I ♥ you

One of the greatest things about cultivating a niche business is not having to do "traditional" holiday cakes. Back in ye olde days, february was a month filled with red icing and pink for the adventurous, heart shaped sequins and cakes. Now, if I say "heart shaped cake " chances are i mean , Heart shaped, as in anatomical.Who is to say that one heart shaped cake fits all anyway? Perhaps your paramour likes zombies? demons? no problem. So, in honor of Valentine's day, I send my love and gratitude to my clients who challenge and inspire me to think outside the heart shaped box. heart decors for a valentine's day wedding



a wedding cake!
nothing says I love you like this character called "gluttony". Honestly, I think it does look valentine's -y , but that might just be me.

I'm big in Sweden!

....and other tales of how google translate betrays and amuses!

Oh! the WORLD wide web!I'm a very curious person by nature .I think I am often as intrigued by what some inquiries are not saying as what they are.I'm truly fascinated by what makes people do the things they do. In fact, I spend a lot of time pondering this.I do love a mystery.Possibly, I may be the only person under 70 who truly enjoys "Murder She Wrote"!
Well, lately, I had a spate of inquiries with obviously translated text. My curiosity was in overdrive!
I put on my Jessica Fletcher hat (ask your grandma) and set about to solving the case.I was able to ascertain from subtle clues that these requests were coming from Sweden.More emails flooded in.Here's where google translate betrayed and amused, sample text:"my brother is completely inside DJ and DJ stuff and the plate would not even be a stupid cake" .........classic!
Now, before it sounds like I'm judging, I knew what they meant but....I'm thinking of having this printed up on t shirts, that's how much I love it! I have also used online translating tools from time to time and I am certain I provided similar entertainment value.
I finally decided to go right to the source and ask how these emailers were finding out about me. Turns out, I have been featured regularly by this site http://fokis.se/
Mystery solved! Alas, Sweden is a wee bit outside my delivery range. However, if someone wants to fly me there, all offers will be considered. Suddenly I'm in the mood for some Ikea meatballs.......
here are a few pics my new Swedish friends featured ,Tak sa myket! and I do hope I didn't just tell you to "have a nice pickle!"

Why is there a dog on the table?

.......when I heard this uttered by restaurant patrons in response to a cake I had made I knew I had stumbled upon something.
Some of you may know that I have had a love /hate relationship with cake for a very long time. When I first started doing cakes I looked at it as just a job. Surely this was just a stepping stone on my path to , well something other than cakes. Two decades ago, people were not exactly clambering to become cake decorators. Oh how things have changed! Over the years I tried to get away from cake. I was a muralist, a handbag designer,a sushi chef all with varying degrees of success.Still, there was always a draw pulling me back to cake. It was something I was good at, even if I had burned out on it so many times.Flash forward to 2001. I was preparing to move from my native North Carolina to The San Francisco area.I knew I would need a job and I inevitably heard the siren call of cake again. This time around, I was working in an X-rated bakery (name withheld to protect the less than innocent). I'm a very open minded person , but I'll admit it took a bit of getting used to calling for the baker to add another large c**k to her baking list! When the novelty quickly wore off there I began to grow tired of cake again. The hours were long and the heavy production in a retail bakery were not at all conducive to creativity. Now, before you ask yourself "just HOW creative can you get with c**k cakes??" the answer is a decided VERY, but we did make other cakes as well. My main responsibility at the unnamed bakery was the sculpted cakes. I did my best there but when the clock is ticking and your boss is peering over at you with that "are you going to take all day, time is money!" look ... well, I did my best. When I wasn't getting the look , and when it was slow, my boss would pretty much give me free reign.One of these slow periods coincided with my boyfriend's birthday so I decided to make a cake in the likeness of our dog Pepino. Actually taking the time to do something I loved I could start to see a brighter future with this old frienemy of mine, cake.That night I surprised him with the cake at one of his favorite restaurants. Literally other restaurant patrons wondered aloud why there was a dog on the table.



A few months after that I decided to call a truce with cake . We decided that as long as I did what I enjoyed, on my terms that we could get along.It was that first dog cake that convinced me to leave the bakery and start my own business. Not long afterwards I had my first magazine feature, in not a cake periodical but instead a dog magazine called BARK.
I owe my whole career to dog cakes and I'll forever be grateful to Pepino for the inspiration .
Here are a few of my favorite dog cakes I've made since
Pepino again ! and finally how could I have forgotten this cute guy in a plane? Made for one of my sweetest customers!
Be sure to look out for three great friends of mine Wayne Steinkopf, and Chuck Hamilton of http://swankcakedesign.com assisted by Clara Gold of http://clarasdesignercakes.com as they compete this monday feb.8 on an episode of TLC's "Ultimate Cake Off" called "Top Dog" . Friends, dogs and cake what else could you ask for?

Cakes on a plane!!

