Posts by Andi S.

Enter the Mother’s Day Inspiration Challenge!

Posted by Andi Satterlund on May 9, 2013 in Inspiration Challenge | 0 comments

Mother’s Day is right around the corner, and so is the end of our Mother’s Day Inspiration Challenge, May 12th, so if you haven’t entered yet, now is the time to get started! We’re looking for sweet treats like cupcakes, cookies and cakes that were inspired by our Pinterest board. There are some great entries in the album already, but we can’t wait to see more!

To see the full details of this contest, check out the contest  announcement post.

Sketch to Cake: Joyce Marx’s Bollywood-inspired Cake

Posted by Andi Satterlund on May 6, 2013 in Sketch to Cake | 5 comments

Immense amounts of detail went into the Bollywood-inspired cakes in the May issue of Cake Central Magazine, and for many cakemakers, that means planning ahead is of the essence. Joyce Marx, one of the many talented decorators who contributed to our photo spread, shared with us her sketch and told us about her planning process.

Joyce Marx runs JoyliciousCakes in Singapore, SG.

Friday Faves: Yoda, R2D2 and Han Solo

Posted by Andi Satterlund on May 3, 2013 in Friday Faves | 0 comments

As editors of Cake Central magazine, we come across so many awesome, inspiring things while working. It’s no secret that there are quite a few sci-fi lovers at Cake Central Magazine, and we had so much fun looking at Star Wars cakes that we decided to share some of our favorites from this week.

Jackie’s Faves:

tchitwood might only just be starting out at cake decorating, but is already way ahead of the curve!  This cake is such a realistic and fantastic likeness of Yoda! I can’t wait to see what tchitwood comes up with next!

I know I have highlighted this Han Solo in carbonite cake by Atomikjen before, but I really enjoy it.  The LED lighting effects really make this cake worth a second and third look.

Andi’s Faves:

The details on this R2D2 cake are so crisp! The dapper bow tie around his neck adds the perfect finishing touch to fortheloveofcake11’s groom’s cake.

rcno’s Star Wars cake and cupcakes include some of the most iconic characters and images from the movie. The Death Star cake is amazing by itself, but the cupcakes take things to a whole new level of cute.

Inspiration Challenge: Mother’s Day Sweet Treats

Posted by Andi Satterlund on May 2, 2013 in Inspiration Challenge | 1 comment

Mother’s Day is coming up, and we thought it would be the perfect theme for our latest Inspiration Challenge. Using the colors and styles in our “Mom” tattoo-inspired Pinterest board, create the perfect Mother’s Day sweet treat. A sweet treat can be a cupcake, cookies, cake pops or even a cake. The choice is yours! To enter the challenge, just snap a picture of your creation and upload it to the Sweet Treats Challenge 9 album in the Inspiration Challenge category in the gallery by May 12th.

The Cake Central Magazine editors will take a look at all of the entries and choose one that best represents the inspiration board to be the winner. The winning treat will appear in Cake Central Magazine. One entry per person will be judged. All entries must be in by May 12th, and check back on May 14th to see the winner!

Golden Anniversary Inspiration Challenge Winner

Posted by Andi Satterlund on Apr 30, 2013 in Inspiration Challenge | 8 comments

We were blown away by the entries for this Inspiration Challenge. The cupcakes were sparkling and beautiful, and we have no doubt that they all would be well received at a 50th anniversary party. But one collection of cupcakes stood out to us, and we’re excited to announce that the winner of this challenge is sunnydayz! Congratulations!

This collection of cupcakes really appeals to us because we love small details. Each cupcake has some element that we didn’t notice at first glance and were delighted to discover. The chandelier cupcake was a favorite because it combines hand painting with 3-D, and the chevron circles were also popular. All of the cupcakes subtly highlight different aspects of the inspiration board, and the small details sunnydayz found to work with from the inspiration photos are quite impressive. Congratulations, sunnydayz!

If you want to see more gorgeous anniversary cupcakes, take a peek at the other entries! Don’t worry if you didn’t get a chance to enter this challenge. We’ll be announcing a new one later this week.

Top Buttercream Cakes

Posted by Andi Satterlund on Apr 29, 2013 in Featured Cakes | 3 comments

By RATGA
Buttercream cake airbrushed with pearl dust. Gumpaste flowers are painted in silver. Go Buttercream!

