because you want the person to walk in and think it's a real tool box, or a real hat, or a real teapot and it takes some planning and work to come up with a design that translates to cake without sacrificing realism. I'll share the results with you next Sunday night!

Cat