New Year's Day Wedding: Teaberry Leaves

2009-01-06T11:26:00.000-08:00

L's wedding was on New Year's Day, so I spent my New Year's Eve with a rolling pin, red fondant, and leaf cutters. I had celebrated the new year the night before! I am so thankful for my husband/cake sidekick who helped me literally hold things together with this cake. Toward the end, everything that could go wrong started going wrong. Fortunately, the final product was a success and the bride was pleased. This was my first time setting up on a grand piano, and I had to stand on a step ladder to assemble the cake! Not an easy task!!! Ha! Ha!!

Bottom Tier: Almond Pound Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Icing
Third Tier: Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Icing
Second and Top Tier: Almond Pound Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Icing
Fondant Accents and Chocolate Buttercream Trim

JM Holiday Cake created by Amanda Carroll

2009-01-06T05:26:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the debut of my cake blog! After much demand from friends and family, I am going to make THIS my perfect opportunity to start a cake blog...at last!

I have been making cakes for friends and family for eight years now....my first one was my daughter's 1st birthday. I don't consider myself a professional at this point because I've never taken a "real" cake decorating course and I do NOT do this for a living. However, I am slowly working to perfect my skills. I never say no to a cake opportunity and I never do less than my very best. My main reward for making cakes is the joy of artistic expression and the pleasure of seeing a smile on someone else's face when they see their cake for the first time!

When JM announced his holiday-themed baking contest, I seized the opportunity to finally incorporate a decent guitar into a cake. I had been thinking about this for two years. In my world, cake + the holiday season + good music...well, it just doesn't get better than that!

I have been blessed to have made a few wedding cakes for friends and relatives recently which have fully funded my two Mayercraft Carrier cruises and summer concerts, so to finally design a JM Holiday-Inspired cake was incredible. It was like a cake-design obsession/possession that would not subside until the cake was finished! I couldn't be happier with it, and it is without a doubt the coolest cake in my ever-growing portfolio.

My sweet girls hand-rolled all of the colored fondant balls surrounding each tier as they always do to help their mommy! My 8-year-old also assisted with the snowflakes. As a side note, I learned all of my baking skills from my great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my mother...all of whom are still living...so to pass on the skills and tradition to my children is a treasure to me. Check out our five-generation picture of "Cake Ladies" below!

The day after I made the cake, we had a very spontaneous neighborhood party...we invited friends on Facebook and then knocked on all the doors on our street to gather quite a surprised and festive crowd of friends to devour the cake! My husband took huge chunks of it to work the next day, too! I put the top tier in the freezer and saved it for Christmas Day to share with my husband and children.

Bottom Tier: Chocolate cake, shocolate mousse filling, Almond buttercream icing
Middle Tier: White chocolate cake, raspberry filling, cream cheese icing
Top Tier: White cake with lemon buttercream icing

Guitar, Ribbons, Bow, and Tissue paper are made of fondant.
Snow is coconut. Snowflakes are made of white chocolate.

Time Invested: 19 hours
Cost of materials: $150
Neighborhood cake-eating party full of holiday spirit: PRICELESS!!!

And thanks to JM for giving me the inspiration and excuse for doing this cake! Ha! Ha!!

CAKE

New Year's Day Wedding: Teaberry Leaves

JM Holiday Cake created by Amanda Carroll