Let Them Eat Cakes: July 2011

Sunday 31 July 2011

Oriental Flair - Dragon Restaurant, Westdale

This couple chose an oriental themed cake for their Chinese wedding and red kimono buttons were added as this decorative detail.

The bride made her own cake topper, so pretty, great job!

Baptism Cake - Teddy Cupcake

A baptism cake for a little boy (of course, it's baby blue) with a little teddy bear perched on a cupcake. Lots of chocolate on this cake made it look and smell fantastic.

White Simplicity - Garden Wedding, Stoney Creek

This just happens to be one of my favourite cakes of the year, so simple and yet has the right amount of detail. The thick 'ribbon' trim is hand painted on with edible satin and looks so pretty.

How could adding four white roses and large pearl centres not make a perfect cake?

This cake was for an garden wedding at home and was chosen by the bride's sister.

It is always a difficult task for a family member to design a cake, it's such an important part of the wedding and there's so much pressure to get it right.

Musical Birthday Cake

A musical birthday cake for some lucky guy named Jerry (took this picture before we'd put the banner on).

This is right out of our usual realm of victorian/english garden style cakes. Just once in a while it's nice to be able to make something that pushes me to create something totally different. A change is as good as a rest, they say and in this case it was very true. Lots of fun to create a cake that was not traditionally our forte.

This is a dummy (fake/faux) cake and can be seen in our showroom.

Mocha Cake

A graduation cake that we did a few weeks ago (University of Toronto) was so appreciated that when the clients birthday came around, two weeks later, her husband came and asked us to create something vintage and mocha inspired for his wife.

We used coffee, mocha and soft peach as our colour scheme and accented it with gold. Inside was a buttery vanilla cake with coffee syrup and chocolate kissed buttercream.

Dots and Stripes - First Birthday

Not a week goes by without us being asked to do some variation on this 'dots and stripes' cake. This week pink, purple and grey were the theme for this important event and instead of using just stars for the topper we used two different types of flowers as well for a great effect.

Garden Wedding - Hamilton

Many moons ago we made a wedding cake for a young couple with a baseball on the top, well, the groom's brother was getting married and so they decided to get the couple a cake from us! How's that for a vote of confidence?

This cake was entirely designed using elements from the wedding invitation, the flags of the bride and groom (forgot to ask what country the second one comes from) and a plant growing in the bride's mother's garden (where the wedding was being held) which was a cup flower and lastly bumble bees.

Bringing this all together as a design was challenging, I felt the flags/hearts were stand alone and an obvious topper. Since the colours were not as soft as those being used on the cake it seemed natural that they should be on the top.

I hand painted the background of the cake, the leaves, grass and so on then applied random yellow petals to the cake to look like the yellow cup flower on the invitation. Then we stuck little bees all over the cake to tie in their invitation.

Beach Wedding - Hamilton Waterfront

For this young couple a beach wedding was organized and they chose sand and shells with pearls and water droplets for their cake and they asked for one or two blue shells on the cake.

The two interlocking starfish are very a propo for a cake topper and all the shells, sand, pearls and 'water' are completely edible.

Voyage, Voyage

A cute little cake for a simple back yard wedding among family. This couple had traveled the world and met while on their travels and finally come home to Canada to share their wedding with their family before taking off again.

This little suit case topper was just perfect for the top of this cake.

Jewelry Cake

Another one of our very popular jewelry cakes. This one for someone's 'Mama' celebrating her 85th birthday. The client said "my mother has never in her life had a cake as beautiful as this!"

The cameos and other breloques that hang from the pearls all over this cake are all edible and are hand made then painted with gold.

Mini Cakes

Our mini cakes are more and more popular, each week we are asked to do them for clients who are looking for a good quality cake that says "Happy Anniversary", "Happy Birthday", "Congratulations" and so on, but for two - four people. On the left are mini Tiffany cakes that we made for a bridal shower tea party. They were so cute we didn't want them to leave the shop!

Then there was the beautiful cream coloured rose touched with blush pink on top of a cake, just to say "Thank You".

Then we have our little "Happy Birthday" cake all in pink with it's little white bow and tiny pink rosebuds and another "Happy Birthday" with purple fondant and white and green flowers.

A tiny surprise first anniversary cake for two ordered by a husband who wanted to surprise his wife with something special to mark the occasion.

