Bridal Show at Cape May, NJ

Hi Everyone...

Here is your journey into the world of Bridal Shows..
We have been doing more wedding cakes and wanted to go ahead and dive in into Bridal Shows... Bridal Shows are very new to us at Natalie Cakes and as you will read... we were pleasantly surpised and elated by how wonderful of an experience it was and will continue to be as we have already planned our next show.

This show was in beautiful Cape May, NJ, if you know about "Joesey" hehehe, Cape May is in the south on NJ... it's a small beautiful town with nicely decorated houses and many vacation homes, hotels, retaurants and more. We went to the Grand Hotel and they had the most amazing view of the ocean... we were all the way on the 5th floor (I know... not too high... considering we just cam back from staying on the 21st floor at the Tropicana in Atlantic City) but the 5th floor was the top floor... huge room and very nicely decorated... the staff was just so welcoming and helpful. The coordinators were atentative and there was always a rep close by in case you needed anything.

Above is the picture of the hotel sign and below is a picture of the breathtaking tulips they have all over the front of the hotel... the weather was nice... not too hot but not cold either... perfect for a day down the shore...

The floor set-up was an open floor plan and they had ivory colored covered tables and they were all attatched, not like the other show set-ups I had seen before... Esach vendor had an 8 foot table to set their "product" on...so our assigned table was in the perfect spot... right in the walkway where everyone had to walk by to come in or out of the venue... then... God gave us a little "present"... there was a mix up in the vendor placement and the table next to us was assigned to a vendor that was not going to be there.. so they organizer approached me and asked if we wanted more room.. I of course was like: "Well... you need to talk to..." (I was wondering if we had to pay anything for the "additional space"...but before I could finish the sentence... he said: "Ohh no, no need to pay anything... there was a mix up and the table next to you is available, so if you want it, you can have it... of course I said a big huge Y_E_S_!_!_!... As it was.. it looked like our table was going to feel a little crammed because of the number of cakes we had to display and the tasting set-up we came up with, we had started thinking that we might have to keep some of the cakes boxed and just display fewer ones...so this was a blessing for sure... we went ahead and started to set-up our tableS (hehehe) and because we now had 16 feet to work with... it was super nice and roomy... we were able to display all our cakes... our sugar flowers.... and our tasting samples to name a few and we still had plenty of space so it didn't look crammed...
Here are some pictures of the set up and of the display cakes we brought...
Here is our Show Stopper.. this cake was hand-painted by my husband (let me just mention that we had no idea He posessed this incredible talent).
Here is MY master piece.. this cake took over 40 hours to make but the end result is worth every minute I spent on this cake... everyone loved the cake and they refered to it as COUTURE...
This cake is one of my favorites... Love making the chocolate fondant and the blue gumpaste roses give it just the perfect contrast and a great color combination. Always a crowd pleaser... the classic black and white it's always well received and it's a cake that can be incorporated into a summer wedding as well as a winter wedding...
Here is our take on a nicely done pastel colored cake... it's a cake design that complements a sunny spring wedding, maybe even out doors.

Let me take a side turn here for a few.. I want to talk a little bit about how we got our samples ready for the bridal show. We were not sure if we wanted to take some basic vanilla cake with plain buttercream or if we wanted to do some specialty flavors to take with us. After carefully going over our options and doing some research on the subject, we opted for something in between.

We featured 3 flavors:

1.Cocoa Bliss, which is a super rich chocolate cake with Boston cream filling and a whipped chocolate ganache.

2.Vanilla Dreams, is was our famous vanilla bean butter cake with our signature wedding bouquet buttercream.

3. Velvet Dream, is our best selling Red Velvet cake, nice and moist with a hint of cocoa with our super delicious creamcheese buttercream.

Here is a picture of our Red Velvet freshly out of the oven.... notice how even it bakes and that famous deep red color that makes it look so amazing.

We took the cake and cut it in small bite size pieces (we debated on making cupcakes, but we kind of figure brides wouldn't want to be walking around looking at other vendors while eating a cupcake....) we did 1 1/5 X 1 1/5 inch sample and place them in a small lidded container labeled with our information and the flavor they tasted. We also got the cutest little silver little forks and the brides went crazy over them.... that was nice... cause it's all in the small details... well not all... but they do count! They were plastic, but looked like real silver!!! NEAT! I'm glad we opted for this, as we saw other cake vendors giving out cupcakes and most of them ending up in the trash can with just a bite off, not because of the flavor, but because of the size. With the way we did it, if they didn't want it then, they could take it with them or even take home a piece for someone they would've like to have a taste.

Here pictured below is how we placed our samples... as they were taken, we would just re-stock with more, it worked perfect.

Here is a close-up of our tasting samples, we added a label like I stated before, with our company name, website, telephone number and cake flavor. Notice the cute little forks?? hehehehe

(DO NOT ask me how I was able to fit all that into a 1 1/4 X 1 1/8 sticky label lol).

Here are some shots of our table (ahem... make that tableS! lol). Overall, very happy we did this, can't wait until we do another one and it's a whole new side of the business that I am excited about and working towards mastering.... Please feel free to comment, suggest, advice, etc. We welcome any and all you may want to share with us...

