Piano Birthday Cake

This was an interesting cake to make as we never actually spoke to the client. The design, order, and payment were all completed online as the client lives in Hong Kong. She found our site online and needed a birthday cake for one of the WonderGirls, a musical group, who was scheduled to be in New York City on her birthday.

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The hardest part about this cake was making the piano entirely edible. I find Google Images to be one of the most helpful tools for me on the internet as I wasn't even sure all the parts of a piano. I was also concerned about the structure holding up so I used Mexican gumpaste which has a long enough working time but still dries quite hard. 

Black and White Birthday Cake - NJ Bakery

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Bogota, New Jersey

Our client came to us requesting a 70th birthday party cake and wanted the following elements incorporated into the design: black and white films, family, sudoku, bowling and gardening! At first, adding all these elements in a creative way was a bit intimidating, but once the creative juices started flowing it all came together in a cohesive fashion.

We used a graphics program to create a simple sudoku and made a black and white film strip with photos of her children and grandchildren. These images were then printed on frosting paper using edible ink and applied to the cake with a few dabs of water.

The '70' topper was made using sugarpaste and an exacto knife several days in advance to allow drying time. Once it was dry we painted it with silver luster dust and sprinkled edible glitter to add a little extra bang! The bowling pins/ball and plunger flowers were also made from sugarpaste.

Overall we were quite pleased with how all the elements worked together in this cake and, more importantly, the client loved it!

From Pencil to Pastry: NJ Birthday Cakes

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Bogota, NJ

When Confectionary Designs first opened it's doors in Northern, NJ, I had a vision we would be the cutting edge bakery regarding technology. After spending over 20 years in the Technology field my thought was "automate everything!" from inventory to finances to customer orders.

So when it came to creating a rendition of a custom cake for the client, I rolled up my sleeves and starting using the latest and greatest graphic program.  WRONG - stop right there!!  My partner pointed out to me that our customers get a special feeling when they see a hand-drawn rendition of their soon-to-be cake.

There is the question whether we are bakers or artists first - in my opinion, neither outweighs the other -  we are bakers AND artists. Our customers know we are making their cakes by hand and so it follows we should also be sketching their cakes by hand and that is the philosophy that our company has adopted.

I enjoy comparing the original sketch given to the client to the finished product. In the Betty Boop birthday cake above there is almost no deviation from the original drawing. This is the case with many of our cakes, but it does happen that as we are working on a cake we just know a banner would look better in 3D, or we need more roses to fill up a section, or a bead border will look better than a shell border, etc... and so we do some real-time design right on the cakes themselves.

A Fairy Tale Baby Shower - NJ Bakery

 

We were thrilled to create this baby shower cake for a very special couple. The theme for the party was 'Fairy Tales' and there are so many great fairy tales it was hard to come up with titles to use! All figurines are modelled using gumpaste and the book titles were hand painted.

When I arrived at the venue to deliver this cake I was blown away by the decor. The Finishing Touch, a company specializing in wedding and special events planning, had transformed a plain room into a magical fairy tale! Please see the photos below for just a peek at the set-up:



To see even more decorations and cake photos, please view our video below:

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Happy Halloween!

Here's to wishing a safe and happy Halloween to everyone!

At Confectionary Designs this is one of our favorite 'holidays' to make treats for. Cookies can be especially creative. Below is a photo of our haunted mansion cake we did for a dance party. Everything on our topsy-turvey mansion is edible, including the background! All the little details, like the 'flying' witch on her broom, took us forever, but we think it was well worth the work.

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