.......or on a train or in a car, no matter how you transport a cake, delivery is always the most stressful part of the job.There's nothing like laboring over a cake for hours or days , even, only to have it damaged in transit.I know there are some cake designers who say they have never had a cake disaster and to that I say either, "congratulations "or,more likely, "bullshit!".Even the most careful driver cannot account for crumbling infrastructure.What you can do though, is try and learn from each experience.Everyone makes mistakes, but the trick is to try to not make the same mistake twice.My first cake delivery disaster was way back in the old days when I was still using buttercream exclusively, a time from here forward I shall refer to as BF (before fondant).I had worked so hard replicating a vintage MG car (wait aren't all MG's vintage? anyhoo....) all systems were go. Then came time for the delivery.If you have not been to San Francisco , likely, you are well aware of the terrain.Long ,90 degree sloping streets make for lovely vistas but are cake delivery nightmares.Creeping along, we inched towards the address , of course situated at the very top of a hill. To make delivering cakes in a big metropolitan area even more exciting, add in the dearth of parking spaces :fun times! So, naturally we had to circle around to find a parking space and had the pleasure of traversing that same geometric nightmare a second time.
Finally, we arrive at the house. Tip: always, always check the cake first before presenting it to your customer! We manage to get the box inside , only to lift the box lid to reveal a nice bit of front end damage. So, it turns out that a cake cannot defy gravity afterall. I must say that my client was so very gracious and told me that the birthday boy had actually crashed the car and damaged that very same front end. Regardless of her, her good nature, I was crestfallen.Even if the cake will be destroyed as a natural part of it's life cycle, it's my responsibility to deliver an intact cake.I returned her money despite her objections and went home to do some serious soul searching.Was I cut out for this job? Did I suck? I let myself wallow in cake induced misery for a while then I set about trying to learn from my mistakes.
1• always refrigerate a cake when possible, it makes the cake more sturdy for transport
2•try to have detailed delivery instructions , keeping in mind the terrain
3•never, ever present a cake without inspecting it first
I now had my own post traumatic stress trigger: car cakes! Now, subjected to such circumstances any cake would have been challenged , but it wasn't any cake it was a car.For the longest time I could not shake this thought.Over time however car cakes have become the cake deliveries I worry about least..Making them is an entirely different story! So, in light of this cake life lesson and because this week happened to be car cake week at DDC here are a few of the many that prove you can successfully get back on the horse (or car whichever the case may be).
Delorean from Back to the future Herbie the Love bug!Smart car.... woulda' had no parking issues with this one, but it would have had to have been a cupcake delivery!Karman Ghia , very similar to the MG, whose pic BTW was deleted from my camera (it was cursed I tell you!)

I lobster and never flounder

If you got that reference, my condolences, either you're from the South or your entire record collection came with an "as seen on tv" sticker.For those of you who aren't familiar with the reference, search for Pinkard and Bowden on youtube. You'll thank (?) me later. But , I digress,this is not at all a post about semi obscure novelty musical acts, but a post about food cakes! I mentioned earlier how much I adore making cakes that look like other foods. One of my projects this week was a pair of lobsters.Clutching claws, the inscription read "With this claw, I thee wed", so clever. So , inspired by this week's latest food cake, I will take this opportunity to share some of my favorite , what my friend Mel calls "sneaky food cakes".
close up view of Mr. Lobster
My first "food cake' ,it's buttercream, back in the old days. I used to feature this on one of my business cards, prompting many to ask "Oh, you do catering too?" love that.
here's another buttercream one, and one of my faves. This roast beef was super convincing in the fridge. A fun one was the carnival foods cake:

steak cake, well seasoned

fried eggs and bacon......




Was super excited about the Big Mac cake but even more excited about the to scale box, honestly the box alone took me two days, it sure was fun though.





















I almost forgot this one: a platter of exotic fruits, including the much maligned durian..... thankfully this one smelled much nicer than the real thing!

Airbrushing Naked

.......naked cakes that is. That's my name for cakes that are awaiting airbrushing.If you know my work, you know that I airbrush everything, EVERYTHING.
I've been interested in airbrushing since the 80's. Many of you also know that I have had absolutely no formal cake training, but you may not know that I have also never had any airbrush classes, but I came close. In 1986, I think it was, I actually enrolled in an airbrush course but surprisingly it was closed due to low enrollment. I don't know why, maybe everybody who might have been interested was already set up on their street corners with their t-shirt airbrushing booths. Don't knock it, when this cake thing dies out I might be hanging my custom t shirt shingle out too, anyone up for a Lady Gaga portrait t ?
Anyway, while I am still making cakes, I thought it might be fun to have a look at some "naked" cakes and the finished product. in my opinion, there is no technique that has the ability to add more "life" to your work. Oh and technical queries?? I use Iwata airbrushes exclusively (hear that plug Iwata???) specifically, the Iwata Hp-B plus double action airbrush.
Oh yeah and I have so unartfully edited out my junk in the backgrounds because I'd rather you see me actually airbrushing naked than have you see my kitchen mess.

I don't get out much

I can still clearly remember, 4 years ago thinking, "Wow, now that I work for myself, I'll have lots of time to go places and do fun stuff!" um....... what was I smoking???? Oh, if only I could credit some delusion inducing drug on my naivete.... As those of you with your own businesses already know , it's nearly impossible to leave work. Sure, you may go home, but in this age of smart phones, you're never really "clocked out".
These days I find myself immersed in research for the latest cake project, and sometimes my personal interests intersect. Thank goodness for this , because I feel so sequestered sometimes, my only exposure to new things often comes from cake orders. When I had time to do fun things, I was quite the collector.I love to see things in multiples. Everything looks better in groups, I think.I guess I have always been a collector . Since childhood I have obsessed over one thing or another from miniatures to smurfs. I later moved on to vintage lunchboxes and my most recent love is urban vinyl and designer plush. But, again, I don't get out much anymore, ha ha! So, I was extra excited about my newest cake because it is a character called Tare Panda. Tare in japanese means lazy, so Tare Panda is a somewhat deflated, droopy panda who moves around via rolling. What's not to love? My client also wanted to incorporate the birthday girl's love of rock climbing too, so Hey, it sounds antithetical to me , but one rock climbing lazy panda, coming up!
So here's a glimpse at my lunch box collection, plush toys and the cake that reminded me that there's more to life than cake. Hush my mouth!