Happy Sugar Baking Land

Silly Cake News: Halloween Edition

Happy Halloween everyone.... *hack.... cough, cough...*  Husband Mic here and even though I have come down with the dreaded *cough* common cold, Silly Cake News must march on!!  *sneeze*  

Okay, the first slice today gets plated up for Lady Gaga's wedding?  Well, not really, but while her tour was stopped in Ireland, a local Dublin cafe was asked to create a little white, lace, and blood splattered cake for the singer.  Take a look:

Appears to be a bride only affair.  I wonder what happened to the groom with all that blood laying about?  Is there anything creepier than a bloodied Barbie?  Enjoy Gaga!

Our second slice is a bit of a button buster from The Flying Monkey in Philadelphia.  More like the second through the ninth slice, meet 'The Pummple!"  Already a star on The Today Show, this chocolate and vanilla cake contains in its tiers both a full apple and a full pumpkin pie!!!!!  Word from the article says it weighs in at 1800 calories per serving!  Slices, intended to serve four, go for $8 while a full Pummple will run you $75.  Wow.  The Holidays in Philly just got a whole lot more interesting.  Hail the Pummple!!!

Third slice is served up gory and bloody to all the ghouls and goblins of the U.K.  You gotta love the brits!  A special Halloween shop will be opening up in London from the 29th (today Londoners!) through the 31st only and will be selling how many different spooky treats?  That's right cakers!  666!  The store, known as Eat Your Heart Out and The Pretox Potion will have everything from marzipan limbs to eyeball cupcakes and syringes full of sweet blood.  Eat them before they eat you!!

Is there room for a fourth slice?  Well, there better be because I had to include this Buffyverse cake I caught over on the Whedonesque site a couple weeks ago.  It is a sculpted cake based on "The Beast" from the series Angel and was made by a creature named Zach.  He has a great blog with all his cakes on there and gives a nice detailed explanation on his process.  Way to go Zach, this cake scares the crap out of me!!

Okay, a quick fifth slice today because I just have to say congrats to the Cake Boss!  The software that is, not the unnecessarily loud Jersey dude who shouts during all his interviews on his reality show.  (Seriously, watch it.  Tell me I'm wrong.)  Love you Buddy, but TLC failed to do a Google search before naming your show or else they would've seen that Masters Software has been producing and marketing their bakery management software "Cake Boss" since 2007, well before TLC began airing their Cake Boss.  A judge in Washington put out an injunction stopping TLC from using the name which prompted the network to reach into their deep pockets and ensure everyone at Masters Software a nice end of the year bonus check!  I for one would've have been laughing till St. Patty's Day had the almighty TLC been forced to change the name, affecting everything from books to videos to Buddy's speaking tour!  Oh well.  Anyone know if Fisher Price is going after The Little Couple?

**Introducing Today's Topper!  Here's a new feature on Silly Cake News for ya!  "Today's Topper" will be a a quick little factoid from the cake world to round out each edition of SCN.  Makes sense right?  Well, welcome our first installment then!**

Today's Topper: The stock market symbol of "CAKE" belongs to The Cheesecake Factory!

That's Silly Cake News for this week friends!  Be sure to tune in to Amazing Wedding Cakes this Halloween Sunday to see our "Through the Looking Glass" cake!!  It is stupendous!!

Amazing Wedding Cakes: Day of the Dead

Living in Los Angeles is a unique experience.  It is not for everyone, but if you are open to it, there is a world of discovery and a clash of culture unlike anywhere in America.  A huge component of this melting pot is the Hispanic culture of L.A. and the center of that is smack dab in downtown on a little street called Olvera.  It was just a stone's throw from Olvera Street that our city was founded and it is there today that Mexican Americans continue to celebrate their culture's impact on the area and serve up some of the best food you've ever eaten!!

Hey everyone, Husband Mic here with the soul raising delicacy known around this pueblo as the Day of the Dead Cake!!  The Dia de los Muertos is an exciting and prominent part of Hispanic life, taking place on November 2nd, this holiday centers on celebrating our dearly departed with food and partying.  Unlike its spooky second cousin Halloween, Day of the Dead is a happy time where you communicate with your loved ones, so what better way to commemorate this day than to get married and encourage that literally everyone be there, corporeal or not, by creating a beautiful wedding cake!

