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Trending with Fashion Inspired Wedding Cakes

Ahh, another perfect Wednesday filled with fantastic wedding inspiration, today we bring you some fabulous wedding cakes inspired by fashion. Who new that an amazing source of inspiration for your wedding could be your closet. We’ve seen how fashion can inspire table centerpieces, dinnerware, interior decor and of course color palettes.  So why stop there? Basing your wedding cake and color palette on your favorite piece of clothing assures an incredible outcome. But, designing your cake based on your wedding dress is just GENIUS.

Source: Belle the magazine

Metallic Drama – Golden Wedding Cakes

These striking metallic and golden cakes are not new, but we think it’s a good idea to share with our new brides some of the different options that can be available when planning your wedding. Or think about a dessert table with different kinds of sparkly cupcakes and desserts.

Source: Belle The Magazine

Guilty Pleasures with Cake Opera Co.

Toronto based Cake Opera Co. was formed by the wildly talented duo (see below) Alexandria Pellegrino and Jessica Smith. Alexandria, the resident ‘artiste,’ and Jessica, the patissier, compliment each other’s talents and have created a totally unique take on the art of cake making. They describe their look as dramatic, evocative and design-sensitive, gearing their pieces to truly confident connoisseurs of sweets. Alexandria founded Cake Opera Co. in 2007 and since then has received tremendous international praise as one of the industry’s leading cake designers. She is the recipient of several awards including two gold medals on “Food Network Challenge“.

“Baroque influence is everywhere,” explains Alexandria. “Early on as a painter and sculptor, I drew most of my inspiration from the 18th Century bourgeois and the alluring concept of beauty and the sublime. As I began to shift my focus from fine arts to cakes, I fell in love with the frivolousness and fleeting beauty of cakes. The Rococo era perfectly encapsulated the ideas I was trying to portray.”

Salted caramel and heart-shaped macarons, boudoir-blue meringues, dark Valrhona chocolate bars flavored with pink sea salt, white sesame and crystallized ginger are just some of the incredible confections they offer.

Alexandria’s art takes the form of delicately sculpted, ornate cakes with her signature hand-modeled shapes like birds, Louis XIV and Venetian Moretto Mask figurines. Their cakes would not be complete without gilded flowers, gold and silver flourishes, (edible) Faberge eggs and other rich design elements that seem to explode off their pieces.

Cake Opera Co. also offers divine dessert tables called Operettas, in themes like Enchanted Forest, Black & White, Bohemian Chic and Ethereal White that can be filled with your choice of chocolate tablets, marshmallows, meringues, butter cookies, nougats and of course, cupcakes.

For Jessica, the pastry chef, she loves the moment when her clients take their first bite at a consultation. She’s a firm believer that tradition is more important than trend. Taste above all else!

She adores classic combinations like dark chocolate and fresh raspberries, honey and nougat, and black currant and lavender. She prefers to forgo the flavors of the moment.

She also confides that she is totally in love with their Red Velvet Cake with White Chocolate and Cream Cheese Buttercream and, if she could, she would eat it every day. Their most popular flavor for wedding cakes is the Bourbon Vanilla Princess Cake with Fresh Lemon Buttercream and Blueberries, described as slightly tart, textured and refreshing. Their Banana Cake with Salted Caramel Ganache and Milk Chocolate Buttercream is also a major hit among their loyal clientele.

Newlyweds Nicole Richie and Joel Madden, who tied the knot in December 2010, had their towering Versailles-themed, white and gold embellished red velvet wedding cake created by Cake Opera Co. The lucky couple was depicted in sculpted sugar on the top of their cake, complete with period powdered wigs and all.

They are proud of the fact that they attract a sophisticated clientele that really wants something unique, something special created just for them; in essence, a bespoke cake. In the five years they’ve been a team they’ve never had a single client ask them to copy a cake from a photograph. Their customers are encouraged to dream and discuss freely what they see ideally in a cake.

The Beauty, Elegance & Whimsy of Sylvia Weinstock Cakes

It’s an “oh and ah” moment StrictlyWedidngs.com fans! We captured these amazing cakes from Sylvia Weinstock’s blog to end your week with admiration for the incredible talent of this cake artist. (A must see is her Beauty & The Beast cake).

Sylvia Weinstock has created celebratory cakes for 30 years. She was motivated to produce not only beautiful cakes but also the most delicious cake. She uses crème de la crème, finest butter, heavy cream, fresh fruit and imported chocolate to create the most memorable delectable creations.

Not a wedding cake, but goodness, this is painted onto butter cream! Just incredible.

StrictlyWeddings.com NYC – Welcome Partners – Margaret Braun – Wedding Cakes

In the next weeks, we’ll showcase our new luxury wedding partners from New York City. Today, it’s New York City Cake designer, Margaret Braun.

