Tuesday, November 30, 2010

One "Suite" Week

When I first started baking, I would always take 100 pictures of projects. Then as I got busier, I only started making time to photograph only the projects that were different than what I had previously done. Now, with so much variety and volume we are lucky to get a photo of anything leaving the bakery!I decided that I wanted to give our clients a glimpse into what do, all of it! The photos below are from a full week in November at The Sugar Suite, and captures the variety of what we do and the attention to each project.

First off, let me introduce the team. Over the past 10 weeks we have enjoyed the company of two externs from Le Cordon Bleu. In the photo below from the left in the pink is me (Jennyfer), next is Brook Ogletree (extern from Le Cordon Bleu), then Megan Stelma (our Pastry Chef!), and on the far right in pink is Mary Lou Bradley (extern from Le Cordon Bleu).
First Up: Our passion, the wedding cake!
To see more of our Wedding Cakes visit our wedding cake gallery

This cake was a mini version of a cake we made a couple weeks ago. Believe it or not, it only stood 12", and the bottom tier was 8" round. The bride provided a cake stand which always adds a super personal touch to the dessert presentation.


This cake was inspired by a Martha Stewart Cake that was originally in pink with lovebirds perched on top. I knew the bride had her own topper, but didn't know what until I arrived on-site. I love personal touches!


This was also a mini cake designed for an intimate reception at Circa in Winter Park. The brooch center of the roses adds a vintage and elegant touch to a clean and romantic design.

When we went to deliver this cake, the florals weren't ready, so this is is an image of the cake that inspired the actual cake. Same dimension and design. Unfortunately, things don't always go as planned, but allowing the florist to place the flowers is never a problem considering their expertise!

Next, onto our Specialty Cakes, to see more visit our Celebration Cake GalleryThis was a grooms cake for a groom addicted to his Palm Pre. Mix that with his love for superman, this phone cake is a hyper custom representation of the grooms personality. This wedding took place at the Summerlin House in downtown Orlando

My design directions for this cake were simply two angles "40" and "manly" ... and voila!

This birthday cake was for a 16 year old girl that couldn't have been sweeter! She loves the beach, and wanted some interesting characters on her cake like Scoobie and a girly octopus.

This baby shower cake was inspired by the invitation From Zazzle. We added our own girly clothing, including some ruffly bloomers. Also, we used the mommy-to-be's favorite color butter yellow and the baby's bedding which included dragonflies.


An then our first love, cupcakes! To see more of our cupcakes, visit our Cupcake Gallery
The theme of this baby shower was "welcome our new little pumpkin" and the little giggling baby mimicked the invitation. The flavor was of course spice cake with pumpkin buttercream.

So that was a week with The Sugar Suite! We love what we do, and thank you for being a part of it!

Monday, November 8, 2010

Thanksgiving Cake Centerpieces


The Sugar Suite is proud to introduce our Thanksgiving Cake Centerpieces!

Edible sugar fall leaves and acorns garnish this spice cake and pumpkin buttercream two tiered cake.


Cake sizes and Pricing

4" & 6" (serves 15-18) .................$45

6" & 8" (serves 33 - 36) ...............$70

8" (one tier, serves 21- 24)..........$55

**all cakes 4 3/4" - 5" tall**

ORDER HERE

Cupcakes: We also offer regular sized spice cupcakes with pumpkin buttercream. We offer them garnished with sugar fall leaves and acorns for $3.25/each. Cupcakes can be ordered in dozens with a minimum of 2 dozen

Travel: We can package your Thanksgiving Cake for car or plane travel (we recommend that the cake doesn't stay out of refrigeration for more than 5 hours). At this time, cakes and cupcakes cannot be shipped.

Service & Presentation: For best results, we recommend allowing your cake to come to room temperature indoors for approximately 3 hours. We also recommend elevating the cake, or placing it on a cake stand for presentation.

Pick Up: Wednesday, November 24th The Sugar Suite will be open from 8:00AM - 6:00PM for pick up. If you are unable to pick up during that time, please contact Jennyfer at jennyfer@thesugarsuite.com to schedule a pick up time.

Flavors: Other flavors of cake and buttercream are available for an additional $.50 a serving Click here to view our menu

Ordering: Thanksgiving orders must be placed by Sunday, November 21st by 6:00PM for Wednesday pick up. Ordering early is recommended to ensure availability!

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Pearls, Pearls and More Pearls Wedding Cake



Without exaggeration, pearls are the most classically elegant style and design elements EVER. The best have worn them, Jackie O, Audrey Hepburn, and some of my personal heroes!

When my very good friend Shaler asked me to make her wedding cake, and that she wanted pearls to be the focal centerpiece of the wedding cake design..... I was in heaven, well sort of....

Pearls are a cake designers dream to design, and nightmare to execute, rolling each one individually can be time consuming. Substitution with pre-made pearls is a good solution if you aren't going to use a tinted coloring or any sort of pearl dust. Shaler wanted shades of pink, peach, white and ivory pearls which gave the hundreds of pearls more dimension, giving attention to each one.

