We're having a blast looking back on some of our favorite cakes from 2013 and hope you're enjoying the view! Today, we're exploring cakes made during the months of August and September, following the release of our book
Extreme Cakeovers, A.E.C. (After Extreme Cakeovers). We'll devote some time to the eventful month of July and finish the last few months of the year in Part 4. Here is
Part 1 and
Part 2 of B.E.C (Before Extreme Cakeovers), if you missed the previous posts.
The cake (shown above) we chose to introduce this period of time was a 4 foot tall gold, pink, and white wedding cake. It was made in September and combines some trends and design elements we worked with prominently during this time - wedding cakes that were yellow or gold, beautiful handcrafted flowers, and towering, 3 to 5 feet tall. During the latter half of 2013, Rick was regularly dedicating many hours each week to making gorgeous handcrafted flowers. It was clear that romance was back, elegant and opulent designs were hot, and brides wanted to go bigger and more eleborate, and it kept us very busy!
Before we jump into the After Extreme Cakeovers (A.E.C.) months, we'll look at July, the defining month which divided 2013 in half. Rick and I took the month of July off so we could enjoy one of the most exciting times in our lives - our book's release!
Extreme Cakeovers: Make Showstopping Desserts from Store-Bought Ingredients was released on July 9, 2013. It was a project we began in 2011 with our publisher Clarkson Potter (Random House), and we felt a huge honor to work with a publisher of some of the biggest names in cookbooks - Martha Stewart, Bobby Flay, Giada DeLaurentiis, Ina Garten, Rachael Ray, and more! From the beginning, we put everything we had, and more into the book, and even kept our shop open while writing it! Were we crazy? Just a little...
The morning of our book's release, Hawaii News Now's "Sunrise" show aired a segment with Rick and I talking about the book with Anchor Grace Lee. Rick demonstrated his Aloha Shirt cake in their studio kitchen. Click the link to watch the
"Sunrise" TV segment.
Like many authors, we "stalked" our book at the local Barnes and Noble and independent bookstores. This photo was taken at the Ala Moana Barnes and Noble, where our book was displayed prominently. I can't explain what a rush it is to see your book on store shelves for the first time!
We filmed a segment at KITV, (ABC) which you can watch
here.
A special Apple only iBooks version of
Extreme Cakeovers was released. It offers more interactivity than the other ebooks. You can see the
Behind the Scenes at the Extreme Cakeovers iBooks photo shoot on
The Recipe Club's (Clarkson Potter and Ten Speed Press) website, and order the iTunes book
here.
The book has 40 cake recipes, all made from store-bought products. One of our favorites is the Sushi Platter cake.
If you want to learn more about the book, check out the
Official website for Extreme Cakeovers.
Boston classes:
As if releasing a book wasn't enough, also during July, we flew to Boston for a week where Rick taught two cake decorating classes to students at
The Cake World. It made for an eventful month and a nice break from making cakes! Shortly after returning from Boston, we posted about our experience and a number of photos taken during the classes. You can see it
here.
In Part 2 of our review, I mentioned one of the trends was requests for "incredibly complex sculpted vehicles"(air and land). I'll add, sea vehicles (like a fishing boat) as well. This
Monster Truck was made for Stylen's birthday. The entire body and its gigantic wheels were sculpted out of cake and the decorations were handmade and painted by Rick.
We adored the yellow and pink wedding cake Rick made for Chelsea and Kyle in August. They wanted a lot of texture in their cake so Rick designed the cake where all tiers had texture and added handcrafted feathers and large roses, which were also on the bride's dress.
Here is another yellow wedding cake Rick made, just two weeks after Chelsea and Kyle's yellow and pink wedding cake above. Sarah and Pat's yellow ombre wedding cake with gold accents was inspired by the bride's pretty plumeria flower jewelry and the groom's gold cummerbund. It was a military officer's wedding and the couple cut the cake with a sword. The cake was a huge hit at the wedding and when it was posted afterwards.
Though we did a fair amount of yellow toned wedding cakes, we made an all blue cake too! One of our favorites of the year, this pretty blue cake was made by Rick for Dara and John, a couple we first met years ago. The flowers were handcrafted and took many hours to make - the whole bottom tier was covered with them and more flowers on the top tier! The Rainbowlicious cake made for a stunning cake cutting!
You know it's a fun week when you get to make a cake as cute as this! Rick made the cake in late August for Chase's first birthday. Both the mouse and cake in front are made of cake. On top of it being a difficult to sculpt, the baby's father is a celebrity and that always adds more pressure. He and his wife were so kind and appreciative when we delivered the cake. We left the party feeling great, and relieved the hard work was behind us!
Kiran and Perdeep's wedding cake was delivered the same day as Chelsea and Kyle's yellow and pink wedding cake. I recall the week when Rick spent about 8 hours making all the gorgeous roses for the cascade. It looked amazing! The bride and groom were overjoyed with the cake and we thought it turned out beautifully!
Brandie and Glen's wedding cake was made the same weekend as Dara and John (blue) and Shanell and Troy's, (shown below). Rick started working on the flowers at least a week before the weddings just to have them all done in time! We previously worked with Brandie and Glen on their twin boys birthday cake and now it was their special day and we were excited to make their wedding cake. Rick's cake design for the couple combined squares and round tiers and pretty purples with silver accents. On the bottom tier was a pair of wedding rings tied with a ribbon. The cake was so lovely and we enjoyed working with our clients again!
We're starting and ending Part 3 of our Review with a 4 foot tall wedding cake. Shanell and Troy's wedding cake was one of three elaborate floral wedding cakes made in a single weekend. Rick had his work cut out for him! 24 hours were spent making this one cake! For Shanell and Troy, Rick designed their cake to be covered in patterns, with bunches of large, delicate flowers. The main colors were grey and white with a vintage feel. The couple had a "TRON" themed lounge for their guests during the cocktail hour, and Rick added their monogram in a turquoise blue color, to tie in the bride's area with the groom's. We were intrigued with vintage elegance reception room and TRON inspired cocktail lounge. Sounds like a fun wedding!
In our next post, we'll wrap up 2013 with more cakes - more cars, some awesome sculptural compositions with custom figurines and of course, more wedding cakes! Please feel free to share with us your thoughts. Thank you for taking the journey with us!
