I love repeat customers. It helps me know that I'm doing something right. Someone in the industry once told me that if you hear one complaint, then 10 other people have thought it, but wouldn't say anything. So I'm hoping that if one person comes back for seconds (or thirds) then I have others waiting for a reason to call me again.
Paul and Amy ordered the adorable Gruffalo cake for their son's birthday, and needed a cake for Paul's mothers birthday this weekend. At first he just asked for a slab cake with a generic 'Happy Birthday' on it, but I knew he wanted something more. We got to talking, and it turns out his mother embroiders shirts for the people in the Ukrainian community. Men and women wear different style shirts when dancing. We did a little googling, and while intricate, definitely do-able with a little modification and some creativity.
I started with 2 nice thick half slab layers, and a little 6x6 inch square to make the shoulder and arm.
I ended up needing to play with the sleeve a bit, and it didn't turn out
exactly as I wanted. Next time I wouldn't make the extra shoulder
piece and would instead just wrap the sleeve around. It looks a little funny to me.
The embroidery took longer than expected. It's a very simple repeating pattern, but very small. My hands kept cramping up and the butter cream kept melting from my body heat.
Paul said this is right, so I'll have to take his word for it. I'm not totally happy with how the writing came out. I practiced it 3 times off the cake and it came out perfectly smooth and clean. I choked on the cake though and it got choppy. Being black icing on white fondant there wasn't really anything I could do; if I moved it at all you would still see the black. Lesson learned! More patience.
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