Cakegrrl.com Interview

Oh, my poor neglected blog readers, I promise to carve out some time soon to post about some of my recent creations. But, in the meantime, check out this interview I did with Kristy who writes the fabulous Cakegrrl.com blog. :)

Lien Sanchez
Crazy Cake Company
www.crazycakecompany.com
(916) 849-9794

KCRA A-List win and my 4 1/2 minutes of fame....

OMG, I can't believe that I forgot to post my blog about my KCRA A-List win for "BEST CAKE". When it was officially announced last Friday, I emailed friends, blasted it across my facebook page and drafted a blog post but completely forgot to post it! Doh! I must be getting old...

Well, it's probably for the better since now I can post videos and give the behind the scenes scoop on my two TV appearances. Yes, two (details to come).

First and foremost, thank you, thank you, thank you, to all of you who voted for me! You guys seriously ROCK!! I'm so overjoyed to have won for "BEST CAKE" in the wedding cake category, especially considering the fierce competion I had.

I was first notified of my win a few days before it was publicly announced when a producer from KCRA called and asked if I would be interested in doing a brief TV spot on their Friday morning news. Would I? Are you kidding me? Of course I would!! As luck would have it though, that week was also one of my busiest weeks of the year with multiple wedding cake and cookie orders for Memorial Day weekend but of course I made it work.

I showed up to the TV studio Friday morning with a few things to talk about: my recreation of the AT-AT cake I made for my husband's birthday, a DIY cupcake display made from things found around the house, and some cookie favors I made that week. I was told the spot would be about 3 minutes and having timed it at home (you know, for practice) I expected it to go by fast but even I was caught off guard by just how fast it went. You can watch the clip here (sorry, can't seem to figure how to imbed these videos, email me if you know how :).

Only after filming did I realize that my segment was actually cut short because they were running behind. I felt a little better knowing that I didn't misjudge the timing but to be honest, I left the studio feeling a little dejected. Not only did I not say anything to actually promote my business, I reduced my fabulous 7-yr career as an executive in the DVD industry to "selling DVDs", and worse yet I called my husband a "geek" on TV (while "geek" is a term of endearment in my books, I know others may see it differently). I felt like such a TV rookie, which I was but that's besides the point.

The light at the end of the tunnel came a couple hours later when I received another call from KCRA - they felt really bad about cutting my segment and asked if I had time to come down to the studio the following day to do another shoot. In reality, I didn't since I still had cakes to decorate for the upcoming weekend weddings but I would make time for the chance at redemption.

Learning from my mistakes, I decided to keep it simple and bring one of the wedding cakes I made along with the matching cookie favors. I also switched from my non-flattering white chef's coat to an apron which I was hoping was bit more slimming. I think this one went much better. Check it out here.

Well, as you can see, the apron can only do so much when you're standing next to Mai Fesai. I'm no petite flower but watching the video, I seriously looked like an Amazon compared to her 100lb-frame. And can you believe she has two kids? In any case, the segment still wasn't perfect (lots of um's, etc.) but I feel a lot better about it :)

So, there you go my 4 1/2 minutes of fame. And once again thank you, thank you, for all your support!!!

Lien Sanchez

Crazy Cake Company

www.crazycakecompany.com

(916) 849-9794

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Puh-lease vote for us.....

As of the time of this post, there is only one day, 10 hours and 10 minutes left to KCRA's A-List competition. We have been nominated for "BEST CAKE" for the greater Sacramento region and last I was able to check we were only 3% points away from stealing away the #1 spot from these guys. We're sooooo close, won't you help us out by voting for us? Pretty please....

Click HERE to vote for us =D. Polls close at 11:59pm PST on May 2oth!!

Thanks all!

Lien Sanchez
Crazy Cake Company
http://www.crazycakecompany.com/
(916) 849-9794

Celebrity Chef Challenge Recap

Ok, I know this recap is bit late in coming but May has been (and still is) crazy busy. Between weddings, wedding cakes, graduations, and birthdays (including my own), 24 hours a day simply is not enough.