And finally (well it wasn't, but I didn't take pictures of the other two) we have the little bling cake with it's delightful textured bow and miniature brooch which sits in the middle.

This miniature cakes average $15 and are customizable if ordered far enough in advance. For last minute orders we can only customize the colours for you and flavours are amongst any we have available at the time and can be ordered as little as one hour before you need it (while stocks last of course).

Friday 29 July 2011

Persian Gold - St Lawrence Hall, Toronto

When this wonderful couple asked me to make their wedding cake I was quite delighted, however, when I heard their ideas my heart sank, "Topsy turvy" they said "with a pillow and a cup with coffee coming out and all tilted and looking like it's falling down". But they wanted a serious side to their cake since their venue dictated some kind of antique feel with lots of gold and engravings, high ceilings and chandeliers.Up for a challenge and totally out of my comfort zone I agreed to work in styrofoam for the topsy turvy part of the cake and real cake for the more serious base of the cake.

Starting weeks ago with the construction was fun, how to place the pieces so that they looked like they were falling, without having them actually fall. Then came the task of covering them so that they would look good at all angles, these cakes show their bottoms (so to speak) when usually cakes are not decorated underneath these are.

We began setting up the pieces in the general formation that they would appear in taking pictures as we went so that we wouldn't forget how to put it all back together again once it was taken apart. Then came the job of applying the fondant and allowing it to dry thoroughly before reassembling the cake (to avoid all the fingermarks and dents that we could have created when trying to manipulate this if the cake had been real.

Next came the task of starting to antique the cake so that it would look like it was made 100's of years ago and was just sitting there waiting to be eaten (sounds like a Dickens novel doesn't it?) Now that the pieces were in place it was easy to pick out the parts that needed darkening and highlighting, the final cake started to take shape. Gold balls were added, but not bold bright ones, we found gold balls that looked slightly tarnished.

The Great Hamilton Cupcake Wars

Click image to enlarge.
Cucpcakes from Let Them Eat Cakes. Photo by Sheryl Nadler

Reported by KristyHutter
Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Reported File

Doughnuts are out. Cupcakes are in. And not only are Hamiltonians eating them, they are opening shops that specialize in these trendy treats. At least four have opened in the last year – one as early as two weeks ago – and they are thriving.

Labeling my quest "The Great Hamilton Cupcake Wars" may seem like an exaggeration but as shops pop up dangerously close to one another, this may very well end up being the case as each business attempts to create an identity that makes them unique.

Let's look at what else makes each shop different, starting with Weil's of Westdale on King Street. This classic pastry shop has been around the longest and prides itself on century-old baking traditions.

Pastry chef Sandy Zimmerman insists Weil's is one of the few places that still uses old-fashioned butter and fudge icings from scratch. But she says it's those decades-old recipes that make these traditional cupcakes the tastiest and cheapest (from $1.50 a piece!) in the city.

"We probably don't do as many wacky flavours as other places, but anything is doable if ordered ahead," she says.

One would think Weil's cupcakes would be competition for Hamilton's original cupcake shop, also in Westdale, simply called Cupcakes. But owner Anna Campagna says her customers are so loyal that "they try the other places and they always come back."

Cupcakes of Westdale opened six years ago, making it the oldest bakery to sell cupcakes as its only commodity. Cupcakes stays in business by sticking to its roots and appealing to that connoisseur of traditional pleasures.

"Everybody says they taste like mom used to make," says Campagna.

But a cupcake is no longer a classic dessert. Yes, I can recount pleasant memories of my mother and I making (Betty Crocker's straight-from-the-box rainbow chip) cupcakes to distribute to my classmates in my earlier years. But these personal-sized indulgences have come a long way since then. They are no longer just for birthdays.

Enter Sarah Hefford and Rebecca Tomasic, an energetic duo of bakers who are anything but classic.

These two single moms decided to open up a modern bakery with a fun, bright, lively atmosphere, where the cupcake is the star player. They are adventurous with ingredients – hello, bacon and peanut butter! And decorating – "The Hammer" and "Eat 'em Raw" are their two Hamilton-inspired creations.

Bitten on Locke opened two weeks ago and Hefford and Tomasic are already bringing in regular customers. Could this mean competition for fellow Locke Street cupcake shop, Sweetness Bakery? Maybe. But Sweetness already has two other locations in Burlington and Ancaster and business is booming.

