Chattanooga Cake Ace Contest

Well the long awaited, highly anticipated Chattanooga Cake Ace Contest finally arrived this past Sunday. After many hours working on our cake (unfortunately we got a very late start on our cake and had a few obstacles to overcome which led to us working all night Saturday to finish in time for the show on Sunday) we are very proud of the outcome. As you can see we made a replica of the historic Tivoli theatre for the bottom tier of our cake, it was comprised of 6 – 16” x 16” x 3” square cakes, on top of the Tivoli we have the Lookouts home plate, a hand-sculpted Lookouts baseball cap cake and a hand-poured and painted regulation size Belgian chocolate Baseball. The next tier was a replica of the original chocolate Moonpie box and we topped our masterpiece with a hand-poured sugar Coca Cola bottle. The cake itself weighed well over 150lbs (the Tivoli tier alone weighed 120lbs!). We are very proud to say that everything on our competition cake was edible made with actual cake, chocolate and sugar. We refuse to use rice crispy treats on a cake!!! The billboards on each side of the Tivoli are made from edible sugar paper as is the Coca Cola label.

In case you’re wondering or haven’t heard yet, we didn’t win. Well officially that is but of course we are a little biased and believe we had the best cake at the show (as did many of the vendors and hundreds of the general public who kindly offered their feedback) but we'll let the pictures speak for themselves. We are very proud of the fact that we made a true competition style cake, hit the theme spot of “Chattanooga Groom’s Cake” that we would happily put up next to any cake we’ve seen on Food Network, TLC or WEtv. We do have to say that Jennifer & Chad at Cup-a-Dee cakes also brought it with an awesome cake (I'll post a picture shortly). We knew Jennifer would present the strongest competition and hoped that she would rock and awesome cake, which she did…you go CoCo! (lol).

Although to us the whole Formal Affair/Cake Competition seemed to be unorganized and poorly supervised/time managed causing the bakers way too much lost time out of our very expensive booths away from potential customers this year (issues we are all addressing one by one) the highlight of the day was to when we got to meet the Ace of Cakes himself, Duff Goldman. Duff made our day when he told us, “Your cake is freaking bitchin’, flawless and better than any competition cake I ever made.” and it totally blew our minds when he asked us how to make the sugar coke bottle. I thought surely he was joking but he said he was serious. How cool is that? The Cake God himself…Ace of Cakes…Cake Master…Duff Goldman asking two small town bakers from Chatt Town how to make something?!!! Duff was gracious enough to take time to chat with all of our staff and take lots of photos with all of us and even asked the photographer to take a photo of just him and Erin (our 14 ½ yr old adopted daughter/intern who really is the one responsible for us making Duff style cakes to begin with), he autographed a few of our chocolate boxes. It was great to know that Duff really is the cool, down to earth, funny & friendly guy that we get to see on TV. Thanks Duff for the laughs and the memories forever etched in our minds and hearts! Rock on Ace of Cake…Rock On!

We served 1600+ cake samples and received wonderful feedback from dozens of other vendors and hundreds of people attending the show.

We have more photo's to post when I have more time but for the moment they are available on our facebook page.

Formal Affair 2011 & Cake Competion

We are now just one week away from the Formal Affair 2011 Bridal Show & Chattanooga's first Cake Ace competition. We are all extremely excited to be entering the competition which is going to be judged by Ace of Cake's Duff Goldman. Our Chattanooga themed grooms cake design is top secret and we can't wait to display it for everyone at the show as well as well as getting to meet Duff himself.

We have been working hard on creating some new wedding cake designs to display so if you will be attending the Formal Affair be sure to stop by the Couture Cakes booth to see some of our new wedding cake designs and sample some of our all natural cake.

Happy New Year's Eve!

Well I can hardly believe that this year has come to a close. The months seemed to have flown by in an instant. Looking back over some of our favorite cakes this year I've decided to post a few here.

Here is a 3 tier cake we created for a beautiful little princess named Hadley's 7th birthday party. It's hard to tell by the photo but it was huge, the bottom tier was comprised of 6 layers of Belgian Chocolate Truffle cake, and alternating layers of chocolate buttercream and organic raspberry coulis. The middle tier was comprised of 8 layers of the same and the top tier was 4 layers. Their whole family loves our chocolate raspberry cake! The mom wanted a sort or topsy turvy cake without losing too many servings of cake so we might it just slightly turvy. We covered it in our wonderful fondant and decorated it with whimsical princess tiaras, hearts and flowers in an array of pastel colors.

Hand-painted Christmas Tree Cake

Another wonderful Christmas cake I created for a long time customer out of state. It was comprised of 4 layers of cake, filled with white Belgian chocolate ganache and eggnog buttercream. I covered it in white fondant, hand-painted sparkly white snowflakes in the background and a large decorative Christmas tree. I added some 2d touches with royal icing poinsettias and holiday presents and a red fondant ribbon and bow.

Three Snowmen

Here's a cute cake we created for a wonderful long time customer with three little girls. It was a Belgian Chocolate cake with dark chocolate buttercream inside. They served it for Christmas dinner.

Let It Snow Cake

This is one our most popular winter time cakes which we ship across the nation. It is 4 layers of Tahitian Vanilla Bean Cake with 2 layers of peppermint buttercream and one center layer of Belgian dark chocolate ganache.

Santa's Village Cake

We created this cake for a long time customer who's family was traveling to Florida from New Jersey to spend the holidays with her husband's very large Italian family. They wanted to bring a little snowy holiday cheer to south Florida. Although you can't really tell by the photo this cake was huge! It was a double half sheet cake with 4 alternating layers of Tahitian Vanilla Bean and Belgian Dark Chocolate Cake filled with Chocolate Italian Meringue Buttercream. The cake was enjoyed by all!

Here's a Nutcracker Cake we did for a women in New York City who was hosting a Holiday Party themed, "The Land of Sweets". We also created her a custom gingerbread mansion for the same party.

Holiday Break!

Well friends it certainly has been an incredibly busy and eventful year here at Couture Cakes & Confections. We apologize for the lack of posts here this year we've had a lot on our plates...from building out our new space and moving facilities to many special events and holidays. We closed out the year with a couple non-stop months of 18 - 20 hr days/7 day weeks. While we are recouping and enjoying a bit of time off with our families I thought I would post some photos of various cakes we have made throughout the year. It would be nearly impossible to post them all so I will sift through and pick some to post.

Gluten Free, Wheat Free All Purpose Flour Blend

We are finally ready to launch our new blend of Gluten Free, Wheat Free All Purpose Flour. Available in 3lb bags. Click Here to view and purchase. Our Gluten Free All Purpose Flour is great for all kinds of baking from cakes to pancakes.