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Rustic Wedding Cake

My first and possibly last wedding cake!  The stress was all too much!  Friends Lauren and BJ were tying the knot in a western style celebration at an equestrian facility and the bride wanted a simple wood grained cake to compliment her rustic theme and I happily volunteered.  What a dope!  With only 7 Wilton cake decorating basics lessons under my belt, what was I thinking?  

SO much went wrong in putting this together that it was actually a great learning experience.  But with 82 other projects due that week I would rather have had smoother sailing and fewer life lessons!  First my bottom tier cakes did not pop out of the pan in one beautiful layer, but rather several large chunks.  Lesson Number 1: ALWAYS LINE CAKE PANS WITH PARCHMENT PAPER.  I asked my fairy cake mothers over at Classic Cakes in Garden Grove if my pile of crumbs would still be stable if reassembled and spackled with enough buttercream. Their pitying looks answered that question. 

Back to the cutting board to rebake and cool before icing, which brings me to Lesson Number 2: Too much frosting will pull away from the cake.  Scrape off sagging icing and refrost using less.

Lesson Number 3: Figure out how to paint on realistic looking woodgrain on buttercream.  Yikes.  Tough one.  I put a buttercream-frosted test cake in the freezer to make a firm canvas to paint  on.  I mixed up some brown gel food coloring with water and began painting.  My poor test cake started to thaw out and bead up with moisture, which caused my painting to bead up and run immediately.  Ugh. Not going to work.  I let my real cake just stay at room temperature and mixed my gel coloring with vodka to evaporate instead of water.  This worked much better.  Then I just layered and layered the wood grain painting, making it up as I went along, and I have to say I was pretty pleased with the final results.

A sprig of fresh wildflowers added between the top two layers and she was done!  Congratulations Lauren and BJ.  Hope this labor of love was what you'd envisioned on your happy day!

Featured Party: Forrest's Buckaroo Birthday

BLOWN AWAY!  That was my reaction to this fab fete thrown by my friend Nikki.  She hired Oh, Sugar! for  the sugar cookie favors and a country birthday cake, and we loaned her a bunch of cowboy gear from my daughter's second birthday, and then Nikiki was off and running! Check out all the incredible western details she pulled together to celebrate her sweet boy, Forrest's, third birthday.  Yee-haw!

Western props really set the tone.

Red checkered tablecloths, bandanas and cow print peppered this fantastic candy display. And I'm loving the use of antique wood crates, apple baskets and galvanized buckets as vessels for all the sweet stuff.  Got to love her choice in candies, too - old fashioned butterscotch, Tootsie Rolls, Red Vines, Boston Baked Beans, and Cow Tails (genius!).

Details.

Oh, Sugar!'s cookie pop favors.  More details here.

Forrest's cowboy birthday cake.

Kids' tables get spruced up with happy sunflowers.

Three rocking horses in the stable for little ones.

How sweet is this?  A photo display of generations of Forrest's family as children on horseback.  Just love it.

 Birthday boy in the bouncer.

 Forrest's baby brother, aka "The Deputy."

Happy Birthday Forrest!

Cowboy Party Treats

My friend Nichole is throwing a cowboy birthday party for her little buckaroo, Forrest, who's turning three this weekend.  She asked me for two dozen western themed cookies and a birthday cake.  I am kinda in love with how these turned out and so excited to finally use my fab wagon find for something other than junk mail collector.  Enjoy!

Sheriff detail.

Silver spur detail.

The hostess and I debated on whether or not to bag and tag these as favors to go or to leave them naked.  Ultimately we decided to wrap them up with a little bit of twine and a custom tag.  Good decision!

All dressed up and ready to go.

Detail.

Now on to the cake:  I was a little nervous to take this on.  It's one thing to do a cake for my family (where if it doesn't turn out well I can just trash it and run over to Bristol Farms for a replacement), but it's a whole 'nother level of pressure when you've been paid to produce something.  

This design is actually a remix of the cowgirl cake I did for my daughter's second birthday.  The bottom tier is two layers of marble cake with lemon filling; the middle layer is devil's food with milk chocolate filling and the top tier is a vanilla cake with lemon frosting and royal icing cactus prickles.  So excited to present these goodies to the sweet birthday boy.  Stay tuned for a post from the actual party!

The original version.

Happy birthday, Forrest!