A Stroll Down Memory Lane - 2010. Part 2

We're continuing our retrospective of a selection of cakes made in 2010. If you missed yesterday's post of Part 1, you can read it here. Yesterday, we ended with a black, white and gray tattoo inspired wedding cake and today we are starting by showcasing a cake that is predominantly black and white and equally as unusual.

Katie and Chuck's "Dia de los Muertos" (Day of the Dead) themed wedding cake was one of our most memorable cakes of the year! The artistic, detailed "Day of the Dead" theme was a cake dream request for Rick. We have always been fond of "Day of the Dead" themed art and we jumped at the opportunity to make it for Katie and Chuck! They had a black and white wedding with red roses, and the couple wore black, not white at the wedding. Rick was given carte blanche on the design, and the result was an amazing cake with extremely intricate detailing, all done freehand, with handmade bride and groom skull cake toppers reminiscent of the sugar skulls commonly found in "Dia de los Muertos" celebrations. The cake took a lot of time to make, but Katie and Chuck were worth it and their cake was a big hit at the wedding!

Rick has made countless character cakes over the years and this adorable Dr. Seuss cake is one of our all-time favorites! It was made for the son of one of our clients who ordered the Elmo and Sesame Street cake two years earlier for another son. Her 2008 Elmo cake has been extremely popular ever since and we've had people all over the country ask us to make it and ship it to them. Our client loves fun, colorful, whimsical cakes with iconic characters, which gives us endless possibilities for design. She lets Rick do his thing with very little guidance and he tries each time to exceed her expectations!

We are crazy for this cake for a number of reasons. We loved working with the couple, Christian and Andrea. They had a gothic theme with purples and black, and left the design up to Rick. What they got was a truly original cakelava design with concave tiers, curved handmade petals, a waterfall style cake topper with skulls, large silver pearls, and a different piped design on each tier! The couple was so excited when they saw their sketch Rick made for them and he couldn't wait to make it! The black/pink/purple color gradations with the design on top looked stunning! The cake was photographed by Rachel Robertson and appeared in an issue of Cake Central Magazine.

This pretty pink and silver blinged-out wedding cake on a pole was the feminine accompaniment to the first standing Incredible Hulk groom's cake Rick made that year. I adore the combination of unsual shapes of the tiers, the delicate piping in silver, the hanging jewels, and the swirly custom topper. In other words, I love everything about it, and so does Rick! It remains one of our favorites over the years.

 

There are dog people, cat people, and there are bird people. The lady the cake was made for was definitely a "bird person". She adored her birds and owned a number of them, including a Sun Conure parrot. We took making the likeness of her Sun Conure seriously, trying to make sure every detail was correct and captured the expression she wanted the bird to have. The cake was made by Rick in honor of a woman's 90th birthday. When we delivered the cake, she was so touched by her surprise birthday gift. She was such a sweet and gentle lady and loved her special Sun Conure cake. It's not everyday you get to make someone their 90th birthday cake, or one as cute as this!

It was the second 1st birthday cake we made for one of our client's children. The theme was "under the sea" and all decorations were handmade. Rick used some of the same techniques for this cake as he did for the clownfish in the coral scene cake. The cake was colorful and pretty and made a huge splash at the party!

Rick sculpted this cool skull cake at a time when the "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" was filming in Hawaii. The cake was ordered by our client for an actor who played a pirate in the movie and was in town filming during his birthday. Rick really enjoyed making this cake and it has a fun story behind it which you can read about here.

We've become accustomed to working on the 4th of July. Over the years, that whole week has been one of the most requested for couples getting married, especially when the actual holiday falls on a weekend, which this one did. The cake above was made for a couple with an elegant rustic theme. The colors were soft and the romantic which Rick combined with a more modern shape. He chose shapes that looked like flowerpots for the wedding cake, and put a handmade large flower on the bottom of the tier.  If we're going to work on a holiday, it is always nice to have an event as beautiful as this one was and at a stunning location on the North Shore!

You may know that I used to cook professionally prior to opening cakelava with Rick. Having grown up in Hawaii, two of my local culinary heroes are Chef Alan Wong and Chef Roy Yamaguchi. We have been lucky enough to make a cake for each of them. This whimsical cake was made for Alan Wong's birthday and ordered by our client as a surprise for him which we delivered to Alan Wong's restaurant. You can read the story behind the cake here.

We will finish the year 2010 our next post, Part 3. We hope you have been enjoying seeing our past work as much as we have loved sharing it!