If you didn't make it to the 8th Annual Celebrity Chef Challenge on April 30th, boy did you miss out. Well, actually so did I in a matter of speaking :( - I was so busy doing my cake carving demo, I didn't have time to check out many of the booths around but from what I gathered from those who attended, the entrance fee was more than worth all the delicious food and wine that was consumed that evening, not to mention the awesome live entertainment, namely the celebrity chef challenge. Bad news is that I don't have much details on the cooking challenge; in fact, I was only able to glimpse at the setup.

Good news is that I do have tons of pictures to share on my cake carving demo. To remind you, I had chosen to carve a 1953 Porsche Coupe that was on display at the California Auto Museum.

I started off with a big block of cake. (Why didn't anyone tell me my hair was sticking out in the back?)

Starting to carve the profile of the car. I look so serious, lol.

More carving...btw, that's the actual car in the back.

Adding the curves to the hood.

A quick stop to take a photo with my lovely assistants for the evening: my sister, Tran, and my best friend, Michelle, who were helping me hand out hundreds of samples of my red velvet cake with cream cheese buttercream. They rocked!

Applying black fondant to the top of the cake, later to become the windows for the car.

Next, a covering of red fondant.

Scoring the lines of the door.

Picture of the crowd that had gathered to watch.

Smoothing out the front bumper.

Painting on the silver trim.

Finally finished. You see that I was sooo happy to be done that you can barely see my eyes with that huge smile, lol.And about 20 minutes after I finished, I noticed that I had forgotten to add the silver trim to the front and back bumpers (Darn!).

At the end of the evening this lucky man, Jon, was able to take the porsche cake home and enjoy it with their friends and neighbors the next day. Here is a pic of me and Jon and below is one of his lovely wife, Brenda, getting ready to cut into the cake. It was a busy night for sure since there were a lot of steps to carving and decorating a car cake but I'd definitely participate again next year. I may, however, choose to do a less time-consuming subject, something that will allow me more time to interact with the crowd.....oh definitley more time to sample some of the awesome food and wine. =D

Lien Sanchez

Crazy Cake Company

www.crazycakecompany.com

(916) 849-9794

Weddingbee Guest Post

Hi folks! My sister-in-law, Carol, is getting married tomorrow and I'm busy finalizing details for her fabulous cake display so I don't have much time but I just wanted to invite you check out my guest post on Weddingbee.com on how to freeze the top tier of your wedding cake.

I love, love, love Weddingbee - it's one of those habits I've yet to kick from my wedding days...well that and DIY projects - so I'm super excited to contribute :)

Click here to check it out!

Lien Sanchez
Crazy Cake Company
(916) 849-9794

Celebrity Chef Challenge

Next Friday is the 8th Annual Celebrity Chef Challenge and I'm super duper excited! Why, you ask? Not only will our company be there to help support a great cause (more on that later), I will also be doing a live cake carving demonstration! Yippee!!

The Celebrity Chef Challenge is Northern California's own version of the popular Food Network show Iron Chef. In front of a live audience, six regional chefs have 45 minutes to turn five secret ingredients into 3 delectable dishes. Got that? 6 chefs, 45 minutes, 5 secret ingredients, 3 dishes. Watching people cook is bound to make the crowd hungry so adjacent to this competition is a fabulous wine & food fair where folks can sample drinks and goodies from over 25 wineries and 45 regional vendors (us included). Food competition, wine, and yummy samples, if this isn't foodie heaven, I don't know what is! The cherry on top has got to be that Guy Farris and Melissa Crowley from Sacramento & Co. will be emceeing the event and that celebrity chef judge, Dominque Crenn from "The Next Iron Chef" will be judging.

Tickets are $50 in advance and $60 at-the-door and all proceeds go to help an extremely worthy organization, InAlliance. InAlliance has been helping people with developmental disabilities gain independence through employment since 1952 and as I have a younger brother who has actually benefitted from their services, I am more than happy to do what I can to help support them, including possibly embarassing myself doing a live cake carving/decorating demonstration.

Last week I met Jessica, the show coordinator, at the California Auto Museum (formerly Towe Auto Museum) where the event will be held to go over details and to pick out my cake carving subject. With so many classic cars on display, we thought it would be fitting for me to make a scale replica of one of these beauties. When I laid eyes on the signal red 1953 Porsche 1500 Coupe (model 356), I knew she was the one (with all those curves, you know it's gotta be a "she").

