Our Cake is Now Officially a Masterpiece!!

http://www.zwarenstein.com

OK, so maybe not the cake itself, but the painting above is definitely a masterpiece!  We were lucky enough to have a 36" x 24" oil painting done by a world-renowned artist, Alex Zwarenstein.

Alex holds a MFA from the Royal Academy of Arts in London, teaches at The National Academy of Design and the Art Students League of New York, has received numerous awards, and his work is often exhibited at various prestigious galleries around the world.

Alex came to our New Jersey bakery armed with his camera and within a few weeks he had my jaw dropping when I saw what he came up with. He made our cake come to life!

Thanks, Alex! This piece of art will have a special place in our hearts and our bakery.

Below is the cake Alex used as an inspiration:

NJ Wedding Cake and Fondant Recipe

http://www.confectionarydesigns.com

Bergen County Bakery

This cake was created for an elegant yet intimate wedding. We came up with the design based on the bride's dress and bouquet. The dress had slight accents of gold and was covered in beautiful beads. Her bouquet consisted of lilies and greenery so we came up with a design of sugarpaste flowers for this cake.

Usually for all our cakes we use premade Satin Ice rolled fondant which we find is very consistent and easy to use. For this cake we used a marshmallow fondant (see recipe below). Although the cake looked wonderful, we did find the 'home-made' fondant much more work and not as consistent as our tried and true Satin Ice.

Ingredients

• 10.5 ounce bag of marshmallows
• 1 tsp flavoring of choice - optional (vanilla, almond, etc...)
• 2 lbs sifted Confectioners Sugar
• 3 Tbsp  Water

Instructions

• Place marshmallows in a microwave safe container and melt on medium heat until just melted (about 45 seconds).
• Add the water and flavoring of choice and stir with a wooden spoon coated with shortening.
• Add 1/2 the confectioners sugar and mix well; add the other half and mix until incorporated. (note: you may also use your stand mixer with the dough attachment for this step) 
• Lightly grease your counter top with shortening and kneed until slightly stiff.
• Wrap in plastic wrap slightly oiled with vegetable oil. Let rest for 24 hours. 

The beads for the cake were made using our favorite bead mold from First Impressions Molds.  We have several of their molds and in our opinion these are the best on the market!

A Summer Wedding Cake - NJ Bakery

http://www.confectionarydesigns.com

Bogota, NJ

In New Jersey we received our first dusting of snow a few days ago and the weatherman says we should be getting hit with a big storm on Sunday. Looks like we'll be breaking out the shovels at the bakery this weekend!

As I was driving home today I was missing the warmer weather so I decided to break out a picture from last summer of one of our seashore wedding cakes. We loved making this cake and it was featured in 201Bride magazine. Everything you see is edible from the royal icing coral to the chocolate shells.

I hope you feel a little 'warmer' after viewing this cake!