Wedding Gum Paste Stilettos

So the Florida I.C.E.D. competition also featured a wedding accessories category, so I brought along 2 gum paste stilettos (of course!)

I like how this one came out, even though it didn't win anything:

I ordinarily write my name on the label, but to keep it more anonymous, I drew the tattoo I have on my foot (in slightly different colors) as a signature and just put a little 'R'.

This other gum paste stiletto I made came in 2nd runner up in the professional division:

I opted to try a floating criss-cross ankle strap, and to add to the technical difficulty, I piped strings across the toe straps with royal icing.

If I had it to do over again, I think I would have only entered one accessory so that I wouldn't have had to rush and I could have put more detail or other pieces onto the board, but hind sight is 20-20 like that. :)

Romantic Wedding Dress Cake

So first of all, I am alive and well! :)  Sorry you haven't heard from me in a while.

Yesterday, I entered the Florida I.C.E.D. cake competition.  This was particularly tricky because I spent the whole week prior out in Colorado skiing with my dad (I know, poor me) but that meant I had to finish as much as I could before I left!  And do my homework and pack, etc. etc. etc...

I came back on Friday night and left for Florida early Saturday afternoon.  Fortunately, this cake is not real (i.e. the tiers are all dummies) which made transportation and lifting much easier.

For this competition, you had to select a picture of a wedding dress to use as inspiration and display it next to your cake-- here was my dress:

I liked this dress for a variety of reasons: 1) It's not white  2) I liked the fabric effects 3) The strings on the bodice/ shoulders lend themselves well to string work.

Speaking of string work...

My middle tier featured string and extension work suspended by pearls.  To do these sections, I had to flip the cake upside down, pipe the strings and extensions, then turn the cake right side up once the sections had set.

I was really excited about my floral spacer (all the flowers are gum paste, of course).  The judges seemed to really like my roses, so that makes me happy.  I really liked the colors.  The teal stephanotis may not be botanically correct, but that's part of the joy of gum paste, right??

My bottom tier featured fabric effects which I airbrushed with a pearl sheen.  I also set medallions between the tiers and then piped the suspended drop strings.  The board is isomalt (poured sugar) over aluminum foil.

There were more pictures taken at the show, but I don't have them yet.  When I get them, I will share them!

For the record, I was 2nd runner up in the professional division.  There were lots of awesome cakes!!

I also entered a couple of gum paste stilettos-- I will blog about those tomorrow, but I'll post pictures on my facebook page tonight if you can't wait! :)

My Gum Paste Stiletto Class!

This past weekend I taught my very first class-- Gum Paste Stilettos!

I taught at the International Sugar Art Collection (Nicholas Lodge's Studio) in his Studio B classroom.

The class was 2 days-- Saturday 10-4 and Sunday 10-5, and we managed to finish more or less on time!  Not bad for my first go round... :)

At the end of class, we lined up all our shoes for a photo shoot.  Don't these look like they're straight out of Carrie Bradshaw's closet?

Everybody made 2 stilettos, and there were no significant casualties.  I think everyone did an awesome job.

Up close so you can see the details...


I had a blast and I hope my students did too!

Now I need to work really hard on my competition cake for the end of the month because I'm already way behind schedule. :)

And a couple more shoes...

So in prepping for my class this weekend, I made this pair of shoes in... odd... colors.  Although they came out a little bit psychedelic, don't you think? The have a little bit of a 1960's thing going on.

Anyway, I apologize for my lack of posts for the last few weeks.  I've been swamped with school work this semester and just turned in another conference paper on Friday.  This week I'm gearing up for my class and then I'll be focused on some competition entries for the Florida I.C.E.D. Cake Competition on March 27!

The tricky part is, I'm going skiing for my spring break the week before, so everything needs to be done before I go... I guess I'd better get started!  And I might need to rent a car to drive down there, because god forbid I design a cake with constraints in mind, like fitting through my car door... :)