Hundreds of rosettes...

Last week was a particularly challenging one... I'm thinking that the upcoming Mercury retrograde was just playing silly games with me. Things always turn out, but sometimes it seems hard to see the path to get there. Its often easier when cakes have a lot of premade parts.... the beginning of a week is spent making them and the end of the week is all about assembly. But this week, a car, a topiary, a monkey, and what the hell are gabba gabbas.... all were last minute type creations. Early week was a breeze, but the end was a race to the finish line.

Val was a lovely young bride, and I adored her from the moment I met her. After four months of preparations and a few last minute changes, we came upon the big day... or from my point of view big week. On Friday we delivered a bright red Ferrari for her to surprise her groom at the rehearsal dinner, and on Saturday came the big wedding cake.

While every cake is no doubt an expression of me in some way, certain cakes I just can't wait to make, knowing somehow they will be a moment or transition of sorts for me, artistically speaking. Val's wedding cake was one of them. The original design called for some hot pink rosettes that matched the brides dress, covering a ball shaped cake, and a teal blue base cake that the ball sat on top of. But in the final weeks, Val had second thoughts about the blue. We rethought the original design, took away the blue but kept her favorite part, the varied colored rosettes. And I'm so glad we did. Generally I'm a fan of the theory, first thought, best thought, but this cake ended up being so much more elegant by keeping the white an pink tones, and eliminating the more intense blue. The other version would have been wonderful too, but this cake expressed joy much louder than the other version.

What I didn't anticipate was exactly how long those rosettes would take! There must have been hundreds, and what I thought I could whip out in record time, became hours and hours of rolling gum paste. But so worth it.

I'm so thankful for all my visionary brides that challenge me every day to stay on my creative toes, and always find a way to something new.
Congratulations Val!