Bakers Tip: if you are adhering accents to a cake that have pearl, gold or silver dust piping gel is a great material that dries clear and will hold the weight of the larger pearls (royal icing and buttercream are not strong enough, and the dust makes the material very slippery).

A special thank you to The Orlando Citrus Club, the venue for Shaler's wedding reception.

Visit our site to see more of our wedding cakes!

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Gardenia Wedding Cake

I am crazy about gardenias, they are perfect and smell wonderful.....but not logistically great for a wedding between the wilting and browning. Unless they are in sugar. The following is an in depth look into the making of a gardenia and gold kissed wedding cake.

Gardenias buds start with three interior, and five exterior petals, then to make the full size flowers we add another seven petals around the edge. To make the giant gardenias we added 5 - 7 wired petals (wired in order to make adjustments on site, and for weight and structure). Total we made 12 full size gardenias, 7 buds and 2 giant gardenias, totaling 280 petals!Along with matching waxy green gardenia petals which were made of gumpaste tinted green, then airbrushed for dimension and shine.For you bakers out there: the gold was made of 2 containers of Old Gold, 1 container of Apricot Sparkle and 1/3 container of Moonstruck for a more rosey, antique gold. There was a gold rope at the base of each tier, gold loop accents on the cake and small sprays of gold pearls. Each tier was covered in marzipan instead of fondant. The bride's affinity for marzipan was worth any additional challenge we faced with this new tasty but fickle ingredient. This is my friend Shaler who stopped by our Orlando bakery just as we were assembling the cake. The cake was actually in two pieces. The two bottom layers were real, and the top 5 were faux. In this case, we decided to do this for the efficiency of the cake service to the couples 600+ guests, but in the end we were happy to have 5 lighter tiers to assemble.
An then some images of the final assembly in our shop. When we first put the flowers on the cake, the realistic off white color of the gumpaste was too stark of a contrast on the marzipan covered cake. A little ivory shimmer added to the petals softened it just enough that the gardenias could still have their signature off white color, but also blended with the overall design of the cake.



The completed cake on site in the reception hall at the T.Pepin Hospitality Center in Tampa. We hope to have many more weddings at this stunning new venue!
Here is a little video that my pastry chef and assistant Megan took. Thank goodness for her brand new iPhone! You can turn the volume off (oy, my voice sounds weird).
To see more of our recent cakes, visit our website at www.thesugarsuite.com


Wednesday, August 18, 2010

The Hungry Caterpillar


Our little friends give us some of the most fun projects! The Hungry Caterpillar is an adorable childrens book, that we translated into cake for this little girl's first birthday. All of the food is made of colored fondant, including the polka dots at the bottom of the cake.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Earthy-Organic Styled Wedding Cake



Every now and then, a client comes along with such a clear idea of who they are that their style jumps out at you! Anik is gracious, earthy, generous, sweet and lighthearted. She wanted a cake that was reflective of the earthy style they brought to all elements of their wedding, including the tree stump cake stand and ETSY birdie cake toppers. The couple's faith is a big part of their identity, so we added the bible verse read at their ceremony as a subtle element on the base of the cake.The biggest honor came when she asked me for a copy of the sketch to serve as a menu in the rustic wooden frame next to the cake. We wish you every happiness Anik and JD!

Monday, June 28, 2010

Faux and Fabulous Wedding Cake

When this couple came to me, they had a grand plan to have a surprise wedding annoucement at their engagement party, followed by the rolling out of a huge wedding cake. Well, the guilt of hiding the secret got to them and they decided to have a small reception at a friends not so small house. They were only expecting 40 - 50 guests, but wanted large wedding cake as the centerpiece of the event. This is the perfect occasion for faux tiers!

Below is a picture of the 6 tiered cake, can you guess which 3 are real, and which three are faux?

Some other detail shots of the sugar flowers and monogram.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Eeyore and Piglet Baby Shower


Its the season for baby showers, and with the sea of baby room design choices its no wonder that we never see two of the same cakes! This cake and cupcake combination was for an old friend (yeah Facebook!) having her first grand baby. The little Eeyore and Piglet topper were made of sugar so that the mom could keep them if she wanted. The cupcakes were made of chocolate buttercream with a little fondant top to the "hunny" pot, and some vanilla custard as honey drops. I had so much fun with this project, I hope someone else orders Eeyore, Piglette and Hunny pots!!


Thursday, May 27, 2010

House from the Heart



Growing up, I spend a lot of time at my best friend's grandparents house, which was walking distance from our school. We have so many warm memories of the super sloped driveway, the green and white awnings, the vegetable garden of and ghost adventures in the attic. When Grandpa Jerry's 80th birthday arrived, I knew we had to make a cake of the house he raised his 6 children and one grandchild (and one adopted grandchild, me!) in... 1023 E Livingston Street. It was my first building, and required way more time and detail than I anticipated..... but this project was straight from the heart to honor Grandpa Jerry!