Look Inside EXTREME CAKEOVERS!

We have been anxiously awaiting Amazon.com's "Look Inside" for EXTREME CAKEOVERS for quite some time, and were excited to see it posted earlier than anticipated. The "Look Inside" feature displays a preview of the pages of the book and is often the public's first opportunity to see past the cover. We already own a precious advance copy of our book, but our family, friends, and the general public haven't seen it yet and we are thrilled to share it with everyone!

Getting to see the "Look Inside" feature for EXTREME CAKEOVERS was exhilarating! Then, we saw the book was selected by Amazon to offer Featured Recipes available to the reader for download, and our wonderful surprise tasted even sweeter! You can download our Gift Box of Pearls and Jukebox cake recipes directly from the Amazon listing.
 
We hope you like what you see in the book and look forward to making some cakes!

Diver's Helmet Cake

cakelava.com

I was recently asking Rick if he has a cake bucket list. I was curious if he had one and what was on it. While he doesn't have a formal list written down, there are definitely designs he has his eye on and just needs the right client to request them. As I suspected, one of the designs on his cake bucket list is a hard hat diver's helmet.  After last weekend, Rick can cross the diver's helmet off his list!

It's hard to say who was more excited when the request for the cake came in - Rick or myself. I had been communicating with the client who was considering one of two themes for her husband Scott's 60th birthday party. Both themes had something to do the ocean and her husband's careers. We were happy to make either of them, but hopeful she would choose the diver's helmet since Rick hadn't made one before and apparently, was on his cake bucket list. If it was meant to be, it would happen. We were thrilled when she sent us an email telling us to move forward with the diver's helmet!

Knowing the diver's helmet would be a challenging cake, Rick allocated a good amount of time to work on it. It took him 9 hours to sculpt and decorate the cake. We wanted Scott and our client to be blown away when they saw it, and make it a birthday celebration he would never forget!

The party was held at our client's home. She told us that she had designed a theme based on the cake. We were very impressed at her attention to detail and how much the theme was carried out in the decor of the party. When we arrived, some guests were already there. It didn't take long for the cake to draw a crowd, which was soon followed by "THAT'S a cake?!" - music to any cake designer's ears!
The diver's helmet cake was a huge hit, with both our client and her guests.

This amazing display at the entrance to the party which included a photo of Scott, greeted guests as they arrived. The antique diver's helmet in the display was one of many on display throughout the property.

Thank you to our wonderful client for including us in Scott's very special day, and for giving us an opportunity to cross one of our new favorite cakes off the bucket list!

A Stroll Down Memory Lane - 2011, Part 3

 

It's been a couple weeks since our last "Stroll Down Memory Lane" post. We've been busy working on new cakes and getting ready for our book release on July 9th, which has created much excitement around here! We started writing EXTREME CAKEOVERS  in 2011 and have now come full circle. We can't wait to finally share the fruits of our labor - and believe me, it was definitely labor! If you missed the previous cake retrospective posts, you can read them here:

Part 1
Part 2

We ended Part 2 of the 2011 retrospective of selected cakes in late June, when summer weddings in Hawaii were in full swing and we felt the added pressure of having a book to produce. Our studio was a crazy place! A portion of each day was spent working on cakelava cakes for customers and the other part was spent working on our book, and the two couldn't be more different. We had our custom made-from-scratch cakes where each cake was uniquely designed with a specific client in mind, and simultaneously designing cakes using all store-bought products. If we weren't making a cake, we were on a delivery, or going to a store to get products for the book.

I've chosen some cakes to share from the months of July through October, starting with a very tall, dramatic hibiscus cake, shown above. It was one of four cakes, including a fun and swirly circles design (below) Rick made for July 3rd events.