After speaking with Alan and Tara on the phone, we knew the bright floral patterns and potential for lavish decorations were right for Marc, so we sent him into the fray of the consultation chamber!  It's not that bad really, but sometimes I like to pretend our shop is like a cage match where only one of us will survive;)  Hint: I get tossed early and it comes down to these two luchadores.

It's especially not bad when you have a lovely couple like Alan and Tara who were focused and dedicated to their cake concept and paying tribute to Alan's grandmother.  You see, as I understand it, you put offerings of the departed's favorite food on an altar to entice them to return and hear your prayers etc.  In the future, could my relatives please put out Tito's Tacos, Coca Cola, and a case of Twix bars?

With such a clear goal, we set out to make one giant, seven tiered, salute to the Dead.  We knew there had to be skulls and bright colors, and Marc, ever the fashion plate, used some insane traditional fabrics to draw inspiration for the different tiers.  It was going to be both beautiful and require anyone with sensitive eyes to wear sunglasses to look at it!!

The black chocolate fondant was a bit of a pain.  You really have to balance how much you work it before trying to cover a layer.  This led to a few tries on the black tiers, but nothing out of the ordinary.  Fondant can be a cruel mistress and sometime you just need to sweet talk it!

Once the fondant was on, work went layer by layer, as the decorative elements shaped the individuality of each tier.  When I opened the fridge, it was hard to see how any of it went together!  But out of chaos came beauty.

Look at those first four tiers, stunning is the only way to describe it.  By the way, because we were going for some height this time out and to counter the overall weight this would result in, that bottom tier is a styrofoam base.  When working with the bigger designs, we find the added structure and stability of a styro "lifter" is a smart way to go.

It was also one of those cakes where you need to step back and take a look once in awhile.  We just had this conversation with a journalist over the weekend.  If you just keep working, staying within a whisper of the cake, working on all these minute details, you can lose yourself and get all wobbly-eyed!  Since there were so many designs coming together on the Day of the Dead cake, we had regular pow wows to step back and analyze the work.

We all pitched in on the sugar skull production, even me!  Well, I made maybe five little ones, but it totally counts!  They were so awesome and that tier of skulls turned out way better than the original idea of a couple big skulls to lift up the top.  They fit in more with the type of skulls you see on the altars around Olvera Street as well.  We thought about even buying some of the lovely sugar skulls available on our research/taquito eating trip to Olvera, but we always knew we wanted to make our own Merci Beaucoup versions.  If you're unsure of your sculpting or want a more anatomical skull shape, there are some good molds out there.  But I love ours!

They didn't really get into the flower making for this cake on the episode, but there was plenty of that going down.  You can see a couple up above and how we were going for a more fabric feel to the roses along with a few more dramatic sugar pieces on the top.

Interesting factoid: the cake got so tall, our crew actually wheeled over this portable marble counter we have so they could put the camera tripod on it to look down on the top the cake!!

Interesting factoid #2: there appears to be a cake pan filled with candy corn in that tripod photo up there!  To all the cake husbands out there, always be sure to keep plenty of candy on hand to help fuel the decorators when these cakes go late into the night!

Marc admires his handy work before the delivery: 

I also admire the cake, photograph style!

In case you've missed it so far, we delivered the cake to Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles.  Yeah, I know, we've been sort of vague about this up till now;)  The reception was at La Golondrina, a beautiful old restaurant at the center of the market where Reva and I have eaten a number of times.  Thankfully, it is also one of the few places with a back door!  This meant we didn't have to carry the cake all the way through the crowded Olvera market, dodging toy guitars and resisting the urge to buy some sweets at one of the candy stalls.  We were able to pull right up and even had a nice table in the back to do some primping on the cake before we brought it down front by the fireplace.

Alan and Tara were floored when they saw the cake and I gotta say, we nailed it!  It could not have looked better in the restaurant and it absolutely represented Dia de los Muertos.  Many thanks to our couple for inviting us in to their special celebration.

