Renting Your Wedding Cake?

Pre-designed Cake

OK, I understand renting the church, renting the reception venue, renting a tuxedo, even maybe renting a wedding gown, but renting your CAKE?  I have to admit it had never occurred to me to rent a cake. I mean, you EAT it, right?

Pre-designed Cake

Wrong.  Well not totally wrong.  You eat PART of it.  Most couples only need a slice for the cake cutting photo and possibly an anniversary cake top to freeze until their first anniversary.  Enter FunCakeRental.com!  They'll provide a great looking cake for minimal costs.  Fun Cakes don't just make a fake cake for your wedding they actually rent you a cake.  Cakes have Styrofoam bottoms that are iced and decorated and ready for your wedding.  Meanwhile a sheet cake in the kitchen is cut and served to your guests with some ice cream and fruit.  This saves you lots of money and your guests frankly don't care. 

More Fun Cakes

Better yet, Fun Cake Rental has rolled back their prices to help brides who have been hit by the recent recession.  Do you love them even more now?  You have your choice of a pre-designed cake or a custom cake.  A basic three tier cake is $125 plus shipping (4 tier $150), a custom design $225 plus shipping (each extra tier is $50).  All cakes require a $200 security deposit which is returned once they cake is received. 

Each layer is approximately 4" tall.  The overall height of a three tier cake is 12".  Cakes are delivered on a one inch plastic tray.  Height can be adjusted by discussing it with customer service when the order is placed. Each part Styrofoam cake is covered with fondant with gum paste decorations and due to it's sugar base cannot be exposed to direct heat or hot lights.

DIY Cupcakes Straight From Your Heart--And It Shows

This is a perfect cupcake for a wedding or wedding shower.  I know, it looks impossible to replicate.  Not sure I could do it in the numbers needed for a wedding, I lack the patience. But if  you're having a small wedding or am more than a so so cook (I admit, I'm not expert) this should be doable.  Just be sure you do some test runs first.  The recipe is here.  It has lots of tips to help your cupcakes show off the heart once they are cut in half.  The original recipe was posted on this site but it's down for now, but the comments are still posted, so again, it's worth reading before you start this project.  I suggest serving the cupcake precut in half to show off the heart, just be sure your caterer or servers know which way to cut the cupcakes, or you'll just have a cupcake with a pink center.  Happy baking!

DIY Individual Wedding Cakes For Your Guests

Individual tiny cakes are all the rage but the price for them is OUTRAGEOUSLY high.  How can you beat the high cost of providing each of your guests with their own indivdual tiny wedding cake?  Try making them yourself.  The equivalent of making tiny petit fours but often stacked up like a wedding cake, these can be time and labor intensive.  But Allison Silber at Engaged and Inspired (who provided the photos above) has an answer for you.  Use a circular cake cutter, a sheet cake and get ready to stack the cakes with your favorite fillings between them.  The most labor intensive part of these baby cakes is decorating the sides.  Allison's solution? Leave the sides uniced.  Let the fillings provide some pretty coloring and top them with a swirl of icing topped with a berry.  BTW, don't forget to head over to Engaged and Inspired's site to see what other great ideas they have to help you plan your wedding day.  Congrats to Allison for a great way to save money on wedding cakes!

Ombre Cakes at Weddings or Showers

Having a wedding shower and want a cake that shows off your talents (or just shows you know who to hire to make your cake?).  Try this cake shown on Glorious Treats blog.  Layers of beautiful pink--perfect for the bride to be who is a pink-a-holic!  The swirls invoke visions of roses, and the graduated color scheme inside the cake that reminds me of layers of chiffon on the skirt of a dress.  Show off your cake baking talents and your creativity by serving this gorgeous cake!

The recipe is on the Glorious Treats site, (along with other great photos of the cake--not to mention lots of other incredible sweet treats that you might like to have at your wedding. The rose like swirls on the cake make it a perfect centerpiece for a sweet table, helping you save on your floral costs.  Your other option, make cupcakes, and ice with the swirls of pink and have them surround this cake--this will let you feed more people if you're having a huge gathering. 

Lavendar Cake by Sweet Cakes by Rebecca (posted on Facebook by Calligraphy by Jennifer)

If you aren't up for the layers of pink icing, try this lavendar cake and top it with a fresh orchid--simple on the outside, with complex layers on the inside--perfect for a shower or wedding cake.

Cake Topper For Geeks

OK, so you're a video game-a-holic and so is your husband to be...what better cake topper than Zelda and the love of her life, Link.  I have to admit, while not a huge gamer, Zelda is one of my favorite games, not quite so into it that I'd put a Zelda and Link cake topper on my wedding cake, but I'm sure there are some gamers out there who would love this.  For the rest of you, I thought it might at least offer some relief from all the intensity of wedding planning--face it, when you're arguing over things like napery or cake flavors with your mom, you can show her this and swear YOU MUST have this on the top of your cake as well as have your bridesmaids dressed in green and carrying gold flowers or show her the Triforce cake--bet she caves! So while personally, I'm not planning a wedding with Zelda and Link on my cake, I thought it might offer some light relief!

Would You Call This Cheesecake?

While this cake is made of brie, it's not exactly what I'd call cheesecake! But it's sure to be a hit with all your guests.  This cake, courtesy of Southern Living, is made from wheels of brie and is a perfect centerpiece for a shower or also works as a grooms cake. Can you say EASY?  Add flower accents and serve with baguettes or your favorite crackers. 

