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This unique bespoke 3 tier wedding cake is inspired by the day the groom proposed to his bride on a gondala in the romantic city of Venice.
Inspired by a Venice proposal
I was supplied with photographs of the bride and groom, flowers for the brides bouquet, colours and an idea of a gondala complete with the bride and groom to sit on top.
At first I sketched out a preliminary design that was 2 tiers for the bride and groom to approve. Eventually they changed it to 3 tiers as the wedding got bigger.
All the decoration was made in advance ready to be applied to the cakes which would be covered a few days before the actual wedding.
3D Gondala made of modelling paste
This gorgeous cake topper was made separately from the cake. I like to make it this way so it is detachable from the cake and can be kept as a keepsake of their special day.
When designing this topper, I focused on looking what a gondala really looks like in photographs, and in doing this I found out that if I created one true to an original it would be very large with very small people on it which wouldn’t work.
So this gondala is a stylised version to create impact and therefore characters that are a good size for the cake.
Making sure the figures and gondala are the correct size for the cake is important
‘Blue Moon’ roses, white roses, Lavender, Gypsophila and ‘Dusty Miller’ silver leaves (all in the brides bouquet) were hand made. The Lavender and Gypsophila were created using florists wire and was removed before the cake was cut.
The bottom tier comprised of an elaborate quilt effect on which the delicate flowers sat.
Roses, Lavender, Dusty Miller and Gypsophila flowers adhorn all side off the top of the third tier
It was safer to take the cake and topper in separate boxes so it was assembled at Woodborough Hall, Nottingham ready for the evening reception.
Wedding cake taking pride of place at Woodborough Hall
My original sketch outlining the design for the bride and grooms approval.
A sketch of initial concept
This amazing cake was created last week for a lovely couples 25th Wedding Anniversary party. They do a lot of walking with their dog Minty who loves to chase squirrels and this is what the bespoke cake design is based upon. This beautiful cake topper is actually sat on a cake board so it could be removed before the cake was cut and saved as a memento of their special day.
These hand-made figures are sat on a log which was based around a photograph that was supplied to me when the cake order was placed.
This is their cute little West Highland terrier called Minty which is roughly around 1½ inch wide and 1 inch high. He is eyeing up the squirrel which is even smaller than Minty and holding an acorn.
Around the actual cake a meadow was hand-painted with edible food colouring featuring daisies, butterflies, dragonflies and ladybirds surrounded by bright green grass.
When designing and creating cakes it’s best to make sure the cake decorating looks good from all angles – even behind.
The result of all this hard and enjoyable work was a cake I was very proud of and was just what the couple had in mind – and they loved it.
This kind of cake decoration could be applied to wedding cakes as well as all the other varieties of celebration cakes too.
If you’d like me to decorate a cake in a bespoke style or something completely different for your special occasion then please feel free to contact me for a quote. Copper Top Cakes is based in Nottingham and delivers to the East Midlands area. Please feel free to leave me an email or a message and I will always get back to you as soon as possible.
This cake was designed with Ascot in mind. I basically wanted to create some dahlias for a demonstration I have coming soon and thought it would look fantastic on my exhibit table.
These subtle pink hand-made dahlias look stunning on the hat cake – it took a few evenings to complete them by letting them dry at different stages. A ruffled piece of modelling paste that looks like draped fabric draws the eyes to the delicate flowers sitting on top.
Mounting the cake on two sugarpaste covered boards with ribbon around the edges turns quite a simple cake into a stylish hat.
If you’d like me to decorate a cake in a bespoke style or something completely different for your special occasion then please feel free to contact me for a quote. Copper Top Cakes is based in Nottingham and delivers to the East Midlands area. Please feel free to leave me an email or a message and I will always get back to you as soon as possible.
I was commissioned to create this bespoke wedding cake with its cascade of hand-crafted flowers for a couple who loves owls. These cute owls sit on the branch of the delicately hand-painted bride and groom’s names in a beautiful script font.
A single tiered wedding cake with hand-made flowers, hand-painted names and owls
Small pink roses, purple pansies, pink hydrangeas and tiny lily of the valley flowers adorn this one tier fruit cake. All of them made from petal paste and some piped royal icing for the the lily of the valley stems.
Roses, Hydrangeas, Pansies and Lily of the Valley hand-made flowers
The owls were gently sitting with the names so it would compliment the design and add to the overall effect.
Close-up of the hand-painted detail
These hand-made owls are so cute…looking into each others eyes that they make this a special and unique wedding cake.
Overall view of the wedding cake
If you’d like me to decorate a cake in a bespoke style or something completely different for your special occasion then please feel free to contact me for a quote. Copper Top Cakes is based in Nottingham and delivers to the East Midlands area. Please feel free to leave me an email or a message and I will always get back to you as soon as possible.
Well it’s nearly that time of year again…time to get ready for the big day and organise all the food, puddings and Christmas cakes a few weeks in advance for the big parties. I just had to make these cute little snowmen throwing snowballs at each other, having fun at Yuletide and perched on top of some yummy mini fruit cakes.