That's it for this week everybody!  Thanks again for tuning in and for all the kind remarks we've already received on this cake.  Now you know what to do for your Day of the Dead celebration next week, so get to it cakers!

Only three more episodes left in the third season of Amazing Wedding Cakes, so be sure to tune in to see how our final cakes turn out, including next week's very special Halloween episode with our dear friend's the Allen Family and their "Through the Looking Glass" anniversary surprise!!  

Blog Alert: Day of the Dead

Hey everyone!  Just wanted to let you know that due to some publicity commitments for Amazing Wedding Cakes, the new behind the scenes blog for the "Day of the Dead" cake will not be going up till Tuesday! 

So, tune in to WEtv tonight, and tune in right here at Merci Beaucoup's official blog, Happy Sugar Baking Land, on Tuesday for all the skinny on this awesome Mexican inspired cake!!  Enjoy!

- Reva

Amazing Wedding Cakes: Masquerade

Gina and Joe have returned!!!  Hey everyone, Husband Mic here with this week's secret files from Amazing Weddding Cakes.  Our bride and groom should look familiar to loyal viewers as the couple behind ordering a cheesecake cheese cake a few weeks back. Now the circle is complete as we get to see the wedding cake these wacky kids got for their big Halloween wedding, and boy was it a beautiful one.

The masquerade theme came from Gina and Joe and their history of attending Mardi Gras parties in Louisiana and Mississippi.  I think they've even put on some "carnivale" events and trust me, if you saw the reception hall you'd see why.  More on that later.  Here's the mask, which our couple entrusted to us after the consultation so we could be inspired.

Ooohh... pretty pretty.  The colors were bold and strong, sort of like last week's Taylor Stripe cake, but in a more traditional color scheme.  Dominated by black and red, Reva started by covering the tiers in white and red fondant.

Nice time lapse this episode showing the covering and stacking of the cake.  If only things moved that fast in real life!!  Next up was the diamond pattern that Joe and apparently Cake Alchemy really enjoy;)  Seriously, how funny was it that both of us did cakes this week with black diamond patterns?  It was good for you the viewer because you got to see two different approaches to the same pattern; paint and fondant application.  Really depends on the feel you're going for, but the main concern is to give yourself some measurements and some lines to follow so you can get them as uniform as possible.  You saw the girls at Alchemy indent lines to create their pattern where as with our process the diamonds start with a cutter and then fill in a blank tier to give the same look.  Both look great!  I love the harlequin pattern on a cake.

Above: Reva addressing the camera after the discovery of the broken pastillage.  Those dreaded, troublesome, busted pastillage collars.  First of all, the idea was spot on and I think we will be doing them again soon, but no lie, it was super dry and windy all week in L.A. and that stuff was just insanely brittle.  We all have our theories on how and who broke them, but in the end it didn't matter, we had to come up with a solution and time was definitely and issue.  Since we already were using fondant for the diamonds, the quickest and smartest leap was to apply that idea to the collars, sacrificing the full "stand-off" effect for a more subtle thick fondant collar.  In the end, we all really liked it and as the delivery driver, I'm glad I had one less thing to worry about breaking making my way through Los Angeles traffic!

With the new, improved collars in place, we moved on to the details.  Masks, feathers for the masks (all in pastillage), the fondant stripes for the bottom tier, the gold painting details, and of course, some red roses.  What's a wedding cake without some beautiful flowers on it?

Wow, this thing came together so perfect.  The diamonds, the gold, but wait what about the masks?

What you won't see on Amazing Wedding Cakes: both of Gina and Joe's cakes together, on the same work table!  I mean, obviously they were made at the same time and all.

The delivery was at the Calamigos Equestrian Center in Burbank which is a really hot wedding spot here in Los Angeles.  They have a little chapel and some outdoor areas for the ceremony and then some great reception facilities.  Plus, super easy to get to and plenty of parking.  All that equals gold in Southern California!  We've delivered a lot there and it is always a pleasure.

I wish you could've seen the reception, it was stunning!  The centerpieces on the table were incredible and they carried the masquerade theme throughout the room.  Each table was unique, but here's one of them for your perusal. 