Although Sweetness Bakery sells unusual flavours like Bitten, you won't see any peanut butter here. After his son suffered a severe allergic reaction to peanuts, owner Steve Deighton decided to open a dessert shop that was safe for those who are anaphylactic.

Even further from traditional is Natalie Ravoi and her traveling cupcakes. The Cupcake Diner – Hamilton's first gourmet food truck – is definitely not something we would have seen ten years ago. In her home-based kitchen, Natalie bakes her batches in the early hours of the morning and hits the road in a hard-to-miss pink vehicle that resembles an old-fashioned ice cream truck. She uses Twitter and Facebook to inform her followers as to where her three stops will be that day.

Hamilton's growing cupcake availability may make them the classy alternative to a Tim Horton's muffin or a Krispy Kreme, but Lynne Jury's idea of class is slightly different than those of her cupcake-making counterparts.

Initially a wedding cake bakery and showroom, Let Them Eat Cakes is now complete with a Tea Room. Jury realized she had to do something for her drop-in customers who want a taste of her creations without having to buy a full cake. Think High Tea with the Queen: bright, airy and unquestionably girly with vintage china and pink tablecloths – an elegant place to take a seat and take pleasure in a personal-sized wedding cake.

"We want our clients to sit and enjoy their cupcakes slowly like they do in Europe," says Jury, originally from Europe herself.

As these local bakeries flourish, it is clear cupcake aficionados are not going anywhere.

"Hamilton wants cupcakes," says Sweetness Bakery owner Deighton. "Hamilton wants portion-controlled decadent indulgences that they can include in their lives on a weekly basis."

WEIL'S OF WESTDALE

Who: Sandy Zimmerman (Pastry Chef)
Where: 981 King St. West
When: July 1998

Mission Statement: To continue the Weil's tradition of baking and customer service, while adding some modern touches.

What makes them different: Use recipes that trace back 100 years, custom orders

Most popular: Red Velvet, old fashioned Chocolate (with fudge icing)

Strangest/most unlikely cupcake: Creamsicle (vanilla cake with sweet orange icing)

Craziest order: cakes in the shape of men's nether regions

Favorite cupcake: Classic vanilla cake with chocolate icing

CUPCAKES OF WESTDALE

Who: Anne Campagna (Owner, Pastry Chef)
Where: 1050 King Street West
When: February 2005

Mission Statement: Good to the last bite.

What makes them different: custom design your own cupcake (pick from a variety of sprinkles and toppers to create your own themed cupcake right in the shop)

Most popular: Red Velvet (with a vanilla butter cream icing)

Strangest/most unlikely cupcake: The Pupcake (a cupcake for dogs)

Craziest order: a man had an engagement ring baked right into the middle of a cupcake and then proposed to his girlfriend with it

Favorite cupcake: Lemon Drop (Homemade lemon curd with yellow lemon-vanilla icing)

BITTEN ON LOCKE

Who: Sarah Hefford (Owner, Baker), Rebecca Tomasic (Owner, Baker)
Where: 219 Locke St. South
When: July 2011

Mission Statement: To deliver the best quality cupcakes in a fun atmosphere and experience.

What makes them different: Whoopie pies (a dessert resembling an ice cream sandwich popular in the United States)

Most popular cupcake: The Hammer (chocolate cake with vanilla butter cream and chocolate Hammer garnish)

Strangest/most unlikely cupcake: Hunk of Burnin' Love (banana cupcake with peanut butter butter cream and topped with a piece of candied bacon)

Craziest order: the man who comes in every morning to pick up a dozen

Favourite cupcake: Sarah's: Vanilla + Vanilla; Rebecca's: Zesty (lime flavoured cake with lime cream cheese icing)

SWEETNESS BAKERY

Who: Steve Deighton (Owner), Leslie Morrow (Manager, Pastry Chef)
Where: 196 Locke St. South
When: November 2010

Mission statement: Fresh daily, from scratch, peanut-free baked goods made with premium ingredients. "Everyone needs a little sweetness."

