Friday, September 23, 2011

Recent Past: Victorian Macaron Wedding Cake & Tower

Macaron tower by kawaiieats
Macaron tower, a photo by kawaiieats on Flickr.
As I've mentioned in the previous post, I'm going to be doing some back-dating on older work that I've done in the last year. I thought I might start off with one of my greater accomplishments this year by showing you the results of one year of anticipation, a month of planning, 4 sleepless nights, weight-loss, and a tower carried over the Atlantic ocean from Paris to Vancouver!


So a year and a half ago, my long-time high school friend, fellow nerd, and groom to be (now a married man!) asked me to do his and his fiancee's (now wife) wedding cake. Being a novice and eager pastry student, I gladly/nervously accepted. I have to confess, at the time I had not much of a clue about wedding cakes and needed a lot of inspiration (and researching) to figure out this whole new world of designer cakes. Fortunately for me and the nuptials I gained much needed experience from doing a few cakes before this one, and a trip to Paris peeking into Laduree was a great inspiration!

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The Victorian Macaron Cake

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Cake and tower side by side

My apologies that these were taken with my Iphone 4, so the quality of the pictures are not terribly fantastic!  I wished I had grabbed a better shot of the cake and tower side by side, but this is the best I could do! I had actually sketched out a few options for bride and groom and this was the combo they chose (and chose well they did!) I loved the colour scheme of the wedding and the new, bright colours of fuschia and peach! Anyhoo, going into detail, the cake was a lavender sponge cake covered with white chocolate ganache and rolled fondant. I decided to choose simple decorations with fondant cameos, which gave the cake and tower a classical look. The flavours of the macarons go as such:

Pink: Strawberry rose jam buttercream (made with Fortnum & Mason's jam)
Peach: Vanilla buttercream

As a little aside to the creation of this cake, has anyone every tried to assemble a macaron tower in an hour? It's stressful (I was a guest at the wedding too). Wedding planner told me the earliest time I could come to set up the cake was at 4:30pm... ceremony... 6pm! (O.o) In any case, not wanting to compromise the quality of the tower, I decided to bring the foam cone partially assembled and attach the macarons on site. Cutting it close, but being prepared is the key, so having dress, make up, and all at the place helped tremendously! Had about 20 minutes before the wedding party arrived, so all was good!

Also, to add a bit of sophisticated nerdiness to the piece...

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It just seemed befitting for a new life together... ;)

Update: Bride had just send me the professional shots of the cake (Thanks Lauren!) I'm posting the pictures below so you can see the cake and the cute couple! Apparently the photographer did Michael Buble's wedding pictures. ;)

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Wedding cake

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The cutting

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Gawh! Kawaii nee! XD

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