We were actually invited to stay, but you cakers know how it is after a long week of baking and filming a TV show right?  We were near collapse and had to pass, but it was a tough, tough decision.  The reports of the festivities sounded like a good time was had by all.  What a way to spend Halloween!  Here's the Masquerade Cake grandstanding at the reception and a couple photos from the beauty shots.

There were more roses on the bottom as well as the top, and gold and red ribbon to finish off the board so ably painted black much earlier by yours truly;)  Well, that is about it for this week's Amazing Wedding Cake.  Elegant, bright, and whimsical, just like our couple.  Such an honor to be a part of their nuptials, thanks again guys, and hey, almost Happy Anniversary!!

The world of costumes and masks continues next week as we present our pastry version of the Day of the Dead.  You gotta see it to be frightened by it!  Have a great week everyone and thanks for watching!!

And don't forget to follow Reva on Twitter!

 

Silly Cake News: Oklahoma, The Multiverse & McDonalds!

Bonjour everyone!  It's Friday, Friday, Friday!!!  (please read that in a cool monster truck rally radio ad echo voice)  That means I  have been scouring the internet for oh... a good 30 minutes to find you more SILLY CAKE NEWS!!!!  (apply the echo voice again)

First slice today goes to the world famous Oklahoma Sugar Art Show.  This year the grand prize for the wedding cake competition went to Flora Aghababyan, a cake artist from the Wynn Resort in Las Vegas and her piece "Visions of Heaven."  Of course, this isn't really "silly" news as the contestants take this event pretty seriously, but we still wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate everyone who entered the show and Flora.  Great work cakers!

Our second slice finds us everywhere at every time as realities collide across the two major comic book publishers.  Hopefully most of you understand that when creating a special super hero cake that you should adhere to some basic rules, like never cross the streams!!  DC and Marvel are different universes and their heroes do not mix.  Well, someone tell that to this cake!

Holy smokes is that a crossover title!  Originally spotted on the Great White Snark blog, let's break it down from top to bottom by tiers: DC, DC, DC, Marvel, Marvel, DC, Marvel.  What do they all have in common?  Big screen movies... oh wait, sorry Aquaman. *tear*  If this cake wasn't going to tear apart reality I would say it is pretty freaking sweet, which it is.  Snark sourced it to the Flickr of "It's a piece of cake" but I don't see a name.  Oh, and Reva's comment when I showed it to her, "why is Robin on there?  He's just a sidekick."  Oh, my wife.  Now, can Hulk Smash cake!!???

One slice left of this Silly Cake News and I am going to special deliver it over to Hong Kong, because those silly folks have done something that quite honestly, I'm shocked hasn't happened here in the States already.  I mean hell, Cinnabon serves bloody cupcakes, so I am kind of shocked cake hasn't wormed its way into drive thrus, but fear not!  Over in the HK, McDonalds is now offering wedding packages!  You get a ceremony, reception, wedding cake(!) and catering for up to 100 guests for a paltry $400!  The best part?  The retaurant won't close, so you get to stand in line for your wedding McNuggets with total strangers!  So glad romance hasn't died and if yours doesn't die, you can come back as the McD's also plans to host anniversary parties.  The service starts in January, so book those plane tickets now.

Have great weekend everybody!!  And don't forget to check out our awesome "Masquerade Cake" on Amazing Wedding Cakes this Sunday!!

Amazing Wedding Cakes: Taylor Stripe

Hey everyone, Husband Mic here and I gotta say, this cake was one of my favorites for season three of Amazing Wedding Cakes.  The taylor stripe cake was beautiful in person, it's too bad they didn't bother to show it on the episode practically at all.  Much like me, completed cakes on this season get no love.  Talking about this episode is going to be hard because it is the first one where I got angry watching it.  I know they edit the crap out of us and all the shops, but seriously, our little cake got the shaft this time.  They used the same clips and soundbites over and over and over and concentrated only on the bottom tier of the cake!!  Seriously, I counted Reva saying the name of the cake eight times and Marc repeated himself a few times as well. 