If you don't want to make it for a wedding, consider using it for holidays and making it a Christmas tree, decorate with evergreens and cranberries.  You can always count on Southern Living to come up with great ideas--fortunately for us, this one is attractive and EASY! My favorite kind!

This pretty centerpiece made by stacking wheels of cheese and is drop-dead easy. Choose pretty flowers and herbs in season—lavender would be perfect. Serve with your favorite crackers or French bread rounds. The hardest part of this 'cake' is finding your favorite brie in the right size.  Consider ordering it from your local cheese store ahead of time and not leaving anything to chance.                                     

Cupcake Cuties--DIY Cupcake Kits Any DIY'er Can Handle

Cupcake Cuties

This Black & White Wedding Cupcake Kit is perfect for your wedding day or even a wedding shower.  Each Black and White Wedding Cupcake Kit Contains:

• (24) Black & White Wedding Cupcake Sleeves
• (48) Wedding Rings for Decorating
• (2) Ivory Sugar Pearls Shakers
• Easy to follow How-To decorating instructions and illustrations

To Order your cupcake cuties contact:

Cupcake Cuties™
466 Foothill Blvd. #200
La Canada, CA 91011
Tel: 877 62CUTIES (877-622-8843)

Email: info@cupcakecuties.com

Visit the Cupcake Cuites web site to see other designs to fit almost any occasion. 

Strawberries and Cake--All in One Bite! Plus a Giveaway Link!

(Just a heads up...I couldn't decide where to post this on my cake blog or my diy blog so it's in both places, if you already read it in my DIY Wedding Planning blog, just skip over, or enjoy the eye candy!)

As you may know from reading my blog I am hooked on strawberries--I eat them plain, use them in recipes, on recipes, and turn them into drinks--you name it, I've done it to or with strawberries! (Hmm..that sounded weird, but I think you know what I mean!) I found this recipe on Taste and Tell, a great cooking blog that you'll want to bookmark or follow so you don't miss any recipes they have! This recipe for Strawberry Shortcake Cake Bites not only tasted good it looked pretty as well!

I like cake bites for weddings or showers because they are so EASY! Easy to make, easy to eat...and face it, they just taste good. Not to mention being perfect as wedding favors or on a sweet table. As the writers at Taste and Tell note, some of them are just a little too sweet so sometimes I have to adjust the recipes to suit my taste buds or change the icing on them so they don't make my teeth hurt from the sweetness. So head over and take a look at the recipe for the Strawberry Shortcake Cake Bites, it's a perfect time of the year to make these, especially if you've just been strawberry picking and have lots of berries--this gives you something new to make with them!

Taste and Tell suggests a book all about cake bites called 101 Gourmet Cake Bites that they're running a giveaway for until August 12th, so get your chance for a free book--what could be better than free? So yet another reason to read their blog! (And enter their giveaway!)

All photos courtesy of Taste and Tell Blog

Belgian Chocolate Rose Covered Wedding Cakes.

Belgian chocolate wedding cakes -- what more could you ask for. No more dry pound cakes for a wedding if you order your cake from Fancy Nancy located in the United Kingdom.  Fancy Nancy created this gorgeous cake for Wedding Magazine! It's chocolate cake (YUM!) with sorbet colored roses--perfect for a spring/summer wedding.  Love the color combinations and I admit to being partial to chocolate cake for a wedding cake (or for anything else for that matter!)  For more gorgeous cakes from Fancy Nancy visit their web site.

If you're looking for a fall version, try this Fancy Nancy cake.  Again, flower covered and three tiered--delicious!  This is a Belgian Chocolate Rose cake covered entirely in handmade Belgian chocolate roses that Fancy Nancy made for a party celebrating the launch of "Bride Ideas and Frock-Ups," a book that every bride should read whenever they start taking themselves too seriously, by Sim Canetty Clarke, Amanda Lockhart and Susannah Frieze. The book is filled with beautiful photographs and witty anecdotes, stories and jokes, a great read for anyone, particularly if you are a potential bride and/or groom or if you deal with them day in and day out and need to laugh. 

Cupcake Cones and Other Things To Make You Lick Your Lips!

Martha Stewart Weddings offers brides this great idea on how to serve your cupcakes at your wedding.  Maybe your mom made a version of these for you when you had to take cupcakes to school for a class party, but this more sophisticated version is sure to please not only palates but the eye of all your guests.  Visit Martha's site for more ideas and the link on where to buy the cones.  Additional info on where she purchased sprinkles and nonpariels, as well as edible stars and hearts glitter.

Read more and get the recipe at Marthastewartweddings.com: Cupcake Ice Cream Cones. Martha even tells you where to buy something to hold the cones up on your sweet table! TY Martha!

Martha also provides a recipe for these ice cream cups made using a pizzele maker.  Love using new ways to serve the ice cream or sorbet at your wedding!  Recipe is here.

BTW, when you hit the page to purchase the mini-cones you'll find some great mini-phyllo shells in CHOCOLATE! OK, I know I can't be the only chocolate lover out there--has anyone ever used these? If you have I'd love to hear your ideas or if you'd like to guest post your experience using these just let me know. 

The web is a dangerous place for a chocolate lover--it gives me access to all sorts of chocolate I never knew existed before--past the lips... ah well, I know Weight Watchers would approve of these, if I only eat just one!  (which of course if the real trick for me with anything chocolate!)