Help With This Cake Design - Artistic Or Just Plain Wrong?
Decorating By KatrinaBroughton Updated 7 Oct 2013 , 1:46pm by KatrinaBroughton
AI'm having a lot of trouble with this cake design and I'm hoping to get some feedback. The bride is a very good friend. I'd describe the couple as fun, artistic, urban, and casual. The bride is pretty flexible but the must have list is 1) NO fondant (so I'm using modelling chocolate), and 2) she wants to combine the following two ideas:
[IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3062368/width/200/height/400[/IMG] [IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3062370/width/200/height/400[/IMG]
Yeah, I know. The weird looking one is a marbled white and chocolate buttercream - very messy looking and not very weddingy. She said she liked the contrast between the two designs.
So after much sketching and testing the best idea I've come up with is to the sides of cake in striped modelling chocolate and the tops in the marbled buttercream. I make a styro mock up and photoshopped it to where I want it.
[IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3062371/width/200/height/400[/IMG]
Do you guys think ion the right track in terms if the overall design? Any other suggestions on how I can incorporate their crazy idea into this cake?
I would almost say create some kind of marbled chocolate accent pieces to go on top of the horizontal striped design.
For example, make the hearts in your mock up the marbled look, then add additional marbled pieces as a cascade down the front or something.
Marbled Swag? Marbled gumpaste flowers?
I think the mock up you have would kind of be lost in translation, and truthfully, doesn't look too appealing to my eye.
Good luck!
AI like where you're going with the design. I might suggest working more white into the modeling chocolate wrap since the original pic has a lot of white.
AUnfortunately what they like about the marble was the buttercream flavours so I think moving away from doing the marble in buttercream would stray too far. But I could consider adding other decor elements in marble as well.
I did try more white in the stripes in the chocolate but it thought maybe it didn't tie into the marbling enough. Here's a pk. Of that. [IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3062695/width/200/height/400[/IMG]
Here's also a pic of the styro mock up cake that I based the photoshopped design on [IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3062696/width/200/height/400[/IMG]
AI would do more white but also keep more chocolate in the stripes. The inspiration cake has a white base with colored stripes, rather than the other way round.
AI agree with kikiandkyle - keep the dark brown bands to tie into the buttercream but adding more white will make it look more like the 1st inspiration pic. I really love this, though. Can I ask how you're making such pristine stripes?
AThanks for all the great suggestions. I'll give it a try with more white
The stripes are from modelling chocolate. Once It was coloured, I rolled it on my kitchen aid pasta machine, setting 2 and cut into strips with a ruler and paring knife. Once all the strips were cut I placed in order on top of a single sheet of chocolate (rolled on setting 1). Then i just gently rolled the entire sheet in the direction of the stripes (so the rolling pin perpendicular to the stripes) - just enough so the seems disappeared. I found The key for modelling chocolate is to keep it cold, especially in the summer. I had to put it in the fridge after I rolled it, after I cut it, and after I made the panel. I even had to refrigerate it if I ran in through the pasta machine too many times.
AI was thinking that maybe you could do a frozen buttercream transfer for the marbling, that way you could get it completely smooth while retaining the buttercream.
AWell here is the final cake! I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, and most importantly the bride loved it :)
[IMG ALT="Square marble cake with marbled buttercream/chocolate frosting on too of each tier and wrapped in modelling chocolate. The topper is gum paste."]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3111616/width/350/height/700[/IMG]
Looks really good and can I just say what an imagination you had to put them together like that in the first place! My first reaction was "I have no idea how this is going to work?" You did! It looks great too!!!!!
wow--stripes are matchin' around nice crisp corners
geez that's hard to do and you did it so well
spinning my turntable and raising my piping bag in salute ;)
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