But hey, I'm not gonna sit here and bag on the show this whole blog.  We knew what we signed up for, and we knew that the portrayal of our work was subject to a third party that we had no control over.  We get that and that is a huge reason why I write these blogs every week, so that we can show you the cake and let you in on what really happened in its design and creation.  TV is TV, but Happy Sugar Baking Land is Merci Beaucoup!!

Okay, now that I got all that out of my system, on to the sexiness of the taylor stripe cake!  We seriously loved this cake.  There was a point in the process where Reva was really frustrated and wanted to toss the thing in the trash, but by the end, she was in love with it.  It was the perfect blend of feminine and masculine which is what Taylor and Maya were looking for and it absolutely matched their expectations.

Camera mastermind Ashley made her head a tripod!!

Yes, the stripes were difficult to get just right, but from the show you'd think we spent three days on them.  In reality, it was like a three to four hour trial and error process.  We were trying to not only get them done for the taylor strip cake, but also were trying to figure out if we could build a better mouse trap and finalize our process for doing horizontal stripes.  Reva kept saying that morning that she thought she had that ribbon cutter somewhere, but it was only after a lunch break and some significant drawer rattling that we finally found it.  

Look!  Stripes on more than just the bottom tier!!

And for all you hand washing fanatics out there, pleas note the bottle of hand sanitizer front and center in the photo ;)

However, the hardest part of the cake was easily the green overlay of fondant.  Not only did we have to decide how to execute the pleats, but the color and size were also becoming a hassle.  How much of the stripes underneath did we want to show, what kind of bow was Reva going to put on the top of the pleat, all those little touches and decisions.  It was a stressful design element because we knew it was the highlight of the cake.  We had to get it right.

It came out just how we wanted it in the end.  The green popped and was vibrant, the stripes looked masculine and tailored, but what about the feminine side of the cake for Maya?  The first step to add a woman's touch was to tack on some little fondant "string" bows to the top of the pleats.

They were simple, but after playing with a few different bows of various sizes and fanciness, this type best suited the overall design.  It was clean and had an almost functional look, like they were doing a job on the cake, holding the "fabric" in place.  Next up in our fabric theme was to add some simple black buttons and the icing on the top, some beautiful pink roses.

As you will see in the coming weeks, this was a crazy week of detail oriented cakes and to save some time, we picked up the sugar roses from Cal Java and then dusted them with some pink luster dust and a tiny bit of food coloring to give them some depth and color.  The topper was a bouquet of pink roses in honor of the bride.

You can also see that "stripe" of smaller roses in the pic above.  These were also sugar flowers and Reva piped some buttercream scrolls to give the feeling of a vine.  Here's our beloved cake getting set up for the "beauty shots."

They didn't use any of the beauty shot footage in this episode which has happened to everyone so far this season.  What sucks about that is look above.  We basically have to deliver each cake twice for the show and this first delivery is to a stage with all those hot lights and a turntable spinning the cake and it is kind of a stress filled environment for a wedding cake.  So, we put each cake for a client through quite a bit before it gets to them and then it turns out to be a waste of time?  Kind of a bummer, but at least I got to take some photos of it while there.

Thankfully, in this case the delivery was easy peazy!  The delivery was to the Boddy House which sits in the middle of the beautiful Descanso Gardens.  Oi vei, look at this.  It's impossible for me to escape the paparazzi wherever I go!!

Oh, wait.  That's just camera mastermind Ashley filming me drive in.  More footage not used....

We love this cake and I hope the pictures here portray to you its true character.  This cake is definitely all Reva and a good example of what we like to do here at Merci Beaucoup.  Thanks for watching the show and tune in next week for the wedding cake of Gina and Joe from the Cheesecake Cheese Cake episode!  Such a beauty, see you then!!

And finally, yes, we know you go to a "tailor" and not a "taylor."  It was spelled after our groom, not the profession.  Cease any email campaigns you are pondering immediately ;)

 

Silly Cake News: Music & Comics

If it's Friday, it must be Silly Cake News!!!  Hey everyone, Husband Mic here with some more ramblings from the world of baked deliciousness known as cake.  We start with a real literal stretch in that this first slice is about the band Cake!