She was sandwiched between two other cars and I couldn't get a good profile shot but here she is again, this time wearing blue. Isn't she gorgeous?

I've got roughly 2 1/2 hours to carve and decorate this cake, which really isn't even enough time for certain detail parts to dry so wish me luck, lol. Embarassment or not, I promise that it'll be a great show =D. So if you're a fan of food shows, cake shows, or just a fan of free food and wine, I encourage you to go buy your tickets for 8th Annual Celebrity Chef Challenge today. Go on, just click here.

-------------------

Lien Sanchez

Crazy Cake Company

www.crazycakecompany.com

(916) 849-9794

The Knot Best of Weddings 2010 Pick!!

2010 is shaping up to be great year for Crazy Cake Company; I've got some exciting things in the hopper (the most imminent being a website redesign) that has been keeping me super busy. I feel like I've been operating at full speed since the beginning of the year and now that Valentine's weekend is past, I can take a small breather and finally announce to all five of my loyal blog readers that I've been voted one of Theknot.com's Best of Wedding vendors in Northern California. Woooooohooooooo!!!!

Frankly, I've been a bit stunned ever since I was notified last November. I've always received great feedback from brides (and grooms) but never did I think that so many of them would take the time to fill out their after-wedding surveys and vote* for me on theknot.com. To say that I'm honored doesn't even cover the half of it. Being only 1 of 12 bakers in Northern California with the "best of weddings" vendor designation on the nation's largest wedding site is fabulous in and of itself but even better is knowing that it was earned based on the reviews from my brides. I am seriously a bit overwhelmed by how sweet and completely awesome my brides are. =D

The winter issue of the knot magazine recently hit the newsstands and of course, I rushed out immediately to secure a copy.


Okay, they have me listed as "Sacramento" when I'm technically in Davis but close enough, I say.

Finally, I would definitely be remiss if I did not send out a ginormous "THANK YOU!" to all my brides that left kind words on their surveys, you guys ROCK!!....................................and as for the rest of you that didn't bother, well, you can go......haha, just kidding, you know I love you guys too. ;P


Lien Sanchez
Crazy Cake Company
http://www.crazycakecompany.com/
(916) 849-9794


*Technically, it's not a vote. Brides receive after-wedding surveys about their wedding and vendors and the "best of weddings" vendors are then selected based on the quantity and quality of the brides' vendor reviews.

AT-AT Walker Surprise

Let me start by saying that I'm violating one of my basic blogging guidelines by posting this entry. I'm a stickler for sequential blogging but I'm just soooo excited about this cake and there's too many blog items in queue before this one, lol.

Some of you already know that my husband, Dennis, has three great loves in his life. He loves me the most (at least that's what I tell him); he loves Porsches (especially the Porsche 911 Carrera); and he loves Star Wars. More specifically, he loves the old-school episodes IV, V, and VI and even more specifically, he loves Imperial Stormtroopers and AT-AT Walkers. So when it came time to start planning for his birthday in December, I knew immediately that I wanted to make him an AT-AT Walker cake. I had already made him a Stormtrooper cake, a Porsche cake, and a Porsche cookie so I guess I was saving the best and most difficult for last.

Dennis' birthday is on December 26th (which totally sucks eggs, btw) and we usually have a fairly quiet celebration since everyone is either out of town or busy celebrating Christmas with family. This year, however, I decided to throw him a surprise birthday party the friday before his birthday while friends were still in town. All the guests did an amazing job keeping the secret and it's an understatement to say that he was simply surprised walking through the door. I have an awesome video of his reaction but for the sake of my marriage, I dare not post it, lol. It was a bit stressful making the cake in secret but the expression on his face when he saw his AT-AT cake more than justified the 50+ hours I spent slaving over it. Without further ado, here is my dear hubby next to his birthday cake holding my present to him, the LEGO Motorized AT-AT walker he's been denying himself.

It took a few minutes to convince him (and some guests) that the cake needed to be cut and eaten but finally he conceded and stabbed it with the cake cutter.

Inside was a moist almond cake with cream cheese buttercream filling. Yum!!

