Confetti Cakes

You Tube Video

2008-05-12T16:04:00.000-07:00

It's up! Our first YouTube video. As promised, we created a video of me creating my dad's birthday cake back in April of his dog, a golden labradoodle . My friend and amazing film maker Lisa Stock, lent me her camera, helped me film over five hours worth of the process and then she edited it down to a mere four minutes. As the video says "from 4 days to 4 hours". This is the perfect format for people to see what I actually do. We build a block of cake, carve it down and then decorate. Sometimes I take still shots of the process but they don't do it justice.

For my dad's cake we started with our Old-fashioned Vanilla Cake and Vanilla Buttercream, (the recipes are in our book) split and filled 10-inch round cakes. Stacked them, carved them, and took the cakes apart to dowel so it was structurally sound. After the cake was sculpted I "crumb coated" the cake, which means I sealed in all the crumbs with a layer of buttercream. I made the head by carving styrofoam, because we had to drive the cake to my parents' house and I wasn't taking any chances. Then we covered the cakes with a mixture of white chocolate and vanilla rolled fondant. The plastic wrap and towels around the cake are to keep the icing from drying it. It took a long time to make all that fur!

The little birthday cake in front of the dog is also real cake and the "Happy Birthday" letters, collar and eyes are made out of gum paste. I hope you enjoy the video, watch it here.
Photos: Jordan Pique

Color Proofs

2008-05-08T09:28:00.001-07:00

This week is flying! We've been so busy in the bakery and wedding season has just started. Our week started on Sunday because I gave a demo for Pastry Scoop's Spring Conference at FCI on how to make our handbag cake and other sculpted cakes. The last few days I've been busy teaching private lessons, preparing for another demo that's tonight at ICE, working on a wedding cake filled with beautiful cherry blossoms for this weekend and then...more edits for our second book! We've already been through four rounds of edits concerning the text and the recipes, this time around we are seeing our first set of color proofs. This round is for looking at the photos to make sure they aren't too bright or too dark, including anything extra that you may have not seen when you took the photo, like a little extra frosting all over my hands! I put a picture here so you can see. Along the bottom you can see information written in Chinese, our book is being printed in China, and a chart telling what round of proofs we are on. At the top you can see the color breakdown. The color breakdown reminds me of my days working in textile design.

Lastly, with everything else going on, InStyle Weddings did a special segment on the Today Show yesterday and included our wine bottle cake to show one of our Groom's Cakes, I've posted the link here. And did I mention I planted flowers in front of the bakery last Saturday? Whew, o.k. gotta run!

"Joey" out of cake!

2008-04-29T16:44:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, April 24th was my dad's birthday. What I didn't divulge, for fear of him finding out, was that we planned two parties for his 60th. The first was an intimate gathering with the immediate family, which meant including the dogs as well! We all gathered at The Benjamin Hotel in New York City because they allow dogs. As a decoy I made my dad just a small cake, with his name spelled out in Nautical flags (since he has just bought a boat) and it had his favorite child, his labradoodle Joey squeezing through the number sixty.

The big celebration was a surprise party this past Sunday at my parents' house. For this I made a life-sized cake of Joey. I actually videotaped the making of the cake so I hope to have a short film of it soon. My filmmaker friend, Lisa Stock lent me her camera and is doing all the editing for it as well. You have to check out her website, especially her "Bride of Frankenstein Cake" video. It was difficult making something out of cake that you know so well. I wanted to keep adding fur to make it look more like Joey. My cousin Jordan took amazing photos that captured my dad's surprise as well as the cake cutting. Check it out:http://flickr.com/photos/jpop3000/sets/72157604767410663/show/
My brother Eric made an amazing video and posted it on his own blog too!

Revenge of the Sock Monkey

2008-04-17T11:40:00.000-07:00

This is the anniversary week of our winning the Food Network's Extreme Cake Challenge. I will never forget that experience for so many reasons. It was an especially auspicious day since it was my Dad's birthday (April 24th) and he was out in Denver with us. Poor guy was running around getting us breakfast, snacks and dry ice (to put in Mr. Sock Monkey's head) so his ears would steam. And we didn't finish that night until 11pm so the birthday dinner I had planned fell by the wayside.

Unlike any of the other competitions I've done it was so special to be judged by people who actually make sculpted cakes just like I do. Duff, Geoff and Mary Alice from Charm City Cakes and the stars of Ace of Cakes could not have been better judges. Not just to me, but they were complimentary to all the other contestants and Duff really understood the EXTREME stress we were under since he has been a participant in so many competitions too. Even with playing competitive tennis in college I have really never felt so much stress in my life. The competitions are usually great because the weeks before I go I am so nervous I drop at least five pounds.

Overall the experience was so amazing and of course winning the competition against so many amazing cake designers was the real highlight! We couldn't have done it without so many people: our armature welder, Matthew James who is a working artist and came to the rescue in helping us build the Monkey's internal structure;my good friend and cake designer Buddy Valastro who got the sparklers to us before we left and of course my dad who was a constant supporter and gopher, and didn't leave the stadium the entire competition!

Piecing Fondant

2008-04-15T06:41:00.000-07:00

It was a number of years ago that I realized when you are covering a huge amount of (or very tall) cake you can't always do it in one try. So I devised a technique that I call "piecing fondant" that allows you to apply fondant to irregular shaped cakes in well, you know, pieces (or sections). I am sure I personally didn't invent this technique although I can't remember where I saw it for the first time. I especially like to piece fondant on objects that would naturally have a seam, like a shopping bag, nap sack or handbags. You can piece the fondant and add some stitching marks and you'd never know it is a cake!
You can also use it for things that have an opening at the top, i.e. Popcorn bags, sand pails, and totes.