I'm from the North Bay area in Northern California and I played in bands all through high school and college.  I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time with a lot ot future successful bands (mine not so successful) and Sacramento had a handful of them.  I've been down with Cake from the beginning, even owning their first album in its pre-record deal indie release form.  And no, you can't buy it from me;)  One of my all time favorite shows I ever went to was at the Cattle Club in Sacto where, no lie, the lineup was Korn, Cake, and The Deftones!  Figure that one out, but it was amazing. 

Well, the boys are coming back this January with an all new album, "Showroom of Compassion."  Finally!  Their last effort came out in 2004!  And this time they return to their indie roots, releasing it on their own label, and get this, the whole thing is green.  They have a solar powered studio in Sacramento where they recorded the tracks.  As a drummer, I'm proud to say I've been making "green" music since 1988!  No plugs here!  So keep your ears open and maybe you'll hear us rockin' out to some new Cake at Merci Beaucoup in a couple months.

Our second slice comes from a trip to the comic book store this week.  As I was checking out, they had all the new releases for the week by the counter and something caught my eye.  More precisely, this:

Now, we've covered how disappointed I was that we couldn't do a steampunk cake this season on Amazing Wedding Cakes but that doesn't change the fact that I am a huge nerd and involved in the steampunk genre!  Naturally I snapped this up because A) the cover is amazing and B) I'm a fan of the artist Joe Benitez.  But what brings "Lady Mechanika" to Silly Cake News is not just the connection to Garren's cake from the show, but rather the back pages where I found this:

 
The Steampunk Kitchen!!  There were sweet treat recipes at the back of the comic book!  Finally, some bonus features I can get behind.  Now, I don't think there's anything especially new or steampunk in the recipes outside of the cookie shapes, but still, it was a fun surprise and I wanted to share it with you.  Let's see if they continue this in future issues, which I will be buying because the book is pretty good.  Check out Joe's site for more info on the title.

If all this wasn't enough for you, check out Cakes and Comics and Cartwheels, a new blog I stumbled upon that talks about, well... cakes and comics and cartwheels!!  It has some fun pics of silly cakes, so stop over there and take a gander.  I really liked the Cobra Kai cake with "sweep the leg" written on the side.

Well, that's my Silly Cake News for this week.  I'm gonna go pour throw the old comics boxes and see if I can find any more examples of cake!  Well, besides my Green Arrow/Black Canary Wedding Album that is.  Have a great weekend everyone!!

And hey, don't forget to follow Reva and myself on the Twitter!!

@mercicakes  and @unclebusu

 

A Special Birthday Wish for Valerie!!

A couple weeks ago we got an email from Dana in Pretty Prairie, Kansas.  Sound like a horrible place to live, doesn't it;)  No, sounds awesome!  Below is Dana's email:

 Hi Reva and Marc,

My name is Dana and we live near a small town in Kansas called Pretty Prairie.  We religiously watch Amazing Wedding Cakes and are huge fans of yours.

 

One day my kids were playing and I went to check on them and they were imitating you and Marc by stacking cakes (toys) in their room.  I listened in and they were using the same terms you guys use on the show.  It was so cute.  My 4 year old Valerie drew a picture of a cake with both of you.  I've attached a copy of it and her with her picture.  Reva is the one in the dress, Valerie said she has a dark shirt on with a white apron.  She asked me if Reva could make her birthday cake at the end of this month, I usually make all my kids cakes.  I told her it was probably too far to get a cake from Reva to Kansas so she was a little disappointed.  :)  I guess she'll have to settle for mommy's cake.

 

Thank you for providing such entertainment, we love the show and love seeing what you and Marc can do.  You're amazing.  Thank you!

Dana 

Madelyn, AJ & Valerie

Here's the photos Dana sent us:

I think she captured Marc perfectly!!  And I will forgive for her forgetting the most important husband/delivery driver in history as well, me!  We're gonna print this up and put it in the shop for inspiration.  I wish we could've shipped you a cake Valerie, but here's the best we can do (for now), a shout out on our blog!!  We love our fans and we wanted to wish you a very special happy birthday all the way from Los Angeles!!  Keep making cakes out there in Kansas and someday maybe you can be on TV with us.  Our best to Dana and her whole clan, merci beaucoup!!

 Reva, Marc, and Mic