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.

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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/

Threadcakes Contest: Cookie Loves Milk

After finishing the Byebi cake entry, I had time to squeeze in one last one for the threadcakes contest and I chose to recreate the "Cookie loves Milk" design. Even you have to agree that this t-shirt design is beyond adorable, right?


I swear I had a smile on my face the entire time I was making this cake, especially since I knew that my nieces and nephews would be seeing and eating this cake the next day. You can read the description and see the in-process photos here.
It was a blast making all three cakes for the contest. Hopefully, I'll have time next year to participate again. :)

Lien Sanchez
Crazy Cake Company
www.crazycakecompany.com

Threadcakes Contest: Byebi

As I mentioned in my previous post, I entered three cakes in the threadcakes contest. This second entry is hands down, one of the favorite cakes I've ever made. I would even go so far as to say that if I had to do it all over again, my wedding cake would look very similar to this. I absolutely love the elaborate simplicity (yes, I realize that's an oxymoron) of the bird graphic.

Here's the t-shirt design, Byebi, that inspired the cake. It's too bad that it's currently out of print. :(

And here's my interpretation of the graphic. Again, you can read the description and see the in-process photos here. I made this cake (all the cakes really) because I thought it would be fun but it was really nice to also be recognized with a 2nd place win in the 2D category. Woohoo! Thanks threadcakes!

P.S. Check out all the awesome winners in the 2D and 3D categories here.

P.S.S. I love this cake so much, I think I'm going to reproduce it as a display cake using styrofoam :).

Lien Sanchez

Crazy Cake Company

www.crazycakecompany.com