First of all my big thrill of the year! James and Heidi Durbin's wedding cake!
If you are not familiar with them, James was on Season 10 of American Idol and really should have won if you ask me but all is fair since he came in forth, got a record deal, sold 40,000 records the first two weeks it came out and was recently married to the love of his life and the mother of his beautiful little boy!
I had the extraordinary opportunity to make their wedding cake!
First of all, I would like to share with you the inspiration for the design:
So here is the cake:
So here is how I did it:
First you should know that this is a buttercream cake NOT fondant icing!
Second the ribbon around the bottom is real satin ribbon this way if you client doesn't really like fondant, the ribbon can be easily removed.
Lastly the lettering I made with black fondant that I bought already colored, way easier than trying to make black!
I made each letter by hand by rolling out each little piece and forming the letters on a marked "cutting mat" that has graphic measurements on it so I can make sure the letters are all the same size.
I followed the picture of the tattoos for the main words and found a website with fancy lettering for tattoos to design the initials on the bottom layer.
I then used a white luster dust to highlight each letter making them pop even more.
After letting them dry for a couple of days, I assembled them piece by piece. By that I mean that each line was separate from the others in the letter. For instance, the F has a top line, a middle line and smaller curly lines for accent. Each one was placed on the cake separately. I did not glue them together until they went on the cake. This way I could prevent cracking as I tried to place flat letters around a round surface. It worked beautifully!