What makes them different: Custom orders and the mobile bakery at Gore Park three days a week

Most popular cupcake: Red Velvet for the ladies and Chocolate Sundae for the kids

Strangest/most unlikely cupcake: Root Beer Float (vanilla cupcake, filled and topped with root beer butter cream, a cherry and a little straw)

Craziest order: an edible bowling alley

Favorite cupcake: Steve's: Triple Chocolate; Leslie's: Salty Caramel (caramel cake, filled with caramel sauce, topped with caramel butter cream, caramel drizzle and sea salt flakes)

CUPCAKE DINER

Who: Natalie Ravoi (Owner, Pastry Chef)
Where: All over Hamilton
When: May 2011

Mission Statement: Having fun with Hamiltonians by serving cupcakes curb-side.

What makes them different: Local ingredients, a large menu that has 60 flavours, the cupcake truck

Most popular: Red Velvet, and Chocolate Bar themed cupcakes

Strangest/most unlikely cupcake: Pina Colada (inspired by the summery drink), S'more (inspired by the camp fire)

Craziest order: by the hundreds for corporate events

Favorite cupcake: Caramel Apple Pie (vanilla bean cupcake spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, freshly baked apples, vanilla cinnamon butter cream, drizzled with caramel)

LET THEM EAT CAKES

Who: Lynne Jury (Owner, Pastry Chef)
Where: 154 James St. South
When: March 2011

Mission Statement: Cakes made to order using the finest ingredients and the latest styles and techniques.

What makes them different: Opportunity to rent out an elegant environment to sit and enjoy cupcakes with tea for events such as wedding/baby showers; "double decker" cupcakes

Most popular: Vanilla cupcake

Strangest/most unlikely cupcake: White velvet cake with Jamaican coffee frosting

Craziest order: A Minas Trith cake (the fictional city from Lord of the Rings)

Favorite cupcake: Vanilla cupcake

http://hamilton.openfile.ca/hamilton/file/2011/07/great-hamilton-cupcake-wars

Monday 18 July 2011

Let Them Eat Cakes in Weddingbells Fall/Winter 2011 Edition

We are thrilled to once again have been asked to participate in the Wedddingbells wedding cakes feature. We have appeared in Weddingbells magazine in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

We also participated in their 25th anniversary celebrations by being chosen to represent the wedding profession with 24 other talented artists who presented their cakes for the occasion.

This issue is all about royal wedding inspiration and in a photo shoot that was entirely inspired by English traditions the earthy brown tones with terracotta, burgundy and deep ivory colours being the basis and flowers, lace and gardens being the theme. We created 15 miniature wedding cakes 6 of them shown (or just about shown) here. Come in and see them close up!

Sunday 17 July 2011

Scottish Wedding

It is a popular thing to celebrate heritage at weddings, many clients ask us for small tokens of their family history to appear on their wedding cakes.

This cake was made for the mother of one of our previous clients who said she just wouldn't go anywhere else for her wedding cake (always nice to hear!)

English roses around the top, Scottish thistles around the second tier with an arrangement of white sugar roses and sugar thistles bringing their heritage together.

Happy 40th Birthday

A 40th birthday celebration for a group of friends all celebrating this month.

An eclectic cake with odd stripes, dots and stars to make a festive centrepiece.

Now, generally at this point I say "but the glitter on the stars didn't photograph properly" - but this time I managed to get a close up of the stars to demonstrate the wonderful twinkle effect that we can get with edible glitter. Doesn't that look pretty?

This edible glitter comes in all sorts of funky colours and is just perfect as a little extra touch for party time! It's pretty in the daytime, but when it's night and the lights go on these stars light up with multicoloured flashes.

Graduation - University of Toronto

Satin draped fabric looking fondant with the University of Toronto crest with roses, forget-me-nots and edible pearls.

For a late graduation celebration, it's never too late to celebrate a happy event or an accomplishment.

Miniature Tiffany Cakes

For a bridal shower this week we made 35 miniature Tiffany cakes...oh what a lot of work these little babies are, but oh so pretty when they're all sitting in a row.
White velvet cake with vanilla buttercream inside, these little cakes are as delicious to eat as they are to see.

Tuesday 12 July 2011

Evergreen - Maplewood Lodge, Ancaster

When you're looking for a pretty cake with no flowers...well, how about use leaves?

This cake, was inspired by another cake design but we added the wedding logo (from the invitations and wedding stationery and tiny pink 'berries' just for a little extra pizzazz.

Maplewood Lodge is situated in a deeply wooded area in Ancaster (past Canterbury Bells, near the Old Mill) and this cake was just perfect for a reception in a rustic environment.