Moving Bay Bridge Cake

Sorry I took longer than expected to post the photos of the Bay Bridge Cake.

However I am thankful that we've been busy lately. So I cannot keep up with posting on this blog with any kind of regularity.

Here is the outcome of the Bay Bridge commission.

Let me start by telling you that the engineers from CalTrans are AMAZING to work with. They cared so much about this cake that they eventually ended up visiting our shop, sometimes twice daily, to work on the motorized base with us. They even sent an engineer from London. This seems like a simple contraption to the untrained eye, however the erector sets that were used can only hold up to 5 lbs each. So we had to make sure that the sugar bridges were not over 5 lbs. The weight distribution had to be perfect. The bridge sections had to be perfectly level. They also had to be securely placed on the bases so that they wouldn't fly off when the remote triggered the motors. The motors had to be tweaked every time we added more cake to the base board. We also had to worry about the cool temperature and condensation from the refrigerator affecting the motors. You get the picture.

Here is a video of the lead engineer, Jason, checking on the motorized base the night before the event. (By the way, they - the clients, were in our kitchen until about 11pm the night before show time.)


Here is a shot of the erector set system that engineers Scott and Jason built together. We add the cross bar sections and of course the cake.


And here is the cake in front of the beautiful bridge. It was placed right in front of the sections that we recreated in cake. It was a misty morning, so moody and gorgeous.


Here is Jason showing off his dream cake. I love what he said to me when the day was done and we were recapping on the entire process. I thanked him for putting in SO much effort and staying up late at nights to work on the erector sets. He said, "I had this dream of a moving cake. And I was going to do everything to make it a reality." I've never been so moved by a client. He truly understood ALL the love and effort that go into making one of our cakes.


Here is a video of Jason demonstrating the cake "roll in and roll out". The sheep laugh at the end of the video is Elinor,not me.


A shot of the cake from another view.


And finally, the team who worked on this cake. Myself, Elinor, Jason and Scott. Anna was not there, but was in spirit.


Cake created 16 of October 2009.

Private tour of Bay Bridge

Whew! We just completed an amazing cake last week. MTA and Caltrans commissioned a cake from us to celebrate the recent Bay Bridge seismic retrofit project.

I'm pretty certain you recall when the Bay Bridge was closed over Labor Day weekend. Well, they accomplished an amazing feat that weekend. They "rolled out" the old bridge section (a 300 ft long section weighing 3200 ton) and "rolled in" in the new temporary bridge (3600 ton) without a hitch.

Here is a time lapse video of the project.


We met with the project managers and engineers behind the seismic safety project for a private tour of the construction site. I felt like the luckiest kid in town. Ever since I was a kid, I was fascinated by construction and factories. I remember being mesmerized by construction crews erecting a building or videos of crayon production. But this was even better because I got to see this live in the flesh. I'm not sure if I say this enough, but I have the coolest job on earth.

Here we are looking at a model of what the complete bridge will look like.


I was marveling at how beautiful the inner cables are. I had no idea that underneath the hardened gray cables lay these dazzling strands of bold colours.


After gearing up in hard hats, goggles, and neon vests, we hit the site.
Here we are standing directly underneath traffic.





We piled into an shaky elevator barely larger than a phone booth and climbed onto the upper decks.


Here is a stunning view from the top.


This is what we had to recreate in cake (I will explain later).


And this is the W2, the highest point of the construction project right now. This is a part of the permanent new bridge that will support the self anchored suspension bridge.

......which of course I had to stand under.


So this was our assignment. We were asked to recreate the actual seismic safety project. Jason, one of the head engineers had this dream of a cake where we would create motorized sections to show the "roll in" and "roll out" of the new and old bridges.

We we sat down with their team many times to go over the details. Jason and Scott (another engineer) created the motorized base for us to work on.

We used this as our starting point and created the entire cake around this section. I will follow up with the next entry to show the actual cake.

This is the motorized base created by the same engineers who worked on the bay bridge!

Crave Feature

We are happy to be featured in the new Crave book. It's a beautiful book featuring inspiring women owned businesses. Here is a peek into our spread.

Weirdos

Over the winter, we created a Sugar Town full of fun characters and party animals. We call these creations the "weirdos".

Along with party animals, we created characters that bear the faces of the I Dream of Cake staff members.

Here we have Party Anna.


This is Party Elinor.


Party Jahnnmarie.


Meet Party Marissa.


This one is called Party Shinmin.


This is Party Boy Evelyne.


Party Jahnnmarie made a second appearance.


Here is a look at the Sugar town with the other creatures. We have a Hat shop, and of course a cake shop called, "I Dream of Cake".


And what good is a town without a proper butcher shop?

Shelli & Martin

Shelli and Martin were such a delight to work with. They wanted an elegant cake, but wanted something totally different and not "done before".

