Carmel and Big Sur

We took a little day trip down to Big Sur and Carmel....

Sure am going to miss this gorgeous state. Here are some pictures from the drive.

These two are for you Mom and Dad - a campovan! Annnddd it has a bumper sticker that says Mountain Hugger :)

A great little garden shop in Carmel....

Cheers. 

Wedding Cakes!

The final creative project before the Final Exam project in school is to design and make a wedding cake. The class below us chooses the theme, and makes a whole wedding book, complete with pictures and descriptions of the setting, the couple, what the bride will be wearing, how the table will be set, what the flowers will be, what the colors of the wedding will be, etc.

Then, it's our job to take this "couple" and design for them the perfect wedding cake. In this particular case, the wedding took place in Hawaii, overlooking the beach, but very elegant and classy. They said an all white cake would be okay, and if it had any color, only to use pale yellow and pink. Orchids were the centerpieces of the tables.

Now given how school works (as opposed to a cake shop where lots more things are realistic for cake designs), we were fairly limited on time, so creating gum paste orchids was never going to be an option.  

So! I chose to use this technique called "brush embroidery" to put orchids on the cake (its all original design, and original drawings), and finished with a simple ribbon, and closed the seam with three little buttons.

And I'm quite happy with how it turned out!

I apologize for the lighting differences between all the pictures...but it really is just white.

And we only had less than 15 class hours to do everything! Bake the cakes, buttercream them, cover them in fondant, and stack and decorate it. It was madness! But it got done.. 

Cheers.