PS... Sorry about the amount of time it took for me to update this, we have been very busy with the CAKIN BIZ! :-)

Cya!

Double Birthday Bash...

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Hi Everyone!! Well it’s been a while and that’s not a stretch from the truth… As business gets busier, free time starts to dwindle and before you know it… it’s 3 weeks and you have no idea what happened to all those days in between.
Last time we “talked” I had just finished doing a birthday cake with a jungle theme for a cutesy 3 year old girl. I did mention there that we were going to start working on our first bridal show. So we did, but as soon as we did, we got 6 projects that we needed to work on and finish before Sunday, April 17th-2010.

So… here we are… ok ok ok… enough excuses lol… time to give you guys the scoop…

This project was a very special one because this was a request from Dad for his daughter and his fiancée… how cute is that?!?!?!?! He asked for a sketch for both cakes and we went from there… after many many changes, we finally got everything how he wanted it. There were 2 birthdays, his daughter on Friday and his fiancée on Saturday. So we agreed on making one Red Velvet with CreamCheese Icing and the other one was a Strawberry Shortcake with Chocolate Ganache (YummY) I love Ganache…

So this is how the cake due on Friday went…

The design called for a nice big loop bow on top of the second tier… so I decided to start that off nice and early so it would have time to dry and not have to worry about it being soft and/or fragile on the day of. I used lavender and white as the colors for the cake, I then rolled a long piece of fondant with my pasta maker attatchement and used a ruler to cut strips to size… then I rolled another piece and this time I used a herb mincer to make the trims for each loop (yes… an herb mincer.. Not some fancy and expensive sugar tool.. lol).
That is the picture of all the loops nice and ready… getting “ripe” hehehehehe…

Then I worked on the ribbon for the front of the cake with the Happy Birthday....

Then off to baking…. My house smells so so so good when we bake… I love it!…



I iced the cake and then covered with MMF (marshmallow fondant) and I tweaked my regular recipe just a bit and the results were excellent! Taste super YummY and it’s so good to work with..
After that I added all the circles all around the cake in various shades of purple, lavender & white… I also started to steam my cakes... makes them look super shiny... so shiny u'd think they are sticky.. but when u touch them.. they are nice and dry... I love it... look at this close up pic...



As you see below, when it all came together… it looked so adorable… I was so happy with how good it came out…
When we delivered the cake… you should’ve seen the little girl when she saw DH with his uniform delivering the cake, the little girl was super excited… turns out she is a huge fan of all the cake shows and when she saw DH’s uniform she told him that he looked just like the guys she sees on the cake shows… She asked him if he knew Chef Duff lol… she loved the cake and was very happy with the overall design. The table set-up they had matched with the cake perfectly… And to be honest… to me.. That’s all that matters… when I see a satisfied client it makes it all worth it…









So back to our kitchen we go… now on to the fiancée’s surprise birthday cake…. We baked a delicious Strawberry Shortcake with light and fluffy Strawberries and Cream and a nice rick chocolate ganache….


I made the topper a few days on advance just because Hello Kitty’s “curves” are not too slim lol.. So the piece needed to dry inside as well…

On Friday, we worked on tort-crumb-fill, and here is the picture of how good that cake looked inside and tasted….

The Hello Kitty was just a joy to make, I used a little hidden treasure as my guide (nope… not telling.. lol) I was not sure if I wanted to do it as a RI transfer or as a full 3D… and as always 3D is my preference… and she came out really really good… sometimes I amaze myself lol…

The cake drum is a new idea that I will be incorporating in some of the cake projects… instead of a foil or fondant covered drum (cake board)… I wrap it in cute wrapping paper and then cover that with contact paper (clear)… it’s really neat and makes the cake “pop”…

This is the swatch of the wrapping paper I used to cover the cake crum...

The ribbon… I looovveeeddd how good this ribbon came out… I used one of my new “toys” that I got at the ABE2010, it’s an embosser and it makes the ribbon really stand out… I love the combination, the contrast and all the pastel colors…
I don’t have a good picture of this cake, so I do apologize for that… and I also wish I had a better picture because this cake really spoke to me, having always loved Hello Kitty since I was a little girl…
So in the pictures, you can see what “great shots” I got… u see this delivery had to be done by DH because I had a scheduled tasting for the same time frame, I gave him the camera and also my phone…. I asked him to take lots of pictures and good shots so we could share them… he came home with (get this…) 1 picture… O_N_E picture, and he snap the pic in the back of out truck…. Hahahahahaha I couldn’t get upset… cause I thought it was just too funny… but at some point I need to realize that I might not be able to get pictures or good pictures or all my cakes… we do not have a huge staff here so we are only 2 and at times we will have to forgo some things in order to met all our clients needs. Well I still want to share the few bad pictures I have of the cake… and I hope that you can appreciate how good this one came out… Ohhh by the way… this was our first Out of State Delivery… woooHoooo lol

Anyways… I hope you enjoy this double entry and continue to check back with us… the bridal show thread is coming up and I promise you will enjoy it… it was a blast and a lot of neat things to share…

Cya

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