If you are in the New York vicinity on May 8th, I will be giving a demo at The Institute of Culinary Education on this technique.

Being a Bride

2008-04-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

It was just 6 months ago that I was a bride myself. When I was getting married the first question I was asked was not "who are you marrying?" but rather "who's making the cake?." I am happy to report that we had three wedding cakes (who could decide on just one?!), tons of cupcakes, cookies and brownies too (all made at Confetti Cakes, of course!) My friend Karalee LaRochelle, owner of Cocoa Locoa, made delicious salted honey caramels as our favors. We were married at Blue Hill at Stone Barns so the food was exquisite.
After making wedding cakes for so many couples over the years, I was overwhelmed with all the choices for our colors, flowers, themes, etc. As any good bride does, I religiously studied Martha Stewart Weddings but was happy to find so many fabulous blogs and websites to answer all my questions. Today we are happy to have been included in many wonderful blogs, here are two of our favorite wedding ones! The Bride's Cafe depicts the most beautiful weddings, Janie posted an interview with us today! Blush Events has the most up to date info on "what's new" and featured our cakes from Instyle Weddings. Oh and by the way, just in case you are wondering...I married an amazing guy named Marc. (Photo by Jamie Watts)

Gourmet's "Dairy of a Foodie"

2008-04-03T16:31:00.001-07:00

I want to tell you all about a television appearance coming up this Sunday, April 6th at 4pm on PBS (Channel Thirteen for New Yorkers). I will be on the show "Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie," the segment focuses on Trompe L'oeil: The Art of Culinary Deception. I will be showing viewers how we make our "sushi" cake. What I love about this television show is that it is edited by the actual magazine editors at Gourmet Magazine so it is really foodie-centric! (Yes, I just made up that word but hopefully you get it!) The show also talks about my style of cake: realism. I just love to make cakes look like real objects. One of my favorite blogs, Cakespy talks about this too. Not only is it a great blog with really interesting interviews and travel logs but Jessie also sells beautiful artwork, I am fortunate enough to own a few of her cake pins and a cupcake painting! Check it out!

Confetti Kids is Coming!

2008-03-30T17:05:00.000-07:00

O.k. well our second book, Confetti Cakes for Kids, will not be out until November, 2008 but I am so excited because we just received the blads. A blad is a catalogue of a few sample pages of the book and is used by the publisher for advertising purposes.

That said, this is just a sample cover, nothing is set in stone yet. I'm still in the process of editing, editing and then more editing. Before I wrote our first book I had no idea of how much work went into the process. I may be biased but I think making and writing a cookbook is more difficult than any other kind of writing. You have the basic writing and measuring of every specific detail, then you have all the recipe testing, then making all the product (in our case: cookies, cupcakes, mini cakes and sculpted cakes) to be ready all the same week so it can be shot by a professional photographer. For the photo shoot you need to do all the styling, so I was running around buying special backdrops and renting props from a special prop house! Then once all the photography is done I start with illustrations and templates...and did I mention the editing! This week I should be getting back the second pages (second round of edits) so I hope to have more to share soon!

Wedding Magazines

2008-03-25T10:34:00.000-07:00

Spring is definitely in the air. You can tell because the sun is slightly warmer, people are starting to wear brighter colors and the wedding magazines are putting forth their best features. Wedding season is upon us and with that we have been lucky enough to be included in a number of the top wedding magazines in the world! Check them out:
Brides featuring 50 of the country's best cakes, my friend Anne Chertoff wrote about them in her fabulous blog for ivillage.

I am really proud to announce that we have been honored with a full six-page spread in the Spring 2008 InStyle Weddings Issue. The photos were styled by Lynn Butler Beling and shot by Monica Buck.

Lastly, New York Magazine included us with a number of top NYC cake designers in their Summer 2008 Weddings Issue. New York Magazine holds a special place in my heart because this was the first magazine to publish our wedding cakes back in 2002. It's only appropriate that they also featured the rehearsal dinner invite and gift tag from my own wedding on page 69 created by Sesame Letterpress.

Women For Hire

2008-03-18T08:11:00.000-07:00

Today we are fortunate enough to have a video posted on the homepage of a wonderful organization, Women For Hire. Here's the direct link to the video:
http://womenforhire.tv/elisa-strauss-owner-confetti-cakes-bakery/
I'm sure there is a better way for you to view this but as my brother (the computer expert) can tell you I should stick to buttercream not streaming video! One of the most rewarding aspects of my job is not just making the cakes but sharing my experience as a small business owner. This video will give you a little glimps of that. Back in August of 2006 (yes... a long time ago) I recorded a short segment on ABC's Money Matters,
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2282439
Now I have a place to share it!

The FIRST Confetti Cakes blog!

2008-03-16T10:19:00.000-07:00

With the coming of spring I thought this was the perfect time to launch our very own blog!

Confetti Cakes has been so fortunate to be included on many other fabulous blogs and after a number of requests we thought it was time to let everyone know what goes on behind-the-scenes at Confetti Cakes.

During our last appearance on NBC’s “The Today Show” a few seconds before Al Roker and I started making cupcakes, a light fixture fell on set directly over our heads, luckily Ann Curry was there to catch it…next thing I knew “3,2,1…..”, live television before millions of people (just a little frazzled). My producer later said, “hey it’s something you should talk about on your
blog”…if only I had one…so here we are!

Besides making cakes we are busy finishing our second book, Confetti Cakes for Kids, due out November 2008. We've also been teaching a ton of classes and gearing up for a few upcoming demos!

On a happy note we have just gone into the third printing of our first book, The Confetti Cakes Cookbook. So thank you to EVERYONE who has made our first book such a success!

Please stay tuned for information about upcoming events, classes and of course discussion on cake!