Buttercream is one of the tastiest decorating mediums, but it can also be one of the most challenging mediums to get creative with. It’s easy to fall back on simple, traditional looks, but the classic frosting is capable of so much more! To inspire you, here are some of the top buttercream cakes.

Rosette wedding cake with bunting birds topper! By DonnaOK
I love doing the rosette wedding cake….as it is such a pretty statement on any table. This bride had a dessert table, and had this as the centerpiece. Hand piped buttercream rosettes with a sweet topper! It fit her vintage rustic theme perfectly!

Autumn Aubergine By ThreeLittleBlackbirds
This Fall wedding cake was designed to match the invitation with a mix of 2D and 3D elements. All 4 tiers finished in smooth Swiss Meringue Buttercream and accented with fondant pieces, edible hand painted pieces and sugar peonies in 5 different shades of purple.Flavors were Triple Berry Vanilla (which has a natural lavender/mauve color and matched the wedding colors), Lovely Lemon (with lemon curd meringue buttercream), and Death by Chocolate Cake with chocolate creme anglaise buttercream.

Buttercream draped six tier wedding cake By ramacake
All buttercream icing with hundreds of buttercream roses between tiers. Crystal swans on top. This cake was approx. 7ft tall.

I Dream of Blackberry By ThreeLittleBlackbirds
This certainly isn’t a new idea (buttercream rose swirls), but I still thought it came out really dreamy and I just loved the natural color. Two tier Swiss Meringue Buttercream cake. The lovely soft lavender color is from the organic blackberry puree (no artificial colors!)

Yellow and Grey Chevron Cake By cambo
6-8-10-12-14 buttercream tiers with thin fondant “pencil” border and fondant chevrons; fresh hydrangea sprayed yellow (stems wrapped and inserted in bubble tea straw for safety)

Birthday/Mother’s Day Cake By teaparty
My friend’s hubby ordered this cake for her birthday which happens to fall close to Mother’s Day, so this cake is doing double duty.I had wanted to try out a buttercream technique that I had seen on MyCakeSchool.com and I was also shooting for an ombre look to the tiers. The hydrangea and lilacs are flowers I made while taking Jacqueline Butler’s online flower course. As you can see by the number of pics I’m posting, I’m really proud of the flowers.

Ruffle Cake By mrsmudrash
Not an original design, but I needed something quick for my daughter’s teacher’s birthday! I added the magnolia looking flower with my ruffle flower center. She loved it…her favorite color was the purple-periwinkle color. The ruffles were SMBC. The cake is 6″ round and about 5″ tall. TFL.

Burgundy Vergerated Cake By MelissaRHK
Burgundy to Cream Vergerated Cake — iced in buttercream and decorated reversing the colors….

Mexican Wedding Cake By WickedGoodies
Fiesta cake for a Mexican themed wedding. Finished with piped buttercream and modeling chocolate carnations. Created by Wicked Goodies http://www.wickedgoodies.net

Father’s Day lawn mower cake. By cakefella
Fresh strawberry cake with fondant & buttercream grass, gumpaste lawn mower & fence, fondant cardinal & rocks, with Oreo crumb soil.

Ridge buttercream cake with large peach rose By Cupcakesplus
Very simple cake to make but love the effect. Great for those who don’t like fondant icing! xx

Caterpillar cake By bakermamacakes
Buttercream cake with piped ‘grass’, royal icing flowers to match the embroidery on the birthday girl’s dress, and a gum paste caterpillar modeled after her favorite toy

Buttercream Fan Wedding Cake By lorieleann
Four tiers 6/8/11/14 finished in SMBC. (design seen in Martha Stewart Weddings)

Hand cut love tree By yulichka
Buttercream cake with marzipan hand cut decoration.

