Bianca & Erik

Bianca and Erik have been together for 7 years now and I've known them pretty much since the beginning of their relationship. So when the couple asked me to make their wedding cake, I was honored. Every cake I make is special to me but to make a cake for someone you know always makes things extra special.

To those who know Bianca and Erik, you know that they are not going to go for the traditional tiered wedding cake. Within the first few minutes of our consultation, they settled on a sculpted cake reflecting wine and cheese as their wedding will be held in Paradise Ridge Winery in Santa Rosa. I thought of wine crates, cheese, wine and Erik said "Mice!" I drew them a really rough sketch of what I would do for them and after which, did some research myself. My vision was further inspired by Gateaux Inc's perfect wine themed cake with their permission.

There were a lot of firsts on this cake: my very first sugar wine bottle, first time for me to use modeling chocolate on an entire cake layer, and first time to drive 4 hours to get to destination. Thank goodness my dear hubby was nice enough to drive!

Here are some details of the cake.

View of wine bottle with our own "lover's blend" and "caviar"

Personalized the Parmigiano Reggiano wheel with the couple's wedding date

Look at the bride and groom mice!

The beautiful and happy couple

I can't help but post a photo of the breathtaking view from the top of the winery. Photo courtesy of my sister.

To Bianca and Erik, here is one thing our best man shared at our wedding that I know you will appreciate humorouly -- "There are 4 rings to marriage: engagement ring, wedding ring, suffe-ring AND endu-ring". :) To the ups and downs of marriage life, through thick and thin, and to hopefully lots of little Eriks and Biancas...CHEERS!! Congratulations!!

The Amazing Mike

Mike Mccarey of Mike's Amazing cakes is known for making exceptional 3 dimensional cakes that's totally out of the box. He's won several Food Network Challenges -- Elvis Birthday Cakes, Cartoon Cakes and Sesame Street Cakes to name a few. He was actually the first Food Network competitor that inspired me to give sculpted cakes a try and last month, I was given the opportunity to learn from Mike. He is just not amazing but A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! He is an excellent sculptor and such a speedee gonzales too! Most he has done was 70 cakes a week. Again, 70!! I feel his company name should actually be "Mike's Incredibly Amazing Cakes".

I took 2 back to back classes at Mike's. First was the Eiffel Tower Cake and let me just say, for a complicated looking structure, he made it quite easy yet still looking difficult to make! Here is a photo of me with the 2 Mikes and of course the cake.

As mentioned earlier, Mike competed on Food Network Challenge Sesame Street Cakes which is one of my favorite episodes. It was a fun episode to see Cookie Monster, Elmo, Oscar and a HUGE Big Bird! Who in the world can make a huge Big Bird cake in 8 hours on top of 2 other characters? Mike. So the second class is called Structures. He discussed various support structures to make 3 dimensional cakes and to culminate the class, we made our own mini version of his wining Big Bird cake.

In progress...

I could continue to talk about how amazing Mike's cakes are but more than just an amazing sculptor, was an excellent teacher. He was so nice, very patient, generous with information, thorough, and encouraging. Both classes were beyond what I expected. Bottom line: it was SO worth the trip.

Thank you for everything, Mike!