Today's wedding cake and groom's cake went to the beautiful Peacock Farms in Arroyo Grande. Since the groom works for Caltrans, he wanted a cake shaped like a traffic cone...and that tasted like spice cake with cream cheese buttercream. The wedding cake was lemon with a layer each of lemon buttercream and raspberry buttercream. The sheet cakes were white velvet; one with passionfruit buttercream and the other with raspberry buttercream. The cymbidium orchids were made from sugarpaste.

This 21st birthday cake was for a young man who....you guessed it...plays water polo. He and his teammates were in San Luis Obispo playing against Cal Poly. I don't know who won, but the cake was a big hit! (Or perhaps I should say 'made a big splash'.....groan!!!) All the figures were made from modeling chocolate and the 'water' was piping gel that was tinted blue.

Cake Cathedral attended the Family Care Network's annual fundraising event at Cypress Ridge on Sunday, Sept. 18th. It was a fantastic day. Three-hundred guests got to sample some of the Central Coast's fabulous wines and cuisine. Along with some of our most popular cake and filling samples, Cake Cathedral introduced a couple of new items.....Limoncello cakes with lemon buttercream (a sophisticated, adult dessert) and Red Velvet and Cream Cheese cake pops, covered with white chocolate and colored sprinkles (that appeal to the kid in all of us). Both were a huge hit and there wasn't a single crumb left by the end of the event!

This past weekend I created a cake for a wonderful couple who got married in the beautiful seaside town of Cayucos. The bride requested a cascade of sugar flowers, all in various shades of pink, to match the real flowers used at her wedding. The three tiers (white velvet cake with hazelnut buttercream and covered in Italian meringue buttercream) had separators between them, creating more height to the overall cake. Many, many hours went into creating the sugar flowers, but I loved the final outcome!

The rock band, Stone Temple Pilots, played out at Avila Beach Resort yesterday. Their guitarist, Dean DeLeo, is celebrating his 50th birthday tomorrow. They requested a simple cake to be presented on stage at the concert. The cake (chocolate rum with chocolate buttercream) had an edible image of Dean when he was a little boy....playing with a giant bazooka! They just don't make toy guns like that any more! Happy birthday Dean!

This weekend Cake Cathedral made it's first "Extreme" cake! The wedding theme was "Vintage Travel" so the design for the cake was inspired by the theme...the result? A vintage suitcase (red velvet cake with cream cheese buttercream), a hatbox (white velvet cake with raspberry buttercream) complete with sugar flowers and pearl necklace, and the extreme element...a vintage globe that actually spun! The globe part was styrofoam covered with fondant details. My awesome fiance made the cake board and all the elements to make the globe spin. Super fun! Congrats to Talia and Sterling!

When you get a request for a garden-themed bridal shower cake for a bride who happens to love garden gnomes, what do you make? A giant mushroom with a gnome, of course! Add in a couple of strawberry plants and butterflies....and viola! The gnome and all other decorations are completely edible, but seriously, who'd eat a gnome?

It seems that Groom's cakes are becoming popular again. Many brides are requesting surprise cakes for their grooms to be served either at the Rehearsal Dinner or at the actual wedding. This one was based on the groom's favorite beer and pizza. The 'ice bucket' is the cake itself, the 'beer bottles' are made from Isomalt that was poured into a mold specially created from that particular brand of beer, with an edible image label, and the 'pizza' (with pepperoni and pineapple which are his favorite toppings) was made entirely from sugarpaste.

It's not very often I get a request for a completely "outside-the-box" wedding cake, but the couple who ordered this one wanted something different and fun, incorporating the colors of their wedding. After coming up with a few different sketches, this is the design they chose...a topsy-turvey cake with lots of sugar flowers between the tiers. It went up to Rancho Llano de los Robles...a really beautiful venue for a wedding! The talented folks at SNL wedding solutions were kind enough to send me this photo they took of the cake.

My daughter, Emily of Emily Takes Photos, helped me with this photo shoot for my new website. The people over at Baileyana Winery were more than generous letting us use their property as a beautiful background for the shoot while they were closed on Thanksgiving day. Here are a few of the photos from that shoot; more photos and cakes can be seen on the new website, and Emily has featured this shoot on her blog as well.

New website coming soon!

I'm very excited to announce that Cake Cathedral's new site will be live very soon! There may be a bit of downtime as we switch over, so if you need to get in touch, please contact us directly at:

cakecathedral [at] gmail [dot] com

or at

(805) 459-9572

Until then, please enjoy this preview:

WeddingWire Bride's Choice Award, 2011

San Luis Obispo, California – {January 25, 2011} - WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding technology company, is thrilled to announce Cake Cathedral has been selected to receive the prestigious annual WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2011 for Wedding Cakes! Recognition for the Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2011 is determined by recent reviews and extensive surveys from over 750,000 WeddingWire newlyweds. Our past clients are among those that shared their experiences on WeddingWire, the largest wedding review site in the nation. Cake Cathedral stands among the top five percent of wedding professionals in the WeddingWire community, representing quality and service excellence within the wedding industry. Awards were given to the top wedding professionals across 20 service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers, and were based on the overall professional achievements throughout the past year. “WeddingWire is honored to celebrate the success of the top-rated wedding professionals within the WeddingWire community,” said Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s Chief Executive Officer. “With the annual Bride’s Choice Awards™ program, WeddingWire has the unique opportunity to recognize the best wedding professionals across the US and Canada. We applaud Cake Cathedral for their professionalism and dedication to enhancing the wedding planning experience last year.”