Secret Garden for CC Magazine By AmayasMommy
I was completely honored to be asked to make a cake to be considered for CC Magazine. I can still hardly believe it! It was such a fun experience. The them for this cake was Secret Garden Wedding and requirements were that all tiers have a buttercream covering and at least one icing technique. I wanted to show more than that, so I did one per tier.On the bottom tier I used a leaf tip and very fluffy whipped buttercream icing. I added on some fondant clovers and grass shards. The second tier up I wanted to mimic the textures on the statue in the inspiration photos. I used bunched up damp paper towel and plastic wrap to achieve that effect then added on some pink petals to bring in the tones from the turnip. The third tier up I decided to do brushed embroidery with buttercream icing. I added in some pink, pearls and a few fondant flowers. The top tier I did rosettes and added a pearl in the center of each. I completed the cake with a fondant bow/brooch.I used real cake for this instead of cake dummies. I kept it on my counter for a day after the photos were taken before I donated it to my Grams nursing home lol. I wanted to be able to stare at it longer, but it is cake and I wanted it to be enjoyed. I hope you all enjoy the cake as much as I did making it. <3(I saw a tutorial on pinterest awhile back on how to make clover earrings out of clay, so I tried it out with fondant instead. For brushed embroidery, I watched an amazing video by SweetAmbs. She uses royal icing but I used buttercream and a wet paintbrush. For the bow I used the bow tutorial from Royal Bakery and the brooch mold I purchased from Way Beyond Cakes by Mayen.)

Dr. Seuss Birthday By SweetPea0613
Four tier topsy turvy Dr. Seuss themed cake. Bottom three tiers are buttercream and hat is fondant. This has to be one of my favorite cakes that I’ve made! I love it so much!

Buttercream Floral cupcakes By Maria18

Buttercream Ruffle Wedding Cake By cupadeecakes
A bride recently brought in a picture from the Pastry Studio and wanted a cake that looked similar, but with little to no fondant. I spent a little while figuring out how to make those buttercream ruffles, but in the end I was very happy with the effect.

What technique would you like to learn next?

Posted by Andi Satterlund on Apr 29, 2013 in Your Slice |

There are always new skills to discover and perfect, even for experienced cake-makers. One of the comments we hear most when interviewing cake decorators for Cake Central Magazine is, “Never stop learning!” What technique would you like to learn next? Are you working on the classics or looking at the latest thing? Tell us what you’d like to learn!

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Don’t Forget to Enter the Golden Anniversary IC!

Posted by Andi Satterlund on Apr 25, 2013 in Inspiration Challenge | 0 comments

We already have some amazing cupcakes entered in our Golden Anniversary Inspiration Challenge, but we’d love to see more! You still have time to enter the contest, and the winning entry will be chosen by the editors and featured in Cake Central magazine. We’re looking forward to judging all of the entries, and we’re excited to see what the creative members of Cake Central’s community come up with. The deadline is April 28 so get out your frosting and start decorating!

If you need a refresher on the full details of this challenge, you can find them on the contest announcement.

Lucks Dena Designs Edible Image® Contest Winner

Posted by Andi Satterlund on Apr 24, 2013 in Contests | 5 comments

Congratulations, KarasCoutureCakes!

We’ve tallied up the votes, and the winner is clear: KarasCoutureCakes’ collection of modern square cakes was the Cake Central community’s favorite and the winner of the Lucks Dena Designs Edible Image® Contest! Kara’s creative cakes feature Edible Image® designs in the style of gumpaste techniques, adding cheerful color and eclectic flair to classic ruffles and flowers. As the winning entry, her three cakes will appear in detail in an upcoming issue of Cake Central Magazine.

When all the entries for the Lucks Dena Designs Edible Image® Contest came in, we knew voting for just one winner would be a tough task. All the cakes in the contest are stunning and use Edible Image® designs from the Dena Designs Designer Prints™ collection for Lucks in unique and creative ways. Many of the cakemakers innovatively worked with the Edible Image® designs in styles we’ve never even seen before, and all the cakes are sure to inspire.

We’d like to thank all of the talented cake decorators who entered the exclusive Lucks Dena Designs Edible Image® Contest hosted by Cake Central. All the entries were beautiful and perfectly showcased how versatile the Dena Designs Designer Prints™ collection for Lucks can be.

Fabulous Quinceañera Cakes

Posted by Andi Satterlund on Apr 23, 2013 in Featured Cakes | 0 comments

For many cultures, a girl’s 15th birthday marks her transition to adulthood, and naturally it is an event to be celebrated in style. We put together a Pinterest board full of show-stopping Quinceañera cakes to inspire you!

You can see more gorgeous cakes on our Quinceañera cakes Pinterest board, and be sure you’re following Cake Central on Pinterest so you don’t miss our latest finds!