Tuesday, February 06, 2007

A Diva Delightful Birthday Surprise





For my friend Maureen's birthday I created this mini cake wrapped in its own surprise package. The two pale pink fondant covered cake tiers are only 4" and 3" wide, respectively. The roses were formed in sugarpaste using molds as were the two strings of pearls. Both the pearls and flowers were over-dusted with pearl powder. The sugarpaste drapes were first embossed with a raw silk design then also dusted with pearl powder. For the base, I coverd a foamcore round in pink fondant, the raw edge of which was then encircled in two layers of ribbon. A loop of one of the ribbons was attached to the bottom of the foamcore in order to facilitate pulling the cake from its box.

The cake itself is a Marquise au Chocolat or less pretentiously, a flourless chocolate cake. This particular marquise has a hint of raspberry liqueur and would be quite tasty served with a raspberry sauce, a few fresh berries and topped with a dollop of whipped cream. My own particular favorite version was served with a pistachio sauce. Your favorite liqueur and sauce could be substituted, of course (think Kaluha, Kirchwasser, Grand Marnier, Cointreau, Orangello, Frangelico, Amaretto, etc).

Although this miniature cake was made for a birthday, it could easily be adapted to suit numerous other special occasions including the bride and groom's take-home-cake with which to commemorate their special day. If styrofoam cake dummies were substituted for the actual cake, a miniature wedding cake replica could be placed under a glass dome or bell and kept indefinitely. And since the trend towards individual cakes has taken the wedding world by storm, an even smaller version of this cake would be appropriate for that particular use. It could also be used as a wedding favor placed in its own custom-designed sugar box (for those with big budgets or generous dads, of course).

Maria

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a delightful birthday present! I sure hope Maureen appreciated it. Are you adding this one to your brochure? Your commentary sounds like you're really trying to sell this one. Anyway, I love this little package.
RAR

Maria Denzer said...

Hi RAR, I'm not planning to add this one to my regular brochure but am planning to put together an exclusive wedding presentation brochure which would include cakes, favors, sugar flowers, grooms' cakes, sugar table decorations, etc. I consider this piece to be a "stock" cake, meaning that it was executed with the use of a lot of short cut techniques using molds. This does not lend itself to a very creative piece but does keep the cost down. My usual flower, sculpture, painting techniques are pretty expensive because they are both time-consuming and very custom. Glad you like the package. I plan to do some more of these but with the packages to be made completely of sugar. Stay tuned...

Maria

Anonymous said...

this a a very cute and i imagine difficult cake to make however i would by it!!! keep up the great work a maria!!!!