Shelli provided photos of her dress, which was cocktail length with a black and white swirly pattern. It had a slightly 50s feel. She also wanted to incorporate the colour hot pink somehow. While in our tasting consultation, Shelli noticed a white cake we had on display with navy blue painted coi fish. She fell in love with the cake and asked how we can make this her fit her wedding style. So I suggested that we paint the fish in black and include the swirly pattern from her dress. The cake would be white with hot pink "graffiti splash". She loved the idea.

Here is the result.

Cake created 7 of February 2009.

Benjamin's Bar Mitzvah

We created this giant cake for Benjamin's Bar Mitzvah. Benjamin plays the Viola, and his parents commissioned this beautiful instrument for his big celebration.

Due to the large serving size of this cake, we decided to include the carrying case into the cake design to make up for more servings.


We also hand painted this custom sugar "program", which is a great keepsake as sugar is a natural preservative.

Cake created 6th of February 2009.

Goyard Tote

I feel like I'm playing major catch up on this blog. However I have so many great photos burning a hole through my computer. So check with us in the near future, I should have a few more new posts of some great recent cakes.

This cake was created for a lucky gal who received a custom made Goyard bag for her birthday. This is the exact tote she received.

Cake created 6th of February 2009.

Gump Bridal 2009

This year, we were invited to do a showing at the Gumps Bridal Fair again.
We love working with the creative team at Gumps. They are so artistic and meticulous. They really know how to put on a great show.

Each cake was created for a artfully designed table. The Gumps creative team made a wonderful presentation to us with their table themes, visuals, and schematics. We chose five tables that we were most excited about.

Here are the five cakes.

This cake was created for an Ginger's origami inspired table. We actually went to see the exhibition, "The Shape of Things" at the Museum of of Craft and Folk Art to collect visual inspiration for this cake. Ginger labored over the super large panel of origami folded paper that served as a backdrop for this table setting. The china set for this table detailed delicate chrysanthemums. So we created a geometrically shape cake with origami-like folds, and a big chrysanthemum on top, in all white.


This cake was created for Ryan's Gothic Klimpt table. The colours for this table were deep, rich, and bold. The china set and table cloth displayed many Klimpt-like patterns.


This table incorporated many great forest details in a modern and clean fashion. Ginger provided a great mood board, along with many examples of the china set. The red painting on the cake was pulled directly from the pattern on the china set. This cake was created in a fun oval shape.


This Equestrian themed table setting was placed in front of the main entrance to Gumps. The setting included a life-size horse sculpture, a 6-seater table, and a wonderful back splash collage of horse posters. Herman, VP of visual merchandise at Gumps, visualized a cake composed of a stack of cake wedges. So we executed his wonderful idea. The horse painting on the round side of the cake was inspired by the china set Herman chose. And the golden side pattern was pulled from the charger dishes.

Here is a view to show the wedge shape.


Mark asked us to create a cake for his Asian Masculine Dragon table with a modern twist. So we took the colours of his table setting and some of the fine details of his chosen china set and translated that into a cake with modern lines.

Cakes created 8th of February 2009.

Starbucks Mocha, Extra Hot

Brad decided to get Susan her favourite Starbucks drink for her birthday...... but in cake. This was really fun, and the cake was larger than life of course. It stood about 11" tall.

We placed a candle where the straw would normally be.


And we created a checklist of Susan's very specific drink order - a Grande Mocha with 1 pump of Chocolate, 1 pump of Peppermint, non fat milk, light whip, and extra hot!

Cake created 6th of February 2009.

Obama Inauguration Day

I know it's been way too long since I've posted. The entire year of 2008 seemed to have flown by before I had time to realize it.

Now that we are in a new year, we have a new president! And one lucky fellow celebrated his birthday ON inauguration day. So for his birthday, we created a caricature of Obama for him, with a birthday message that read, "This is our day".


Cake created 20th of January 2009.

Sex and the City

It's been a long while. I've completely fallen behind in posting. Sorry. We're currently in our busy season, and I barely have time to sleep. So posting on our blog has been pushed to the back burner.

I just received a CD of photos taken by photog Wendy Maclaurin Richardson. She shot all of the following photos. These cakes were created for a birthday birthday that fell on the opening night of Sex and the City. So the theme of the party was fashioned after Sex and the City couture.

Each shoe and bag made an appearance on the show, so it was really fun to watch the guests reminisce the episodes as they admired each cake.

These cakes were so much fun, I had to post right away.

Here are some of the purse cakes.






And these are some of the sexy heels Carrie wore on the show.








Cakes created 30th of May 2008.
All photos courtesy of Wendy Maclaurin Richardson.

Peacock Wedding

Rochelle created a wedding around a peacock theme. Before she came for her tasting consultation, we had talked briefly over the phone. She mentioned that she was planning a wedding around the colours black, turquoise, and white, with strong peacock visuals.

I told her that the first cake idea that came to me mind was a colourful Mad Hatter cake with Peacock accents. And guess what, Rochelle came to our meeting with beautifully drawn sketches in full colour! It's an amazing treat to share the creative process with the wedding couple. I always appreciate creative input. This was the design we selected together.

I love this cake!



Cake created 6th of June 2008.