Making this cake was quite a challenge for me since I usually rely on my husband (who has an engineering background) to build my cake supports. Left to my own resources, I'm delighted to see that I've actually picked up some construction skills of my own :). Below is the basic framework after the underside and legs were decorated.

.....with the cake carved and iced with buttercream.
TIP: When making a scale replica of anything (especially for your engineer husband), it's always helpful to seek out blueprints and enlarge them to the size. Finally, please forgive me as I post too many photos of the this cake - there's just so many interesting angles.
Some close-up shots with better lighting.

Happy Birthday, hubby!!!

P.S. I accidentally left out a few details on the AT-AT but you won't notice unless you're a Star Wars fan. There's not too many of those out there, right?

Lien Sanchez

Crazy Cake Company

http://www.crazycakecompany.com/

The Versatile Circle

So my sister, Tran's birthday was in August and of course I made her a cake. I love making cakes for my sister 'cause every year I ask her what she wants and every year she says, "whatever you want to make me" <--- cake designers love this answer :). Like me, my sister loves bold colors so last year, I made her the below two-tiered cake with simple red flowers that remains one of my favorites to this day.
This year, I noticed that Tran had accumulated a lot of green stuff (clothes, bags, accessories, etc.) and made a comment to that affect. She responded by saying that green was her favorite color and I instantly felt like a heel for not knowing my own sister's favorite color. But, I quickly got over it and decided to make her a green cake for her birthday to make up for it. =D

My sister's big day fell on a busy week, so I chose a design that was fairly quick to execute. In terms of cake design, fondant circle cutouts are unquestionably the most versatile, not to mention virtually foolproof design element a designer can use. It's as simple as cutting and pasting, literally. Circles can be placed in a myriad of patterns to achieve designs that are cute, whimsical, modern, retro, and just plain cool . For my sister's cake, I went with the traditional "pretty" with the extra bit of oomph coming from the oversized gumpaste flowers I had made the week prior.

Here's a shot of the cake with the flowers placed to the right. .....and now to the left. I prefer the flowers on the left, don't ask me why.

I've seen this circle pattern used many times on other cakes but mostly done with very pale colors on a white background so that the tone on tone coloring almost resembles a texture. With the darker colored circles that I used, your attention is definitely more drawn towards the negative space left by the circles. The overall effect calls to mind gingham checks, no?......which immediately makes me think this cake would be fabulous done in red for a country wedding, maybe displayed on a bed of apples. But, I digress...........here are some close-ups of the gumpaste flowers.

I had loaned out my 12" cake stand but still wanted an elevated look for this cake so I MacGyver'd a cake stand by placing a flat serving plate on top of an upside down bowl. And to prevent slippage, I threw in a small square of grip padding. Ta-da!

So the moral of this blog post? Fondant circles are your friend and you can make a cake stand with almost anything. To end, a pic of my beautiful sister and her equally beautiful gal pals :).

Lien Sanchez

Crazy Cake Company

www.crazycakecompany.com

Less is more....

September passed by almost in a blur and boy do I have a lot of blogging to catch up on. First off, I must write about Amy and Kendall's wedding cake back in August. Amy loved the simple beauty of the April Reed style of cakes and showed me one in particular that she wanted to use as inspiration. Since she wasn't a fan of fondant, however, she asked if the smooth look of fondant can be achieved without actually using fondant. And always looking to please, of course I said yes.

I pride myself on precision sharp edges on my buttercream cakes so it was almost painful having to dull the edges to get the more contoured "fondant" look, but I wasn't feeling so bad after I saw how it softened the look of the cake. Below is a close-up. I absolutely love that Amy and Kendall chose to go with the natural look (and not to mention taste) of real vanilla bean buttercream. So divine. :)April Reed's designs exemplify the phrase "less is more" so the only thing needed to accent this 4-tier wedding cake were a few gumpaste peonies. The table set-up. Too bad the floating candles weren't lit, I bet that would casted a lovely glow.The cake table was lined up almost perfectly with a covered cable line on the wall and at just the right angle, we were able to capture this heavenly shot. Love, love, love it!! See, even in photography, less is more. :)

Lien Sanchez

Crazy Cake Company

http://www.crazycakecompany.com/