Bunnies, Baubles, and Towers of Flowers

ICES has thier own culture that promotes the sharing of ideas among cake people. One of the cornerstones is “Days of Sharing” and “Nights of Sharing”. It all sounds very kum-ba-ya, like there will be a bonfire, smores, and syncronized swaying. In reality it is an open forum where a demonstrator “shares” a project or skill followed by an open Q&A time. It actually does exactly what it is suppossed to by encouraging the sharing of new ideas!

This fish was made in 37 minutesby Ruth Rickey. It is all buttercream with three or four small pieces of fondant for fins.  It was mostly an exercise in sculpting and air brushing, but I thought he was cute enough for a photo op!

The first evening demo was an Easter themed candy explosion created by Susan Carberry. #1- Susan is hysterical and makes crazy noises when she is sculpting little animals. #2- who wouldn’t want to dive head-first into this easter basket explosion with CAKE inside?

Easter Bunny Mayhem Cake

The second presenter, Marina Sousa, showed us a graceful and airy pink ruffle cake. I cannot wait to try this one at home!

And not only was Marina gracious enough to share some of this cake’s secrets, she also brought along Mike McCary and Lauren Kitchens to take Q&A while she airbrushed and finished off the cake. Mike is a master of modelling chocolate and sculpted cakes. Food Network junkies will recall his almost lifesize rendition of Big Bird. Lauren is actually down with muppets too, and teached people to give the muppet treatment to others. Fun!

Another memorable cake-as-tv moment this year was The Sweet Life’s victory on TLC’s Ultimate Cake-Off. Norm and Zane  recreated this breath-taking tower at the show.

Here is a detail shot so you can see the sparkle and detail of the cake layers.  You can see the marbled pink and gold on the “pumpkin” tiers and the tiny hand-colored flowers. The round cake layers are coated in sparkling sugar and accented with lacey fondant and piped icing. The clusters on the left are curls of white chocolate.

And that is the kind of detail you need to win $10,000! Incredible.