Handmade snowmen throwing snowballs at each other
This snowman got bowled over by the snowballs
Snowman enjoying his snowball fight
Ideal to make all Christmas parties festive with that special touch
These unique hand-made snowmen have their hats and scarves hand-painted in edible gold to match their gold buttons and the gold snowflakes. They will look great on any festive table.
If you’d like me to decorate a cake in a similar bespoke style or something completely different for your special occasion then please feel free to contact me for a quote. Copper Top Cakes is based in Nottingham and delivers to the East Midlands area. Please leave me an email or a message and I will always get back to you as soon as possible.
You will probably recognise this cake but notice that its more vibrant in colour than before. I decided to take my first design one step further to show how the design can evolve into this beautiful celebration cake.
All the previous hand-painting made the the gold, turquoise and a hint of silver easy to apply – like a childs colouring-in book.
This design would be wonderful for any type of celebration cake – even a wedding cake with a difference.
If you’d like me to decorate a cake in a similar bespoke style or something completely different for your special occasion then please feel free to contact me for a quote. Copper Top Cakes is based in Nottingham and delivers to the East Midlands area. Please leave me an email or a message and I will always get back to you as soon as possible.
I’ve been waiting to have a go at this creation that’s in my head for a little while now. If you have followed my blogs before you will have seen the square plaques I have painted for my previous demonstrations; now I wanted to have a go on a cake and I know butterflies are in fashion so I felt one large butterfly would complete this dynamic cake.
I love the pinky lilac colour of this cake and felt it was delicate enough to hold and show off a strong design with a large butterfly.
Now I already had my painting inspiration from my previous designs so I decided to dive in and paint straight on the cake with no patterns to follow, no traced pattern. Basically I doodled this freehand onto the cake then just kept repeating a similar pattern and making it up as I went along – I love this style has it as a vintage feel and looks a bit like a henna tatoo too.
Free flowing doodle
Now to the butterfly…I did not use any cutters in this process. I found photos of butterflies and cut out my own card template to get the wing shapes. It was like producing flowers really; cut out shape, insert wire, use poppy veiner to create wing veins and ball tool to soften edges. The body was more tricky and that was moulded around florist wire too. These were left for 24 hours to dry then painted and taped together to form this striking butterfly.
If you’d like me to decorate a cake in a similar bespoke style or something completely different for your special occasion then please feel free to contact me for a quote. Copper Top Cakes is based in Nottingham and delivers to the East Midlands area. Please leave me an email or a message and I will get back to you as soon as possible.
Well here I am again with the second sample for ‘Painting on Icing’ I used at my demo.
I like to have a go at what is on trend but it is nice to come up with something original. It’s amazing all the inspiration that is around you to help you design something different to what everyone else is creating.
I found a pattern I liked but changed it to be my own and the colours I loved so I picked similar colours to the original pattern. Another pattern with different colours on could have been used for the inspiration instead. I started off by painting a watercolour version with my changes on watercolour paper to see if I liked it. Drawing around my cutting tools on the paper to see how the final version would look helped too.
The flower shapes in the middle are different flower shapes to the original pattern – I just looked in my tool box and used a flower and scalloped edged cutter I already had and a piping nozzle was used for the small circles.
My special mixture of edible food colours were made to create a thick paint that dries slowly in the palette but quick on the sugarpaste. The edge of the scallops and the flowers were painted in a dark brown with a very fine artists brush and the swirls were all painted free hand. Also I painted some pretty flower shapes in pearl lustre that show up when they catch the light.
I feel that this was a very attractive, modern and was far different from the original inspired pattern I found and turned into my own design. This unique sample looks amazing and could easily be applied to make a spectacular multiple tiered wedding cake..
If you’d like me to decorate a cake in this style for a special occasion then please feel free to contact me for a quote. Copper Top Cakes is based in Nottingham and delivers to the East Midlands area.
Well I know I have been away a bit but I am in the middle of renovating our bungalow – I had itchy fingers and needed to get ready for a British Sugar Guild demonstration I had coming up. The theme was ‘Painting on Icing’ and therefore I came up with a few different ideas to show everyone.
I created each piece on a 9 inch square board as this was a much better size to demonstrate (cheaper than a whole dummy cake) – Look out for more of my samples over the coming days and eventually I will make them up into cakes and show them on my blog too!
Bronze and keyline painting of poppies
This was my first example of what can be done painting with edible food colouring. I have been to art college and have been trying to replicate gouache paints and have therefore been experimenting with mixing different makes of colouring to achieve my desired effect. I wanted to paint with as little brush strokes showing as much as possible on the finished product and have a sharp edge. Quick drying on the cake but not in the palette was also needed – you know how the powder and vodka mix dries too quickly.
Inspiration came from all different sources of media. Firstly I had my design mapped out on watercolour paper so this could be tweaked on the actual design on icing.
The basic design was traced on to the icing and then the background colour applied leaving the desired white areas. After this had dried I used a fine art brush to trace the white poppies and then all the rest of the lines were painted freehand. This unique sample looks amazing and could easily be applied to make a spectacular multiple tiered wedding cake with petal paste white poppies on the top.
If you’d like me to decorate a cake in this style for a special occasion then please feel free to contact me for a quote. Copper Top Cakes is based in Nottingham and delivers to the East Midlands area.
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