Okay...I'll admit I suck at this whole blogging thing!  This will probably be my final blog post as I'm on Facebook (who isn't?) under Jenny Perello, and I find it easier to just post photos there. 

This was the second cake I made for this season of My Fair Wedding.  The name of the episode was "Momzilla" (with good reason, as you'll see if/when you watch this episode), but the overall theme was Las Vegas.  They requested a "fun" cake, with red and black as the main colors, with "lots of bling".  This went down to South Bay Studios in Long Beach...my second trip down there with a cake for MFW.  As before, it was a fun experience, and the whole crew couldn't have been nicer...especially Mr. David Tutera who is one of my idols.  Enjoy...and thanks for stopping by!

This past Saturday I had the distinct pleasure of creating a cake for an episode of My Fair Wedding, hosted by David Tutera.  The whole experience was amazing, from beginning to end.  My wonderful daughter, Emily, from emilytakesphotos, helped with the final touches on this cake (she's a whiz with a paint brush), and I was finally finished by midnight, the night before.  The cake travelled six hours down to Long Beach where the episode was being filmed.  Getting to see the preparations for the reception area from start to finish was an eye-opening experience, to say the least.  Everyone....and I mean everyone...was super nice and extremely helpful.  David, himself, is the same wonderfully personable man you get to see in front of the camera.  Any bride who gets David Tutera to orchestrate her wedding is very lucky indeed.  Watch the episode on WEtv this fall....no set date yet, but watch their website for the schedule.

I've already been signed up for another wedding that will take place on September 15th.  No theme yet, but I can't wait to find out what it is and create another cake!

Cheers,

Jenny

Today's wedding was at the Cliffs Resort in Shell Beach. The stormy weather of the past few days finally gave way to a sunny, yet still cool day, with the promise of a picture-perfect sunset view from this lovely venue. My daughter Emily, of Emily Takes Photos, assisted me with the set-up then took these fabulous photos for me. Since she lives in the Bay Area, this was a special treat for me! Thanks Em!

Spectacular Spring Bridal Show

Hope to see you all there; please stop by my booth and say hi (and sample some yummy cake)!

Date: Sunday, April 15
Time: 12pm-4pm
Location: Madonna Inn Expo Cener

January 23, 2012 – WeddingWire, the nation's leading wedding Marketplace, is excited to announce Cake Cathedral has been selected to receive the prestigious WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2012 for Wedding Cake! The esteemed annual awards program recognizes the top local wedding vendors from the WeddingWire Network who demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness and professionalism within the wedding industry. While many industry awards are selected by the organization, Cake Cathedral was selected based on its stellar reviews from past newlywed clients. Cake Cathedral is recognized as part of the top five percent of wedding professionals in the WeddingWire local vendor community, comprised of over 200,000 wedding professionals throughout the United States and Canada. The Bride’s Choice Award recognizes the best local wedding vendors across 20 service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers, based on their overall professional achievements throughout the past year. “WeddingWire is thrilled to honor the success of the top-rated wedding professionals within the WeddingWire Community,” said Timothy Chi, CEO, WeddingWire. “Since the launch of the Bride’s Choice Awards™ program four years ago, thousands of outstanding wedding professionals have been recognized by the bridal community for their supreme service and dedication to the wedding industry. It is with great pleasure that we congratulate Cake Cathedral for their continued professionalism and commitment to enriching the wedding planning experience for engaged couples.” We are happy to announce that Cake Cathedral is one of the very best Wedding Cake professionals within the WeddingWire Network, which includes leading wedding planning sites WeddingWire, Project Wedding, Brides.com, Martha Stewart Weddings, and Weddingbee.

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.”

CALLING ALL DIY BRIDES.....and anyone who aspires to be a sugar artist!

Cake Cathdedral is excited to announce a Fall 2010 Sugar Flower Class. We will be meeting the first three Saturdays of November, (6th, 13th & 20th) from 9:00am - 1:00pm. In just twelve hours, learn how to make this beautiful cake topper in any colors you choose...a step-by-step program that anyone can learn, no experience needed! The flowers are roses, peonies, calla lilies, hydrangeas, sweet peas and filler flowers. Class size is small so there will be lots of one-on-one instruction. All materials and equipment are provided, all you need to bring is an apron, notepad and pen. The cost is $175. Don't miss this opportunity to learn a new skill, make new friends, AND create a beautiful topper for your wedding cake! Call Jenny at (805) 459-9572 or email at cakecathedral@gmail.com.

This cake went to Avila Beach last weekend. The flowers are all sugarpaste....hydrangeas in the bride's chosen colors for her wedding.

By the way, the white thing that looks like it's sticking out of the top tier (next to the bride and groom topper) is actually a white tent pole.....it's not really sticking out of the cake. Bad angle, I know, but that's where the cake table was stationed.)

This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending the First Annual, Eberle Winery Wedding Expo. It was a great success! Although it was a very hot day up in Paso Robles, Cake Cathedral, along with some other great wedding vendors, kept cool down in the cave area below the winery's tasting room. Labor Day weekend brought many tourists into the winery, but there were also quite a few engaged couples who took the opportunity to get to know some of the best vendors in the biz! Congratulations to all the couples, and I truly look forward to working with you!