Margaret Braun – Author of Cakewalk (Rizzoli), is a Sugar Artist who has redefined the art of cake decorating. Internationally renowned for her distinctive, boundary breaking style which fuses food and the fine arts, Margaret has influenced and inspired dessert and design enthusiast for years. At the same time, her emphasis on classical technique places her in the realm of genuine artisans from centuries past. Born in New York to a family of musicians and food lovers, Margaret spent the better part of her early life drawing on napkins, jeans, shoes, desks, and walls, until she found herself in a pastry kitchen where she began drawing on cakes. Then she discovered food coloring and from that moment on Margaret went on to create some of the most beautiful and delicious edible creations ever seen.

Sylvia Weinstock Cakes – a New York Destination

She considers herself a destination shop. One look at her cakes and you definitely “get” why she is the destination for wedding cakes, not just in New York City, but worldwide.

“She” is Sylvia Weinstock, and in peak wedding season, it’s not unusual for Weinstock and her small staff to work 15-hour days at her TriBeCa bakery (fortunately, she lives upstairs, when it’s time to go home!). At 80, Sylvia Weinstock’s philosophy for weddings and wedding cakes is straight forward and simple.

Weinstock offer cakes that are by no means ordinary: all icing is made from butter cream; all flowers are handmade of sugar; and no fondant (a creamy sugar paste used in icings) is used on any cakes – she doesn’t like the taste of it and won’t impose it on her clients. Her cakes start at $17 per person, but prices can go much higher.

She creates cakes as part of the overall wedding “statement” and each is designed to coordinate with the theme and mood of the wedding. Her unique creations have ranged from the whimsical to the magical and every part of Weinstock’s cakes is edible … one can only imagine.

To view just a few of her delectable creations, visit her blog.

Photos courtesy of John Labbe.

Wedding Cakes: Stunning Couture Cake Designs

StrictlyWeddings.com found these stunning custom designed cakes in our ongoing search for amazing wedding ideas. Created by The Caketress, Lori Hutchinson who creates beautiful one of kind cakes for her clients from Toronto, Muskoka, and to the Blue Mountain area and is dedicated to providing quality custom designed cakes that are entirely unique.

Might even be the reason to a different type of destination wedding!

The rich flavor of the three tier square cake below was an Opera Cake (top two) and the bottom was a Lemon Cake. Both favorites of the Bride and Groom. The delicate  piping was based on the lovely invitations the bride had choosen, and the falling pink blossoms and coral hydrangeas gave the right pop of colour for their elegant affair.

The bride loved the look of rustic rolled white chocolate for her golden wedding cake. This four tier oval golden cake needed to match the old world feel to her wedding decor. Filled with raspberries and white chocolate ganache, this cake screams decadence. Handed made sugar flowers, each uniquely painted in actual gold, finished this beautiful and delicious cake.

OMG … a Chocolate Lovers Dream

OMG … these photos are definitely over the top if you love chocolate! Today will have to be “break the diet day” and go for the chocolate! These luscious desserts are just a sampling of the creations you can find at Pure Chocolate Desserts by Zach, a unique and sophisticated brand of cakes and desserts in Dallas, Texas.

Zach Townsend’s relationship with superior chocolate began with his close friendship with Michel Jambon, founder of the European chocolate company, Jeff de Bruges. Through Monsieur Jambon, Zach cultivated his love of truly fine chocolate.  He complemented his self studies with courses in baking and chocolate at the Cordon Bleu in Paris, France and is a graduate of the Ecole Chocolat Professional School of Chocolate Arts.

Zach’s inspiration for his artisan creations come from a unique style of pastry design referred to as entremet, featuring multiple thin layers of flavors and textures. He loves to bring his experiences from France back to his clients through his creations.

For weddings, Zach does not do traditional wedding cakes or grooms cakes. Instead, as chocolatier, he creates a sophisticated presentation of unique dessert items, usually in small bites or individual slices, to replace or complement the traditional settings.

Zach was featured in 2009 by cookbook author and editor Tish Boyle in Dessert Professional Magazine and was the featured chocolatier at the 2009 10th annual Stephan Pyles Celebrity Chef Dinner administered by the Wine & Food Foundation of Texas. He is also a regular contributor to the New York Times microblog on the topic of Cake.

Wedding Dessert Tables …so much more!

As we research unique luxury wedding planners in New York City, we came across the phenomenal talents of Amy Atlas‘ and her oh so special wedding dessert tables. Yumm-o! Made us want to get married all over again.

We encourage you to visit her website to view the hundreds of photos that she has of all her sweet treats. Definitely worth the time to marvel at the creativity and (no doubt) flavors that can be experienced from her many goodies.

Photographs courtesy of Gemma Commas

Exquisite Touches – Wedding Cake Stands by Clara French Ceramique

Micaela Willis founded Clara French Ceramique to honor her great-great grandmother Clara French, who was a painter and the first female artist in her family. Her grandmother provided her with an abundance of art supplies and encouraged her to create (and she never stopped). Micaela started Clara French Ceramique after making her sister’s wedding cake stand.

The photos below are beautiful representations of just a few samples of what you can find from her delightful website – clarafrench.com. This site is well worth taking the time to browse (the lovely music makes you think your sitting in a French cafe sipping coffee and eating pastry). And the online “boutique” gives you many options to choose from.